Killing Lightning Bugs

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

 

Summer time is upon us, and one of the best parts of that is how we can do all sorts of neat things outside like playing sports, cooking on the grill, and just enjoying God’s creation. If you are like any human on this planet, when you were a kid, you would go out at dusk and catch lightning bugs. Maybe you put them in a jar with some grass clippings and took them into your room for the night. It was pretty cool to turn off all the lights and watch them glow. It set off a surreal aura to the room. When I was a kid, some of the girls would pull the “glow part” off and put it on their finger and pretend it was a wedding ring. Maybe you had your favorite thing to do with them that is different. By the time we got a little older, we discovered how cool it was to take a whiffle ball bat and try to hit them with it. That is clearly the best way to “hunt” lightning bugs. You would see them rise from the grass, and begin “stalking” them with bat in hand, poised for the opportunity to drive a double into the gap (a little baseball analogy). Positioned just right, as the unsuspecting bug would light up, a skillfully placed swing would explode it into few little pieces of light, and if you hit it just right, would leave a “remnant” of glowing bug juice on the bat. We called it “poor man’s fireworks”.

 

I know… I know… That sounds really cruel and vicious. It is a bug. God makes plenty of them, and despite all the thousands of them that each one of us have killed in our lives, the supply is still as plenteous as ever. Besides, it is far more cruel to capture them, rip them from home and family and put them in a jar prison to starve them and make them die a slow and agonizing death. Sending them to bug heaven instantly with one swing of the bat is far more compassionate.

 

When my son Jeff was young, this was one of our favorite summer activities. A couple of times a week, we would hit the yard and hunt lightning bugs. Invariably, as I was stalking one, Jeff would seem to find the same one. Just as I was about to blast one into eternity, I would see Jeff coming up from the corner of my eye after the same one. In mid swing, I would have to pull back or run the risk of smacking my son upside the head with a bat. Sometimes we had to just divide the yard so this would not be a problem.

 

Every one of us has “enemies”. I put that in quotes, because quite frankly, I don’t think that in my short 59 years on this planet that I can really say that I have ever had a real enemy – someone who would be actively plotting my demise and seeking every opportunity to carry it out. You are probably no different. I am not talking about general enemies like terrorists. They don’t know my name and their hatred is not directed at me personally. We just have people we don’t like, and people who don’t like us. There are some out there who might even do some bad things to us, but they are probably not consumed with a daily relentless pursuit of our destruction. When those bad things happen to us, we want pay back. We live in such a hyper-litigious society that whenever something goes wrong, the courts are filled with frivolous attempts to make someone else pay for it. Vengeance is a multi-million dollar industry in our culture.

 

God tells us to give place to vengeance and let him handle it. He knows how to do it, and he will take care of real enemies at the right time, and in the right way. Just about the time he is ready to land one on their kisser, if he sees us out of the corner of his eye aiming for the same thing, he has to stop so he doesn’t smack us. A far more important issue is to remember where you came from. Jesus reconciled you to God when you were his enemy (Romans 5:6-10). His grace trumps all our perceived wrongs. Instead of taking your pound of flesh, put it in God’s hands. Take the blessed gospel of grace and turn your enemy into a friend by bringing them to Jesus.

I Really Don't Get It Sometimes

“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” (II Chronicles 16:9)

 

I know God is in control. I know that nothing escapes his eyes or takes him by surprise. I know he has a purpose for everything that happens. I know and believe with every ounce of my being that Romans 8:28 is true, and that “…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” It is OK to ask questions of God, but we can never question God – and I hope you understand the difference in those statements. So as I share this latest story with you, I will readily admit that I am often puzzled by these things, while at the same time I am curious and interested to see how God moves to work this one out.

