True Friends

The sign outside of my office door usually makes people smile. It reads, “I ain’t from the South, but I got here as quick as I could!”

Humor diverts attention from the fact that I’m from the North. North Jersey to be exact.

When I head back for a visit, as I did recently, I tell people I don’t miss the traffic. What I miss are the places and the faces. And I saw both during a recent 40th High School Reunion.

The summer of 1969 was the end of an era--several, to be truthful. Not only were the 60’s ending, but it was also the exciting culmination of man’s amazing effort to reach the moon.

For me, though, it was more personal. 1969 was the bittersweet end of my High School days. Bittersweet because in mid-senior year, my father took a position that moved our family to South Jersey. And I went from a small town school to a large regional high school. I felt lost.

Instead of graduating with my hometown friends, I ended the year with new acquaintances. Bummer. At their 20th reunion, classmates from the new school didn’t even remember me.

For years I wished I could go back and change that decision to move so I could have graduated with my friends in my hometown. But, as they say, “There’s no going back.”

However, as I learned at this reunion in my hometown, my old classmates are still my friends. True friends. Some seem almost like family!

What’s odd about that is, for the most part, I haven’t seen some of them for 40 years. Sure, there’s been the occasional reunion, but the last one was ten years ago.

“Well, hold on just a minute. How can you feel close to people you hardly ever see?”

The Bible says, “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” True friends are like that.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Friends are family you choose for yourself.” And I guess that’s true. Plus, there’s something about living through adolescence together that forges bonds deeper than we know.

Most of us have aged a little. No surprise there. Some looked very much like they did in High School. Others have changed. But the saddest thing to see was the memory board listing names of classmates who have passed away. At every reunion the list grows longer.

Sadly, the reunion was over before we knew it and it was time to leave. It was hard to say “Good-bye” because I don’t know when or if I’ll see my friends again. Tomorrow has no guarantee. And that made me think about the only friend who guaranteed he wouldn’t leave us.

Jesus told his friends, “Never will I leave you.” And if you are a friend of Jesus, if your faith is in him as your Lord and Savior—there is nowhere you can go without him. In fact he is the only friend who can walk with you through the “valley of the shadow of death.”

When a friend or loved one passes away, we still have their memory with us. But Jesus gives us more than that. Jesus said he would not abandon his followers. He said, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

How can Jesus be with us? When he returned to Heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. The King James Bible calls him the “Comforter.” Other versions refer to him as the “Counselor” or “Helper.” And part of his ministry today is to bring us peace and joy.

Throughout life, friends come and go. True friends stick with us no matter what happens. But Jesus Christ is a true friend forever. He is the only one who says, “I will never leave you” and is able to keep his promise.

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!

Real Life

Last week our family grew to include a new granddaughter!

Ayame Iris was born June 23 to our daughter living in Japan. (“Ayame” means “Iris” in Japanese.) Her birth reminded me of what real life is about.

On Father’s Day President Obama wrote an article in Parade Magazine. Maybe you saw it. In it he said, “If I could be anything, I’d be a good father.”

With that one statement he implied that being a good father was more important to him than being President of the United States of America! And it is more important.

In the article Obama spoke about the impact growing up without a father had on him. He describes how fatherlessness has hurt America. But most Americans are not as concerned.

Novelist David Lodge said, “Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around.” God would agree.

Those who read the Bible know God told Adam and Eve “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth.” Then again, after the Flood, God repeated the same command to Noah.

In other words, God said, “Have lots of children and populate the planet!”

“Now hold on just a minute! Isn’t the earth running out of space and resources for people?”

Yes, that’s the myth we’ve been told. And that myth is what drives the desire for small families. It also encourages those who favor abortions to get rid of the innocently inconvenient.

But the reality is far different.

Years ago sociologists predicted we wouldn’t be able to feed the earth’s growing population. But they had no way of knowing about future advances in technology that significantly increased crop yields. Today our government pays farmers NOT to grow crops!

God also said, “Fill the earth.” Those who describe limited space for people and crowded conditions are usually talking about cities. And yes, cities can seem crowded. But what about all those wide open spaces you see when you leave the city and its suburbs?

Cities weren’t God’s idea. They were man’s idea. Check out God’s reaction to humankind’s effort to build the first city around the tower of Babel.

The Bible says God “scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” And there’s plenty of room for people if we would just spread out. We can even turn deserts into gardens if needed!

