A Very Berry Teaching by My Little Reagan

Princess Reagan seeks & finds some nice strawberries!

Today we braved the 90 degree heat to go pick strawberries.  This is something that we have never all done as a family.  Reagan and I went on our own into an uncharted section of berry world while the rest of the family stayed pretty close to the front.  Reagan and I were looking to find the best berries that we could find.

Unfortunately, Miss Reagan tripped and fell at one point sending her berry selection careening into the poop-laden dirt.  After recovering from her stumble, Reagan continued the search for new fresh berries.

As we were walking along, Reagan, ever mindful of what God might be teaching her in her everyday life, decided to tell me what God had to say about the strawberry picking.

She told me that Satan was trying to trick us into picking the gross squishy berries but that God wanted us to look and find the real nice fresh ones.  She told me that we're not listening to Satan.  We're not picking his gross squishy berries.  We're picking the good fresh red ones that God is telling us to pick.

I chuckled and thought about what a funny little story this was.

Then I began to think about the meat to Reagan's berry ramblings.  Little Reagan seemed to stumble upon quite a truth.

We talk all the time about making the wise choice and trusting God no matter what in our kid's church program.  And apparently it's sinking in!

Reagan understood that the more easy to find gross squishy berries are being put in our path to entice us by Satan.  Picking these berries is the easy thing to do.  They are right out there in the open and they require no real effort.  Most of them aren't even attached to the plant anymore and you certainly don't have to look for them.

She also understood that to find the good ones, we had to do a little more effort.  We had to search just a little bit harder.  And God's desire was for us to search for the fresh berries.  His desire was for us to have the very best, even if it might take us a bit more time and cost a bit more effort.

Little Reagan has more understanding than a lot of folks who go to Bible College.  Consider just this smattering of biblical references on the importance of seeking the Lord and His Will/Counsel for our lives:

1 Chronicles 16:11
"Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always."

2 Chronicles 7:14 
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

Deuteronomy 4:29  
"But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Matthew 6:33
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Our seeking for His kingdom should be FIRST.  Our seeking should be with "all of our heart and with all of our soul" and it requires humility and repentance.  Seeking isn't easy, but it's so central to living the life that God has for us.  It is impossible to please God without first knowing Him intimately.  It is impossible to know Him intimately if we accept the squishy berries and don't earnestly seek the fresh vine-ripened fruit that only God provides.

What a nice lesson from a 5 year old little girl and a day in the berry patch!

Chicken Monster Theology

Imagine this face crashing into you and vomiting...

"Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation."  Psalm 68:19

Our family has had issues with birds recently.  We have a random bird of prey that likes to circle our house in the afternoons.  The kids have named him Aerial Ace (or "cutie" if you ask Reagan as apparently birds who swoop down to kill unsuspecting cuddly animals are cutie-pies.)

Ace is kind of a mascot for our house.  However, about a week ago as I was driving to work, a ginormous hideous monster of a bird almost killed me.

Picture the scene:

An unsuspecting high school teacher is driving during the early morning hours when nobody in their right mind would be.  As I pass by an empty field, a bird the size of California comes flying out into the road and on a collision course with my truck.  In fact, if this beastly bird of terror collided with my truck, he was going to slam into the driver side window.  The window was up, but with his size and speed, methinks his nasty face would have burst through the glass and slammed right into me.

I have no idea what kind of bird this thing was.  I looked up in a fanciful birds of prey children's book that we have and to my best guess it was a vulture.  Have you seen these things? They are the ugliest things this side of Satan.  In fact, when I picture what the prince of darkness looks like without his temptation-laced stage make-up on, I picture vultures.

Apparently, had this nefarious bird hit my truck and thrust his homicidal beak in my face, I would have been in quite the predicament.  According to the kids' guide to predatory birds, vultures tend to throw up in your face when you "scare" them.  All manner of decomposing roadkill would have spilled out upon me as I sat in my workday finest and basked in the horror of a vulture attack.

It would have been the single worst bird terrorist attack since Fabio.

Thankfully, and inexplicably, the vulture somehow pulled up at the last minute and missed my truck.

That takes me to a family dinner from earlier in the week.

We had a rotisserie chicken dinner, as we were running late as usual.

We never serve chicken on bones.  It's nasty and caveman-like.