 

As many of you know who read this blog, we have been involved with a group of churches in the Central American country of Belize for a number of years. We actually took our first trip there in 2001, one month after the attack on theWorldTradeCenter. That was 11 years ago. We have developed some very wonderful relationships as a result, and have watched churches grow and seen people “grow up” over those many years as well. We met Artemio and Noemi Cal on our very first visit. They are some of the most passionate servants of Jesus Christ I know. Temy (pronounced “Timmy”) is a pioneer. He has done church planting in Belize for many years. About 5 years ago, they bought a piece of ground in a village called Copper Bank, a fishing village on the very northern tip of Belize. They knew absolutely no one there. They dug a well and built a house and started going through the village sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. They were met with immediate resistance and hatred. It took a long time, but they finally got a few of the women in the village to trust Jesus as their Saviour. The men of the village became even more obstinate because they thought Temy and Noemi were upsetting their world. In a way, they were. Jesus stirs up controversy everywhere he goes. But his changes are always for the better. They have been threatened with everything you could imagine. One of the men came to their house with a machete. He was swinging it around and threatening to kill Temy, but Temy just stood there and held his ground and talked to him about Jesus. The man said, “I would kill you right now, but I know I can’t. If I did, you would go to heaven and I would go to hell.” He finally backed down. A couple of years ago, Temy and Noemi got there first male converts. A couple of the men in the village finally realized that Jesus loved their souls and trusted him as Saviour. Their church is growing and thriving, and they have started outreach church planting missions in a couple of other villages.

 

One of those villages is Santa Marta. After Sunday morning services in Copper Bank, they grab a quick lunch and drive an hour to Santa Marta and go door to door sharing the gospel. A group of people in Santa Marta has trusted Jesus as Saviour, and they are in the process of buying a small plot of land there to build a church building. Temy and Noemi’s oldest son Ahiezer (that’s a Bible name – Numbers 1:12) is 22 years old and he was going to move to Santa Marta and become the pastor of this new young group of believers. On January 3, he was on his motorcycle trying to dodge one of the ubiquitous pot holes in Belize when he lost control and was hit by an oncoming truck. It tore up his leg so badly that he has not walked since. Medical care in Belize is “third world”, and they did not help the matter much. An infection set in and caused enough damage that he now needs a total hip replacement. The doctors in Belize told him, “Wait five years for our technology to catch up.” If he waits five years, he will never walk again. So we are “nosing around” in the medical world here to see if there is anything we might be able to do. It is a long shot, but pray with us that God would direct us to some answers. God does indeed “show himself strong” in cases like this. We have seen Ahiezer grow up to be one of the finest young men I have ever known. We eagerly await God’s strength to meet this very serious need.

Vote for Jesus

“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” (II Peter 3:13)

 

My phone is ringing off the hook with politicians calling for my vote. I am thinking about getting rid of my home phone because I continue to be bombarded by sales calls and political pitches and surveys, and they always come when I am in the bathroom or taking a nap or have my hands full of dishwater. I have registered on the national do-not-call list several times, yet the sales calls for time shares and alarm systems continue. Despite reporting them to the registry, they have the boldness and audacity to keep calling. I actually got my first political call on my cell phone today. The ad campaign will kick off in earnest very soon with television and radio saturated with the latest promises of utopia if you vote for me, and apocalypse if you vote for the other guy. When you get a Biblical perspective on man’s dominion of this earth, it changes your whole outlook on things such as this. We invest so much money and passion in our attempt to “make the world a better place to live”, and it just keeps getting worse with every passing day.

 

The Presidential candidates will spend hundreds of million dollars each to get an office that pays $400,000 per year. That does not sound like a very good business model. But to them, the power and prestige of the office is worth it, especially considering that they spend the donation money of other people. But there are cases when someone spends their own money for the campaign. I recall a case in California recently where some wealthy woman spent millions of her own dollars to run for Governor, and she still lost. That money would have never been recovered even if she won (unless I am missing something here – which maybe I am with all the graft and corruption an office like that can bring). The lure of power is a strange animal.

 

The only solution for the mess we have made of this world is Jesus. I think we should launch a write-in campaign for him this year. Of course, he is not here now, so even if he somehow won the election, we still would not see Jesus as President. Even that office is beneath him. I cannot imagine Jesus wanting to take such a lowly meaningless job as President of the United States. He was there on creation morning speaking the Universe into existence. One day very soon, Jesus is coming back to take all the kingdoms of the world. He will be crowned “King of kings and Lord of lords” then. Anyone in a position of power will be his servant. There will be no need to spend money to get an office, because he will appoint them based on character and service. There will be no personal benefit to political power because all graft and corruption will be stopped. Man will no longer be obsessed with trying to make the world better without Jesus, because he will be here to take care of it for us and show us how it is supposed to be done.