From our selfish perspective, bigger families and more people are inconvenient for us. Not only that, but our shortsightedness is slowly destroying Western culture.

Recent research describes most Western societies as failing to achieve a replacement rate of reproduction. In other words, we’re not having enough children to sustain our population in the long term. So some Western countries now pay parents to have more children!

How sad we don’t understand what real life is all about until late in life. The older I get, the more I realize that family is one of the things in life that matters most!

Some think that life revolves around politics or success or money. But it really revolves around the family. To be part of a loving family, to have a mother, father, sisters and brothers is a greater blessing than all the wealth or power in the world. Family is real life.

If you’re part of such a family and also a part of God’s family, what else do you need?

God’s plan for the family is to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!

Heart Trouble

The heart of a problem is often the problem of the heart.

Let me explain. Maybe you’re a person whose parents made them go to church as a child and you hated it. I was not. So I’ve always wondered what that was all about.

My parents brought me to church before I can remember. They told me I asked God to forgive my sin and for Jesus Christ to be my Lord and my Savior when I was three years old.

Since I was so young I had no memory of that event. But I do remember repeating that decision during a church service when I was older. I wanted to remember my commitment.

I also remember always loving church. Sunday was my favorite day! The songs, hymns, Bible Stories and lessons connected with my young heart. I looked forward to Vacation Bible School every year. When I finally got to go to Church Camp and Youth Group, I was thrilled.

Here’s my guess. If you went to a spiritual life-giving church that taught the Bible, but you hated it and felt rejected, it may have been heart trouble.

“Now, hold it just a minute. Aren’t some churches to blame—sort of ‘bad apples’?”

Sure. Churches can be cold, legalistic and judgmental. That’s possible. But don’t give up on church just because you went to one that didn’t meet your needs!

The solution is to keep looking for a good church—one where you can meet with God. A place where people live their faith, the Bible is taught, and Jesus Christ is Lord.

I didn’t give up on school just because I once had a bad teacher!

But if the problem isn’t church, it may be your heart. You may have spiritual heart trouble.

Some folks who attend church have no interest in God. They are self-absorbed takers. Their only interest is whether or not it’s an enjoyable experience for them. Sadly their attitude keeps them from finding the fulfillment they’re looking for and which only God can give them.

It may be you’re looking in the wrong place. I encourage you to start looking for your fulfillment where I found it: in a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

When you do that, you’ll discover God is real and that he is not rejecting you at all. He doesn’t reject anyone who comes to him in faith. Because of our self-centered emphasis on pleasure, we reject him. God doesn’t hide from us. The reality is we hide from him.

The greatest discovery of my life was that God loved me, was seeking a personal relationship with me and wanted to forgive all my failures and give me a fresh start.

Jesus said that God seeks worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. He said, “whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” Jesus also told people, “Your sins are forgiven.” He alone can forgive our failures, even when we cannot forgive ourselves.

When we have problems with our physical heart, we go to a heart specialist. We listen to the diagnosis and then take appropriate action. We value the specialist’s advice.

If your problem is spiritual, go to the one who understands the human heart and soul. God alone has the treatment that works every time it’s tried. His advice is invaluable.

Maybe you’re skeptical. Then listen to Jesus’ challenge: “If anyone chooses to do God’s will he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” Then he added, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” He meant himself.

The heart of our problem is the problem of our hearts. The solution? Believe the right truth about the right person: Jesus Christ died for your sin. He will forgive you and give you new life.

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!

Blessed Confusion

For the last week our life has been a blessed confusion. And it’s been wonderful!

“Now hold on just a minute! How is ‘blessed confusion’ wonderful?”

Well, let me tell you. Take two working adults. Add a visiting daughter on vacation with her three girls. Then put us all under the same roof and you have a recipe for blessed confusion!

Trying to coordinate work schedules, play time, day trips and family dinners disrupts our daily routine. And when three or four people talk to me at the same time, it’s confusing!

But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

According to the Bible, living to see your grandchildren is a blessing from the Lord. It says they are “a crown to the aged.”

Now I don’t like to think of myself as “aged,” but I guess I am to my grandchildren! And I thank God that I’m healthy enough to play with them and enjoy them. What a blessing!

Last night the girls were getting ready for a bedtime story. The youngest walked up in her nightgown and said very seriously, “Grandpa, I wished we lived here.” That melts my heart.

On Sunday we took them to Sunday School and church. They looked so pretty in their dresses. But, more than that, they learned about God and his love for them through Jesus Christ.