However, on this particular evening my wife decided to put the chicken legs on Reagan and Jackson's plates.  Reagan followed in her grandmother's footsteps and devoured hers within seconds.

Jackson, however, stared at the unsavory chicken leg and refused to consume it.  When prompted, the ever eloquent Jackson added to his famous lexicon by declaring that he wasn't going to eat that "chicken monster."

Chicken monster.  Yum.

Of course, as soon as "chicken monster" was given to his carnivorous sister, Jackson was sad that he couldn't eat it.  Re-christened as "mutton" by older brother Noah, the "chicken monster" leg suddenly became irresistible to Jackson.

Where's all this talk of scary predatory birds and chicken monsters going?

Well, the enemy flies around like a predatory chicken monster.  And he is hellbent on destroying you.  And one of the things he's most effective in using against you is fear.

Reading Psalm 68 earlier today, I was reminded that not only is the Lord our salvation, but He carries our burden daily.  Daily.

I was also struck by reading the account of the transfiguration.  Chilling atop the mountain with Jesus, Moses and Elijah must have been awesome.  When Peter, James and John heard the voice of God, they bowed their heads to the ground in fear.

And yet:

"And lifting up their eyes they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone."  Matthew 17:8

Jesus touched them.  Fear left them.  Their eyes beheld Him.  Only Him.

Additionally, 1 Chronicles 11:9 says of David that he "became greater and greater, for the Lord of hosts was with him."

His success and victory was not due to his own personal coolness, but rather that "the Lord of hosts was with him."

Life serves us chicken monsters and sends careening vultures toward our truck.  And our response to that is the gateway through which our faith bloodstream flows.  When we are afraid of chicken monsters, we can turn away choice blessings (and succulent meat?) when we should be chowing down.  When the crippling fear of a vulture smacking into your face and vomiting roadkill on you hits, you lose focus.  Fear minus focus equals failure.  It means a picking up of your daily burdens that are meant to be carried by your much stronger Savior.  And that weight holds you back from what God has for you.

And yet, just like Peter walking on the water, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, and push away the fear, God will daily lift our burdens.  Philippians 4:19 reminds us that "My God will meet all you needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus."  Those riches are where?  In Jesus.  Alone.

As I read to my kids today out of the Jesus Calling for Kids Devotional, God is telling us:

God wants to save you from careening birds of prey and open your eyes to choice meat, riches and blessing.  He wants to become greater and greater because He is with you.  In order to do that, you are going to have to lift up your head, block out the chicken monsters and predatory birds and see Christ alone.  And if you do, you'll see Psalm 68, 1 Chronicles 11 and Matthew 17 made manifest in your life!

Embrace chicken monster theology and grow your faith!

Samson 90210: Why Do We Admire This Dude?

So, I recently re-read the book of Judges.  And it was really judgmental of me, I know, but I've decided that I'm not a big fan of Samson.  He's kind of like the Old Testament Charlie Sheen.  I can imagine him in full-on wide-eyed crazy, shouting "Winning" as he canoodles with the latest "goddess" of the week.

And yet somehow this Charlie Sheen doppleganger is one of the great judges of Israel.  Judge Judy he is not.

First of all, it should be noted that Judges is a book full of weirdos.  It reads almost like a cutting edge satire that God has written to poke fun at how ill-equipped we are to govern ourselves.

There are exceptions.  I dig the Deborah story.  She was awesome.  I also like how the big bad military leader Barak (Obama?) won't go to battle without Deborah in a keen observation of the power of God's anointed!  It's also real nice and Old Testamenty in its judgment and wrath when the bad guy takes a nap and has a tent peg driven into his temple by...a woman!

I also enjoy Deborah being the leader because she helps give my daughter someone to look up to.

I do also like Judge Ehud smiting the fat king in Judges 2:

"16 Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. 17 He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man... 20 Ehud then approached him [the king] while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. 22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. 23 Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. 24 After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, "He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house." 25 They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead."


I've taken the liberty of bolding the portions that entertain me the most.  So, Ehud made a blade that was a foot and a half long that totally disappeared into the fat of the Biggest Loser contestant Moabite king.  I love how he just kills him and then slips away, leaving a humongous dead dude rotting on his throne.  I further love how the king's attendants think he's relieving himself and don't go in for a long time, beyond "the point of embarrassment."