 

Probably the most amazing thing about this – at least to me – is that when you tell people about this, they rebel and reject the idea. I get it (because of man’s sin nature), but I really don’t get it. How could someone not be in favor of a world where righteousness reigns? How can anyone in their right mind look at the state of the world today and say we are making it better? During the upcoming political season leading to the election this November, pay attention to all the empty promises – from both sides – and consider the source. It is certainly valid to be informed and involved in the process. I will cast my vote, and I will watch the proceedings and take interest in the outcome. But don’t ever think that any one of these candidates will really solve anything of true significance. When Jesus splits the clouds and sits on the throne of his glory in Jerusalem, he will take care of the mess with the “sharp sword that goeth out of his mouth.” (Revelation 19:15) Until then, look for him to solve the individual problem of a soul in need of a Saviour. If he has done that for you, work on bringing another soul into his kingdom. If you can win just one soul to Christ, you will accomplish more good than a hundred politicians in a hundred lifetimes.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

“And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.” (Mark 1:28)

 

Everyone by now knows about this supposed “fifteen minutes of fame” that we are all entitled to. The problem comes in when we get it in the wrong way. With viral media the way it is these days, you can have the most embarrassing or shameful things you can imagine make headlines overnight. You can even become “famous” (or infamous) for evil and wrong beyond just the typical embarrassing stuff we all do. Who ever heard of George Zimmerman before the incident a few weeks ago that thrust him into the national spotlight? For those of you who have been under a rock lately, he is the guy in Florida who shot and killed a 17 year old boy because he thought he was a threat to the neighborhood. It is a little hard sometimes to figure out what is going on the minds of people, but we can all be sure that Mr. Zimmerman had no idea he would be so “famous” for something like this. He unfortunately has earned way more than his share of the fifteen minutes, and his life and the lives of both families involved are changed forever.

 

No matter how much a person tries to shy away from his “fifteen minutes”, every one of us will someday be famous in the eyes of the entire Universe. Romans 14:12 says, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Every secret thing that everyone has ever done will be exposed to the light of the true God who made us and has a claim on our lives. I would think that very few people would actually want that type of fame. While I am sure that no one reading this has probably ever killed another person like George Zimmerman did, you still would not want all your “dirty laundry” paraded in front of a holy God for all to see. That is one of the best benefits of knowing Jesus as your personal Saviour. Obviously the best benefit is the home in heaven he guarantees us. Regardless of fame or embarrassment or any other issue, salvation from a lake of fire and eternity in heaven with our Lord sure is a good deal! But all of us have things about our lives that we would just as soon forget about and never bring up anywhere. If the “movie” of my life was played for all to see – with every thought acted out as well, I would take the next slow boat to China and you would never hear from me again. You would do the same.

 

Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” He took my sin and shame on the cross. He “despised” it when he was there so that I don’t have to have the whole world despise me for it. Now I can have purpose and meaning in life and work for him to further his kingdom. We all still do things we shouldn’t, and I am no exception. The “Rev” attached to my name does not do anything for my flesh. But with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ covering our sins, we can live in his light as he intended, and “Be not ashamed before him at his coming.” (I John 2:28)

 

Speaking of fifteen minutes of fame, some day very soon, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11). When he does, he will be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords, and he will be the ruler of the world. A recent survey question was posed to people: “If you could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, who would it be?” Abraham Lincoln finished first. Jesus came in 11^th. He didn’t even crack the top ten! We might think Jesus is a pretty famous person now, and he is, but wait until he sits on the throne of his glory in Jerusalem. If you know him as Saviour now, you will be a “joint-heir” with him then (Romans 8:16). I will some day be best friends with the King of the world. I will be famous because he is famous. Tell as many people as you can about him, and serve him faithfully now, so that when he comes, he can say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord.”

Dandelion Wine

“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” (Genesis 3:17-18)

I love spring time, but one of the few things I dislike about it is dandelions. My yard is full of them every spring, and they are a nuisance. Of course, my yard is full of just about every type of weed and bramble you could imagine. A horticulturalist would have quite the time of it in my yard, investigating things he may have never seen before. It seems like the dandelions come out of nowhere. One day you look in the yard and it is a sea of yellow that sprung up overnight, and before you can do anything about it, the yard turns into an ocean of white. Then those fuzzy little things float all over the yard and it looks like it is snowing. You just know that those weeds are reseeding themselves for an even bigger crop the next spring. They say you can actually eat the dandelion leaves in a salad, and there are even recipes to make wine out of them. I don’t know. I just can’t bring myself to that point with those nasty little weeds.