It amazes me sometimes how people skip church because family is visiting from out of town. Not only do our grandchildren enjoy going to church with us, they love God wholeheartedly.

I guess that’s why Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The faith of children is so pure and strong.

If you think about it, the only thing of lasting value you can leave to your children and grandchildren is your faith. Everything else gets spent, broken or wears out. But faith is forever.

Plus, in the light of eternity, passing your faith on to your children and grandchildren is the best investment you can make. When you die you will leave everything else in life behind. But if your family trusts in Christ, you will all be reunited in Heaven again.

Now some folks may think that’s too morbid to think about. Think again! Life goes by so fast. And then you will be somewhere forever a lot longer than you lived on earth.

But faith is good for more than just eternity. David, the shepherd king in the Bible once said, “I have been young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread.” God knows how to take care of his children in this life as well.

The time to think about God is now. One of the wisest men to ever live, King Solomon, wrote, “Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come.”

How fast “the days of your youth” fly by! In just a little more than a week, I’ll be attending my fortieth High School reunion. Where did all those years go?

In the Bible, a man named Job said, “My days are swifter than a runner; they fly away.” In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye sang, “Sunrise, sunset; swiftly fly the years.”

Before we know it, children turn into adults. Our time with them is so brief.

If you are blessed to have your children and grandchildren nearby, stop and thank God. If they live far away and you only see them once or twice a year, be sure you enjoy the “blessed confusion” when they visit!

But most importantly, spend as much time with them as you can. Remember to point them to God and be the best example to them that you can be!

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!

Anticipation

In about an hour from the time I’m writing this, my daughter and three granddaughters will arrive for a visit. And I can hardly wait to see them!

It’s been six months since I last saw them at their home in another state. I want to hold them in my arms, to see how they’ve grown and to just plain love them.

My wife and I have been planning things to do and places to go with them since we first heard they were coming. We haven’t told them all our plans yet. It’s going to be a surprise!

Of course it’s nothing compared to the anticipation God must have or the things he has planned for his family!

“Now hold on just a minute! God has grandchildren?”

No, according to the Bible, God doesn’t have any grandchildren. But all who come to him through Jesus Christ become his children. And he’s looking forward to our homecoming.

The Bible says, “Yet to all who received him (Jesus), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” So through faith in Jesus Christ, everyone can become a part of God’s forever family.

And he’s looking forward to the day we’re with him in Heaven! How do I know? Because the Bible says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones [believers].”

Now that may strike you as odd because we look at death as a separation from our loved ones. But from God’s perspective, when one of his children dies, he or she is coming home. And I imagine that he’s just as delighted as we are when our children come home at Thanksgiving!

God also has some surprises planned and exciting things for us to do. People who imagine Heaven as clouds, harps and lounging around must not have read their Bibles!

The Bible says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” It’s wonderful beyond words!

Someone once said, “Don’t miss Heaven for the world!” Let’s face it—it’s too easy to let what Jesus called “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth” make us so selfish that we’re no good for serving the God of Heaven. Don’t let that happen to you.

I wonder—is God looking forward to your homecoming in Heaven with anticipation and delight? Or is he hoping that you’ll finally see the light and start following him before it’s forever too late?

The Bible says, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” It also warns us: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

Has God been trying to get your attention? Sometimes he speaks through the words of a concerned friend. Other times it may be through a crisis.

One reason our lives can be such messes is because God is patient with us. He lets the consequences follow our bad decisions. He hopes we’ll learn something and turn back to him.

Here’s advice from the prophet Isaiah: “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

If you do that, one day God will have a “Welcome Home” party planned just for you.

Now don’t get me wrong. I want to live my life here as long as God allows. But when my time comes, I’m ready to go. The Bible says, “To depart and be with Christ…is better by far.”

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!

Any Questions?

One of my favorite parts of a class is when the teacher asks, “Any Questions?” Why? Because I usually have questions.

Questions are how we learn. But for the longest time, I was afraid to ask questions! I was afraid of what others might think of me. What if I was the only one who didn’t understand?

Thankfully one of my teachers said, “The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask.” And when I began to ask, I discovered that others had questions, too.

Often, after class, classmates came up and said to me, “I’m glad you asked that because I wondered about it also.” Why didn’t they ask? They were afraid.

I’ll never forget one dear lady who came to me once with a concern. “I know we’re not supposed to question God,” she began, “but why did God…” and then she expressed her doubt.