I mean, this is epic.  This is an Old Testament smiting done right.  Not quite on the same level as Elisha having bears maul mockers of his baldness, but right up there with the best.

Then there is the famously indecisive Gideon who needs about a thousand reminders of God's power.  He did play a mean horn that Gideon, but decisiveness seemed to elude him.  Ain't that just like us?  And by "just like us" I don't mean awesome bugle playing or the age old debate of dry vs. saturated fleeces and the mysterious workings of morning dew.  I'm more thinking of the many times that God speaks, confirms and re-confirms to us something from His Word that we keep refusing to fully believe.  (Side note: Aren't you shocked that an English teacher just used "ain't"?)

There is also father of the year Jephthah who recklessly makes a vow to God that he'll kill whatever he sees next and then mournfully goes on to sacrifice his virgin daughter to fulfill that vow.  Yikes.  Consider that a lesson on being careful with how you speak and how you sport with the lives of your little ones.  Your careless priorities, vows and words can cause the death of your children.  

The book ends with the story about an "unnamed Levite" who is so offended at the animalistic wicked men who raped and tortured his concubine that he cut her up in pieces and sent a bloody piece of her to all of the areas of Israel.  Again with the Old Testament justice.  Again a disturbing picture of the debased and immoral condition of mankind and a kinda weird way to show it.  No wonder "unnamed Levite" asked them to withhold his name from the story, as he kinda sounds like a serial killer himself.

There is also a gaggle of other "he judged Israel for such and such a year and then he died" judges mentioned as well, but no judge is more famous than Samson.

Explain why it is we look up to him?

Samson's parents dedicate him to being a Nazirite, meaning he never cuts his hair and he devotes his life to serving the Lord (among other things.)  And yet, his life is a dismal failure in so many ways.

I get that Samson is pretty impressive in the areas of killing people with a donkey jawbone, eating honey out of the carcass of a lion that he recently killed, and tying fox tails together and having them run around with a torch in between them to burn the town down.  I also understand that he pretty awesomely pushed down the pillars and made a building collapse on himself and the Phillistines.  I'm just thinking that his heart wasn't that often focused on the things of God, particularly for a "judge" of Israel who is supposed to be serving the Lord and all.  His story is more of an example of what no to do in your walk with the Lord.

God uses Samson's Phillistine wife as a motivation to get him into smiting season with 30 or so of those whily Phillistines.  (Will they ever learn?)  His first wife betrays him to her peeps in a pretty obvious way.  And even after that, Samson attempts to "go into her room"and is horrified to find out that pooky-bear has been given away to one of his pals.  I think we can guess what he wanted to do in her room and it wasn't Scrabble.  Then in Gaza, Samson "saw a prostitute" and "went in to spend the night with her."  (Judges 16:1)  He gets away from that situation only to fall in love with deceitful Delilah.

There is no mention of marriage, and yet again Samson seems to be sleeping with the salty lass.

In between their loving embraces, somehow old Samson doesn't seem to catch on that all she ever wants to talk about is how to get rid of his strength.

He also doesn't seem to figure out that every single time he tells her some whopper about how to get rid of his power, miraculously the local Phillistines come charging in with just that type of weaponry.

Seven fresh thongs?  Check.  Tied with new ropes?  Check.  Weaving seven braids of his head into the fabric on the loom and tightening it with a pin?  Check.

He even eventually tells her the truth and his head is shaved and his power is gone.  Dude even has his eyes gouged out.

Samson's actions make our most embarrassing televangelist sex scandals look tame in comparison.  His life was one of self-destruction and lust.  I'm sure some people love them some Samson, but I'm not a big fan.  I'm just not sure why he is someone worth looking up to.

Samson's story is more of a cautionary tale of what not to do.  The next time you are tempted to do something exciting like eat honey out of a dead lion carcass, don't.  It's just not worth it.

A little less of Samson, and a little more of Deborah might be in order for our leaders.   Maintaining your walk with the Lord and making wise choices is really about the condition of your heart.  If you don't guard it, it will be taken by force by the usurping power of sin.  That is a lesson Samson never really seemed to understand.

What are your thoughts on the muscled judge?