Our first parents had it pretty good. God gave them a garden paradise with all the fruits and vegetables they wanted and no weeds. I am a fully dedicated carnivore, but if I lived in a place like that, I can easily understand not eating meat. I have been to Hawaii three times and Belize and other tropical climates more than a dozen. The idea of being able to walk out your door and pick avocados the size of grapefruits is pretty awesome. If I could fill up on fruits and veggies like that all the time, there wouldn’t be much room left for meat. But I guess that wasn’t good enough for Adam and Eve. They thought they had to try the one thing God told them to leave alone, and look what it caused. Before any of us holler about it, we would have done the same. But now we have to live in a world with weeds and poison ivy (which I have on my hands right now) and all sorts of other stuff like it.

When we read the stories of the Bible, so many of the details seem to go under the radar. We all know they “platted a crown of thorns” and put it on the head of Jesus, but the significance of this escapes many believers. Nature was cursed in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned. Thorns and thistles (and dandelions and poison ivy) came forth out of the ground as a result. The crown of thorns on the head of Jesus represents his payment for that curse as well. We all focus on his crucifixion as the payment for our sins, and rightfully so because that is the main issue. His death on the cross secures a home in heaven for those who have placed their trust in him as Saviour. But it secured much more than that. The benefits of his sacrifice will not just “cover up” our sins and give God a reason to let us into his paradise, but it will actually restore what was lost in Eden and then some. Someday the desert will bloom as the rose, and the lion will lay down with the lamb and eat straw like an ox. Nature will be restored to its original garden paradise.

So much is made today of the “environmental issues” facing us. Without diving headlong into the controversial argument, don’t miss the point. Isaiah 45:18 says, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” God created this world for man to dwell on it. No matter how big a mess we might make of it, we will not overturn his purpose for the earth. Right now we have to live on a planet with weeds and thorns and tornados and ice storms, but when he returns, the earth will be renewed just like we will have a new body. Until then, the reminders of man’s sin are paraded in front of us through the mess we have to live in. Tell others about the wonderful Saviour, then get ready for paradise to be restored – spiritually as well as physically.

Front Runners

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” (Ephesians 4:14)

Well, it is that wonderful and magical time of the year again – baseball season! I love baseball. Anyone who doesn’t is a communist. I have followed it even more over the last few years since I have gotten into a fantasy league. I was always ambivalent about fantasy baseball because of what I thought was a lot of work. Being a part of a fantasy league gets you much more connected to what is going on in the sport on a regular basis, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of time. I don’t have a lot of time for stuff like that. I only get to play golf a couple of times a year because of the time commitment, and I don’t watch a whole lot of movies for the same reason. So I was always worried that fantasy baseball would consume too much of my time. But it really doesn’t, except for one time in the year when the draft is done and the league is set. After that, it is pretty much maintenance, and since I like to follow baseball anyway, not much more is involved.

We just held our annual draft a few days ago. It has always been the prevailing philosophy to draft hitters first, and try to build your pitching staff through the middle rounds. Pitchers can be “feast or famine” and when they are famine, it really costs you dearly. Hitters are usually a little more consistent. But over the last couple of years, the landscape of baseball has changed. The steroid era has come to an end, and you no longer have so many gorillas with their knuckles dragging on the ground lugging their big wooden sticks to the plate. Pitchers have a little better chance now, so the pendulum is swinging back in their direction. The winner of the league the last two years did so with pitching, so now everyone is on that bandwagon. Almost without exception, team “owners” went after pitching first in this year’s draft. I was going to do the same, but as the draft unfolded, I saw very quickly that they were leaving the best hitters alone. So I shifted my draft direction in mid-stream and loaded up on hitters. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a rebel (without a clue). I always naturally trend away from the “prevailing winds”. I have been like that from the womb. It has carried over to my Christianity as well. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, but most of the time, it saves me from a lot of grief.