I thought, “Who said that? Who said we’re not supposed to question God? Who denied this hurting woman an answer to her question?”

“Now hold on just a minute! Everyone knows you’re not supposed to question God!”

Oh? Maybe you heard someone say it, but where did the idea come from? The Bible doesn’t teach it. It’s not in the Ten Commandments. Jesus didn’t forbid it. So where do we get it?

I’m not sure. But I do know that God invites us to use the minds he gave us. Jesus loved to ask questions. He invited people to think. Nowhere does the Bible encourage blind faith in God.

In the prophet Isaiah we read, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.”

The Apostle Peter reminds Christians to welcome questions. He says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

Now the Bible does teach that God is a good God. In fact Jesus says, “No one is good—except God alone.” The Bible also says, “The Lord is good to all.” It reminds us, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”

Knowing that, it would be wrong to question God’s motives. But nowhere does the Bible say it is wrong to try to understand what God is doing in our lives.

Many times I have prayed, “Lord, help me understand what you are doing in this situation so I can work with you and accomplish your will.” It gets me thinking about God’s will, not mine.

One of the areas we question the most is suffering. Why does God permit his children to suffer? That’s a good question to ask, because God gives us answers in the Bible.

Often God uses suffering to get our attention. It’s not always punishment for disobedience, but it can be. To be sure, check your life. Ask God to show you if you’re doing wrong. Then, if you are, repent and turn back to him. In that case, suffering brought you closer to God.

Sometimes suffering makes us more like Jesus. God allowed him to suffer so we shouldn’t expect to be exempt. Plus it produces obedience and perseverance in us--good qualities we need.

Other times suffering develops our compassion. The Bible says that when God helps us, “we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

Suffering can even provide opportunities to share our faith and point others to the one the Bible calls, “The God of all comfort.”

These are just a few examples of the answers in God’s Word. I’m sure you can find many more if you will read your Bible regularly. If it’s gotten dusty, it’s time to find it and read it!

And the next time you have a question, don’t be afraid to ask! Any questions?

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!

Self-Addiction

Are you addicted to yourself?

Donald Miller describes this affliction in his book, “Blue Like Jazz.” He writes, “No drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are the characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.”

The most difficult lie to contend with, Miller says, is this: “Life is a story about me.”

But life can conspire to give us that belief. When a baby is born, parents spend his first few years convincing him he is the center of his world. If he cries, warm milk, dry diapers and soft cuddles all seem to appear, as if by magic! He is certain to think, “Life is about ME!”

Finally that child goes to school and meets 19 other “Centers of the World.” Persuaded that having his way is a God-given right, he will demand it or throw a tantrum.

Like Jim Carrey’s character Truman Burbank in the movie “The Truman Show,” life is movie all about ME. It seems to be true because, everywhere you go, you are the only actor in that is every scene. And the theme of this movie is your comfort and your glory.

Other people seem to be just second-rate actors stealing our scenes. And when the other “actors” don’t do what we want, our natural response is to lash back at them in anger. We are confident we are right and they are wrong. “Don’t they know this life is about me?”

Our minds are like radios that receive only one station, the one that plays me: WMEE, all me, all the time. We may not put it in those words but that is the way we live.

“Well hold on just a minute! Why can’t people just get along?”

Because family feuds, civil wars, hateful speech, murderous rampages and polarized politics all come from self-addiction. It’s the same reason some people become irritable as they age.

Aging doesn’t have to make you cranky. It’s more likely a result of self-addiction. When we don’t get what we want we’re crabby. And aging makes us more of what we were all along.

The Bible identifies the problem when it says, “Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice…. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?”

Thankfully the prescription follows the diagnosis: “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” We must humble ourselves, turn from our self-centered ways and accept God’s solution to the human condition he calls “sin.”

God’s solution is simple. The Bible says it begins by accepting forgiveness for our self-addiction through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. He died for our sin. But he rose again to give us a new joy-filled life. That’s the message of the Gospel.

Through Christ, God cleanses our conscience and gives us a new mind, a new way of thinking. Instead of addicted to self we become dedicated to serving God and others. J-O-Y comes from putting Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last.

God first and not self. That’s the way Jesus lived and it’s the secret to making life work. Read it for yourself in the New Testament of the Bible. Then remember that the Bible’s message isn’t just for our information but for our transformation!

Sadly some refuse to accept the cure. They know best. And they go on, like human wrecking balls, destroying lives, families, schools and even countries. Self-addicted.

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!