UPDATE:  My wife informs me that she was always taught the Samson story as a cautionary tale of what not to do.  Kudos on that.  I grew up with him being taught as one of the heroes of the faith for all of his feats of strength.  Apparently not everyone taught him as such!

What's That Stench??!?

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.  For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing."  2 Corinthians 2: 14-15

"Something stinks.  And it's not the litter box."

This line of Pharasaical judgment was uttered by a talking cat in one of those litter commercials.  Apparently, this haughty feline did not like one of his house-mates, who was a fun-loving sweet cat.  Just prior to this statement, the fun-loving housemate had been giddy with excitement that he was alone.  You see, the stench of the waste of multiple cats was no longer wafting gloriously throughout the house.  He wondered at his good fortune that the other 2 mean cats had finally vacated his residence.

Before he could get too comfortable, however, one of those cats revealed himself and offered his judgment of the little guy in the above quoted tidbit.

The poor cat's hopes and dreams were dashed even as his nostrils were delighted by the sweet-smelling aroma of his house thanks to the fancy kitty litter.

If you have cats, you know that they can stink up the place like nothing else.  It often smells like something died in your house when one of those furry friends does their business.  If you are lucky enough to have guests over during the time of detonation, you can expect a good bit of drama and perhaps the ending of some friendships.  Noses will be held with accompanying statements of shock and horror.  Sour grinch faces will be all the rage.  Some unpinched and defenseless noses will be shoved underneath the neck of tee-shirts.  Violent threats will be uttered against your kitty compatriots.  Dry heaving will ensue in many cases.  In extreme cases, actual vomiting may occur.

Not exactly the party of the decade.

Isn't this a delightful read?

So when 2 Corinthians starts using the sense of smell in relation to our role in this world, we should use cat poop as our guide.

God always leads us in triumph in Christ.  ALWAYS.  That word is key.  So often, we find ourselves dwelling in self-pity.  And yet Scripture is clear that God ALWAYS leads us in TRIUMPH in CHRIST.

This is not a call to your BEST LIFE NOW.  This is not a promise to the perfect life of ease.  Paul would be the last person to preach that.  Unless of course,  he found imprisonment, shipwrecks, torture, and beating to the point of death his best life now.

Leading us in triumph doesn't always mean a life of ease, but it does mean a life of purpose.

Recently, Pastor Joe Focht from Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, has been preaching about the story of Naomi and Ruth.  In their misery, they never let go.  And as God poured out "bundles of purpose" that Ruth could glean, it wasn't always clear that their life would be perfect.  And yet due to Ruth's faithfulness and devotion to the Lord, her kinsman redeemer Boaz became her Prince Charming.  And then they had a son named Obed who later had a son named Jesse.  And Jesse had a boy who slew a giant and became King David.  And later on, the Messiah was born in a manger in Bethlehem.  And all of this came about through their family line.  God led her in triumph.

And her faith testifies about Christ still today.

Our testimony and faith in Christ as we are ALWAYS led in TRIUMPH is a "sweet aroma" and "fragrance" of Christ among those being saved and those perishing.

With our lives, we can make a pretty nasty funk equivalent of a cat box or we can entice people with the sweet aroma of God's grace in Christ.

And you can't fake it.  In Toy Story 3, Lotso smelled like strawberries, but he was a rotten apple.  He wasn't genuine.  He attempted to cover up his dastardly deeds with a sweet strawberry smell.

Covering up our stink with perfume and candles never works.   If you've ever tried that with your cat box, you know that the oppressive cat poop stench doesn't go away.  Your room now just smells like flowers, baked pumpkin pie and cat poop.

Selfishly, we often think our faith and testimony are ours alone.  This Scripture tells us that is not so.  Our faith and testimony has a certain odor to it.  It can and will have an impact on the faith-nostrils of both our fellow Christians and those yet to choose Christ.  Through our lives, we can either make Christ smell like a rancid cat box or the most alluring sumptuous feast imaginable.

And people's lives are hanging in the balance as they sniff the air for some clue of God.

What will your smell be?  What smell will you impart to those around you?  What smell will you impart to your children?  Your spouse?  Your family?  Your neighbors?  That jerk that cut you off in traffic?

Let's pray that our faith would smell sweet and that our faith would be a light to those around us and not faith-darkening shades that impede the revelation of Christ to our hurting world.

My Boy Jackson: "I not broke down. God Made Me."