Christianity is dominated by “prevailing winds”. One of the leading “experts” in modern church movements is George Barna. His work is done in surveying church trends and gathering statistics on the state of Christianity today. Since his work is so “national” in scale, he has to include everything that ties itself to “Christianity”, whether it is actually Biblical or not. As a result, he can give trends for church movements, but he may not really be showing us where God is at work. Statistics often do not tell the correct story, especially as it relates to individuals. For example, if you stuck your right foot in a bucket of ice water, and your left foot in a bucket of scalding water, statistically, you would still be very miserable. On the average, you might be “trending” in a certain direction, but individually, your feet would tell a much different story, and I would still have to visit you in the hospital.

Romans 3:4 says, “Let God be true, but every man a liar…” A principle that has always served me well is “the majority is always wrong”. When man gravitates to some “movement”, I am always suspicious. Be careful of movements. They often create a mess that someone else has to clean up. (Sorry for that mental image). James 1:8 says, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Set your course of life on the rock of ages. His anchor always holds. When the mobs flock to the latest fad, step back for a moment and look at the word of God. While the world moves in one direction, the “Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2) in the other direction. Jump on his bandwagon, it always leads to peace and truth.

Building A Better Mouse Trap

“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” (Psalm 119:160)

We caught a mouse a few weeks back. It was during that time of the year (winter) when they come in from the cold looking for shelter and food. Everyone has them at times. No matter how clean you keep things, you cannot keep mice from getting in the house. We saw the tell-tale signs of our little furry visitor, so we got some of those old fashioned spring loaded mouse traps and set one for him. A little peanut butter on the tip lures the unsuspecting rodent, thinking he has hit the mother lode for a five-star dining experience. Then… SNAP! Out of nowhere, the metal bar of judgment drops instantly from the sky across his neck and sends the unwelcome freeloading non-rent paying tenant to mouse heaven or hell, based on whether he ever got baptized and kept the golden rule and the ten commandments. I’m guessing mouse hell for our friend, since he clearly violated the “Thou shalt not steal” by helping himself to our food without leaving his little mouse dollars on the counter.

This wonderful device was invented well over 100 years ago, and ever since then, there has been a relentless attempt to make it better. I am sure you have seen the other products. We have even tried them. We got one of those little “sticky pads” that is supposed to be more “humane”. It’s not. We caught a mouse on one last winter, and he chewed up half of the sticky pad trying to free himself before he finally gave up and died. Instant death is a lot more compassionate than making the mouse go through all that fear, suffering and turmoil. Of course, the “bleeding hearts” among us would object to my supposed “cruelty”. It’s a mouse. Get over it. I am not trying to rid the world of mice and “upset the delicate eco-balance” (not!), I am just trying to keep them out of my house so they don’t eat up all our food and bring disease to our family. God keeps making plenty more of them, and if I caught one alive in a “humane and compassionate” tender loving way, and then delivered him to your house, you wouldn’t want him around either.

God put a perfect Bible in our hands many hundreds of years ago, and for some strange reason, man keeps thinking he has to find a way to make it better. But there is nothing that can improve on the blessed simplicity and beauty of our good old King James Bible. Just like our mouse traps, it has stood the test of time. Those old fashioned mouse traps are really simple to use once you figure it out. The first couple of times you try to set one, it takes a little getting used to. You have to know how to load the bait and hold it just right to set the spring. Then you have to be very careful and set it down gently so it doesn’t snap your fingers. But when it is operated properly, it works every time.

The same is true with the Bible. The first few times we pick it up, we are not sure how it works. We read a bunch of lists of “begats” and stories from cultures we are totally unfamiliar with, and we are afraid the Bible is going to “bite” us. We see the “-eth” on the end of all the verbs, and it scares us. We have flashbacks to our High School when we were forced to read Shakespeare. It would have been less painful to shove an ice pick in our eyes. So everyone wants to find a way to “make the Bible better” and in the process, they make it worse. There has never been an “update” of our beloved Bible that improves on the clear way God communicates to his people. You just have to know how to operate it. Operating a mouse trap can be mastered in a few minutes, but a Bible takes a lifetime. Unfortunately, in our “instant” society, most people will not invest the time to do so. But the health of your soul is far more important than the comfort of your home. Ridding your home of unwanted pests is not nearly as vital as ridding your life of the influences of the pest of the “god of this world”. Open your book and learn how to use it. The blessed pages of the word of God work every time.