Jackson's famous pout...

Mad props to the Orange folks who are working on the First Look Curriculum!  It's making a difference in the lives of little ones like my son Jackson!

The First Look curriculum seeks to impart 3 basic truths to the wee tots entrusted to us:

God Made Me

God Loves Me

Jesus Wants To Be My Friend Forever

And my 4 year old son just demonstrated that it's catching on!

Jackson's sayings are famous around my house.  He has enthusiastically declared after watching a vintage Veggie Tales DVD that "God is bigger than the foogie man."  Multiple attempts to correct him were met with adamant denials of the existence of any such "boogie man."  The "foogie" man is his real name and slime comes out of his ears.  He was wearing his "fweatshirt" at the time of these denials.

He's also been known to ask if we are going to take a "hair cut" to get home sooner (presumably "short cut") and asked the nice lady waitress at Friendly's to put "hot vudge" on his ice cream.

This past weekend, he was playing with key chains and declared an all-consuming love of "cheese canes" which admittedly don't sound like such a bad idea to me.

And my personal favorite is his perennial answer to the question "What do you think Jackson?" which is, of course, "Yes, I do think!"   Except on bad days, when it is a sullen "No, I don't think!"

His latest addition to the Jackson Lexicon was actually a God moment from the lips of a four year old poet.  This past week, I was being my usual silly self and mangling a show-stopping song from his older sister Reagan's kindergarten "train play" in which she plays a haughty purple tiger who rebuffed cries of "please stop and help us" with a curt, "help you, I should say not!"

The song I was mangling actually goes as follows:

Please stop and help us

Please stop and help us

Please stop and help us

Our engine's broken down

My version, of course, replaced "Our engine's broken down" with "Our Jackson's broken down."

Admittedly not the most ego-boosting statement to make to your son, but a fanciful line of whimsy nonetheless.  Jackson, however, was not amused.

His angry face and pouty lips took shape as he declared, "I not broke down!  God made me!"

Now grammatical errors aside, it was a statement that made me smile.

My 4 year old knows that God made him, and as a result, that he's not a mistake, broken down, or worthless.   At his incredibly young age, thanks to the Deuteronomy 6 partnership between his parents and his church leaders, young Jackson has embraced a teaching that is so absolutely life-altering that many folks wrestle all of their lives to fathom it, much less live it.  Jackson the theologian was applying the key biblical truth from Psalm 139 to himself and  declaring (in typical Jackson-ese):

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."   Psalm 139:13-14 

That is the kind of true life change that folks working with the Orange curriculum can expect.

Teaching with an end in mind works.  Working with parents to reach this next generation to plug them into the purposes of God is an amazing blessing and privilege.  When kids like Jackson can take hold of the big boulders of faith, it's much easier for him to build his household of faith on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ.

And it's certainly more than enough to fight off the evils of the foogie man!

The Faith Lesson Where I Exploded the Microwave & Burned The Kitchen!

If only my starchy little friend turned out like this...

"Jesus answered, 'It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "  Matthew 4:4

Anyone who has ever ventured into the uncertain waters of dieting knows this verse well.  We often cite it as we gorge ourselves at the local smorgasbord, guffawing as we devour heaping "Tower of Babel" sized portions of edible goodness.

"Well, you know what the Good Book says!  We can't live on bread alone, that's why I'm piling this plate full of pie!"

Sure this teaching from Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3:

"He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."

And sure, that was talking about a spiritual hunger that God sought to teach the Israelites about while using the physical act of random divinely-baked bread falling from the heavens to illustrate it.  It's just such easily picked low-hanging fruit in the world of Christian humor!

So, you should understand that I'm not a patient dieter.  Each diet that I go on must produce immediate earth-shattering results or I will cut and run to the nearest fast food place and gorge myself like Egypt's famine is about to hit.  This story is about one of those crazed diet plans.

I decided to go on some weirdo GM diet where you eat only baked potatoes and veggies for a few days, only to switch to bananas and milk one day, and meat and tomatoes another.  It's a bizarre act of dietary Jiu-Jitsu designed to confuse your stomach into thinning out.

Does it work?  I have no idea.  I didn't get much beyond the first day.

It all began with a baked potato.

It was early morning.  I was getting ready for work.  I'm not a morning person and yet my current job requires me to get up when it is still dark on most mornings.  So getting ready in the morning is often a comedy of errors.

My meal that fateful day was supposed to be a baked potato with a little bit of butter.  As I have never made a baked potato in the microwave myself, I asked my wife how long to cook the little guy.

She told me 20 minutes.

Some of you just fell out of your chair.  And yet it seemed so correct to me.

Of course, she was thinking about the amount of time she cooks enough baked potatoes for a family of 5.  She was also thinking as a rational being who would remain in the kitchen checking the little starchy delights every 5 minutes.

Not knowing any better, I decided that I could put the potato in the microwave and then return upstairs to resume getting ready for work.  So, I put my single potato into the microwave for 20 minutes (GASP!) and then bounded up the stairs to finish preparing for my day.

I can only imagine the pain and suffering that poor potato would know in the moments that followed.  Apparently a single potato is no match for the awesome incendiary power of a modern microwave.  

White fluffy starchiness was replaced by cinder and ash as smoke and flames burst from my little multi-eyed vegetable friend.  The fire threatened to consume much more than the potato if left unstopped.

Meanwhile, I was upstairs ironing clothes and doing my best impersonation of the slow and steady turtoise.

Thankfully, my father-in-law lived in the in-law suite right off the kitchen and was able to intervene.  Unfortunately, however, he ripped open the flame-filled microwave and threw water into it.  The tsunami of ice cold refreshment sent the scalding charcoal of a potato corpse careening toward the kitchen floor where it created a crater of burn marks right in the center of the linoleum floor.
Other water and hot refuse hit the gas stove below.  Flames reached up above the microwave and licked the walls, creating such soot not seen this side of Santa's suit.

As my father-in-law breathed a sigh of relief, a burst of flames emerged from the once dormant stove.  Apparently some hot goodness had fallen into the way of the gas line.  More rushing water ensued.

Blissfully unaware of the devastation created by my new diet in the kitchen below, I skipped jubilantly down the stairs and wondered at the massive plumes of smoke in the house.

"Boy, I must be tired.  My eyes still can't focus.  It looks like there's smoke in here!"

When I turned the corner into the kitchen to behold Dante's inferno, I was shocked.

Needless to say, after I had created such carnage, I decided to abandon the new diet.  In fact, after taking the day off to deal with the insurance company, we opted to hit McDonald's for lunch and abandon dietary restrictions for the foreseeable future (probably chanting that man cannot live on bread alone as we did!)

What does this story teach us besides disqualifying me as a contestant on the "Next Food Network Star?"

Well, like the Israelites, I often look for the quick fix.  In the diet world, faster isn't always better.  I try to take shortcuts.  Unfortunately, like the Israelites, I sometimes can do it with my faith as well.  Sometimes, I forget the manna that God miraculously provided and exchange a miracle for covetousness.  Sometimes, I forget to go to the instruction manual for life each day and read God's Word on what I should do and how I should behave because I have things to do. 

God doesn't desire us to take short-cuts.  Sometimes, we need to be patient and wait.  Sometimes our lack of patience will result in flaming balls of potato refuse.  

Sometimes, we need to stop looking at God for what He can do for us and start looking to get to know Him more and see what we can do for Him.  It's not how quickly we run our race of life, it's how well.  

Like the baked potato that met its demise that early morning, too many people allow death to reign in their daily lives because they are not connected to God in a personal and powerful way.  God desires balance for our lives and that can only be accomplished by placing Him in the very center where He belongs!  And yet, so many of us treat him like a Genie that will rain quail and manna down when we clap our hands.

His desire is that we would earnestly seek Him with all our heart and soul.  Even those of us who don't fall prey to the gimme syndrome, find ourselves looking elsewhere for what God wants in our lives.  Too often we rely on the wisdom of others instead of God's Word on the subject.  And then they tell us to cook a potato for 20 minutes in the microwave.

We will only truly live the life that God has for us when we make Jesus central to our lives.  Just as Moses reminded the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6 to impress their faith upon their hearts and incorporate it into their children by making it permeate every aspect of their lives, God desires the same for us today.

As Deuteronomy continues, Moses warns his people once again about the centrality of God to their future well-being in Deuteronomy 8:11-14:

"Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." 

He then concludes in Deuteronomy 8:19-20 that:

"If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God."

Moses isn't trying to scare his people here.  Okay, maybe he is.  He's trying to remind the people that he has sacrificed for, intervened for with both God and man, and given his life to serving to stay focused.  His admonition to the Israelites has been proven time and time again in the history of man.  Churches, kingdoms and individuals have burned the baked potatoes of their lives by refusing to seek God first and instead relying on quick fixes, the urgency of now and bad advice.

I don't know about you, but I have seen what a microwave can do to a potato in just 20 minutes.  I don't want to see what the wrath of God can do!  I'll gleefully take an extra helping of quail with some manna on the side and personally convey my compliments to the chef on a daily basis!

Mrs. Miller the Killer

Mrs. Miller the Killer did not tolerate insolence. 

This story is a scary one.  Parental guidance is suggested for scary teacher images, cruel and unusual punishment, and a crying 2nd grader.

Recently my wife and I were talking with a friend and reminiscing about childhood memories.  And we began to talk about embarrassing or memorable school experiences.

My first experience that I mentioned was my napping Kindergarten teacher.  Mrs. Sammons, who at the time seemed like she must have been 100 years old, although probably was only maybe 60 or so, was a kind lady but she liked her sleep time.

So each day as we had to put our heads down for nap time, we would wait for the moment when Mrs. Sammons would start grunting or snoring.  It was at that moment that heads would begin popping up all over the classroom and after a few moments of guessing whether her sleep-time sounds were genuine, we would take off around the room.

One time, Mrs. Sammons was still asleep when our parents came to pick us up.  That didn't go over so well, and Mrs. Sammons tried her very best to stay awake during nap time after that.

Then I talked about the mean school nurse who told me I had the "morning blues" and sent me back to class despite the fact that I had a fever of 102.  Mean old grouch-face.  She only reluctantly took my temperature the second time I entered her office to be rid of me and prove my diagnosis of "Morning Blues" and then was disappointed to see my triple-digit fever.

Then I brought it home with my story of Mrs. Miller the Killer.  

Mrs. Miller had been a staple of the 2nd grade for decades.  Her very name struck fear in the hearts of school children.  Her crazed old lady frizzy hair spoke of her psychotic personality.

There were rumors that years back that she had, in fact, murdered one of her students in a fit of rage.  The body was rumored to have been buried under the playground somewhere.

And the clown make-up with the blood red lips didn't do much to comfort her future victims either.

When the class lists were announced at the end of 1st grade, I was ecstatic that I was going to be in Mrs. Dost's class instead.  After all, Mrs. Dost was, as everyone knew, as easy as toast.

Unfortunately my euphoria did not last long.  Apparently we had to switch classes for certain subjects and I indeed would have to come face to face with Mrs. Miller the Killer.

One day I forgot to put my name on my paper.

And you would have thought that I murdered someone by the hysteria that it brought about to the unstable menace that was Mrs. Miller the killer.  Then again maybe not, given her reputation of murdering people herself.

Her over-the-top reaction to a 2nd grader forgetting to put his name on his paper was a searing reminder of how lucky we were that Mrs. Miller didn't have access to the the White House nuclear codes.

She informed me that I would be writing 500 times on lined paper the following literary treat:

"I will not forget to write my name, Billy Hughes, on my paper in Mrs. Miller's class."

Writing this literary torture 500 times was the forerunner to water boarding, although there is no doubt in my mind that Mrs. Miller the killer would in fact engage in water boarding if the principal would have allowed her to.

I spent most of the day in fear of both the evil Mrs. Miller and my mom.  You see, I wasn't allowed to go home until this monumental task was accomplished.  That meant that in all likelihood my mom would be sitting in the car after school wondering why her precious first-born son was not skipping gleefully from the school building to the car in the bright sunshine.

I spent all of lunch and recess and every free second during any additional class feverishly working on getting this heinous assignment done.

When school came to a close I was pretty much done and only had about 25 or so more times to write.  I nervously made my way over Mrs. Miller the Killer's lair and took a seat in the back of the room as I finished up the last lines of my enormous tome.

When I finished, it was only a few minutes past the dismissal of school, so I figured that I would probably not get in trouble.

Shaking all over, I nervously made my way to the desk of Mrs. Miller and handed over my papers.

She took one look at the paper and then glared at me with the menacing glare of a serial killer.

"You didn't even number it.  I'm certainly not going to accept it like this.  You need to number them."

I took back the paper and made my way back to my desk.  Tears began strolling down my cheeks.  The jig was up.  My mom would now know that something was up.  It was going to take me the rest of my life to number this torturous assignment.

After what seemed like an entire calendar year, I finally finished the numbering and brought my work back up to Mrs. Miller.

The killer laughed maniacally like a deranged clown as she quickly looked over the assignment.

Then she began ripping the papers up into pieces and coldly stated, "Well, I guess you won't do that again in this class, will you?"

At this moment, I burst into hysterics the likes of which have only occurred again when gaggles of pre-teen girls have a sighting of Justin Bieber.

And at that moment, my mom came into the doorway looking for her son.

Amid sobs and a full-on snot eruption from my nose, my mom was able to ascertain that I had been in trouble, but was more annoyed at that moment with the nefarious Mrs. Miller for keeping me after school so late.

It is a moment that haunts me still.

Now, you might be thinking what this has to do with faith?

Sometimes we have to endure hardship.  Sometimes we have to confront pure evil.  And sometimes that is in the form of our leaders.

That certainly was the case in the 1 Samuel account of Hannah.  Desperate for a child, Hannah spent years on her knees pleading with God to open her womb and allow her the honor of having a child.

One week while praying at the temple, Hannah was weeping.  So passionate in petitioning her Lord for the miracle that she desperately needed in her life was Hannah, that she paid no attention to anyone around her.  Including the somewhat judgmental priest Eli.  1 Samuel 1:13-14 tells us:

"Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, 'How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine.'" 

Hannah was connecting deeply with her Lord.  She wasn't praying for show.  By contrast, Eli liked people to see him looking important.  He liked the attention.  And to him, like so many people who just don't get it, he thought her passion was drunkenness.

He mocked her, but she wouldn't relent.

Finally, Eli told her that God would answer her prayer.  Later, when Samuel was born, Hannah dedicated him to serving the Lord.

His faithfulness even as a young boy in serving in the temple before the Lord was a stark contrast the the children of Eli:

This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD's sight, for they were treating the LORD's offering with contempt. But Samuel was ministering before the LORD--a boy wearing a linen ephod."  (1 Samuel 2: 17-18)

Eli never really called his sons out on their wickedness.  They had been "treating the Lord's offering with contempt" for years.  It wasn't until the end of his life that Eli finally called them on their behavior.  And by then, it was too late.  

I believe that it was only because of Samuel's example that so greatly contrasted with what his sons were not doing that finally forced Eli into confronting the sin in his family.

Mrs. Miller will remain in my mind one of the greatest villains of mankind.  And her scary oppression of 2nd graders led to a fearful submission but a destruction of passion.  We obeyed out of fear, but she crushed our passion and desire for learning.  In every other class that year I loved learning.  In her class it was all I could do to not pee my pants in fear.

Hannah could have reacted the same way.  Eli was the big cheese at the temple.  His public mocking of her desperate pleas before the Lord could have discouraged her.  She could have obeyed him out of fear and abandoned her first love.  She could have run away out of fear and exploded into a Justin Bieber sighting type of meltdown.  She didn't.  She continued to press in closer to her Lord and plead her case.

And she was vindicated.

There will be Mrs. Millers and Elis in our lives.  If we want to take hold of what God has for us, and more importantly, who He truly is, we need to press in closer.  We need to push past the fear and embrace our deliverer.  God's word tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7:

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

Fear will keep us from the purpose God has for us.  More significantly, it will keep us from the source of our strength, Christ Jesus.  We need to be like Hannah and press in.  And we will see a blessing from that perseverance.  The God that delivered Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego from the fire, Daniel from the lion, David from the giant, the Israelites from Egypt, and so many other ordinary folks clinging to their life-line of faith in the midst of life-threatening fear-invoking circumstances will do so for you time and time again.

There is nothing that those great folks of the Bible have that we don't have.  If we have but the faith of a mustard seed, we can tell the Mrs. Millers of the world to go jump in a lake because our God is bigger.

That is the lesson we can take from the story of Hannah and Samuel.

And the lesson we can take from Mrs. Miller is that you should always write your stinkin' name on your paper.