A Pay Day Prayer

Thank you for giving us this day our daily bread.

Thank you for life and strength and health to work

Thank you for an opportunity to work where I am wanted and needed

Thank you that I do not live in a mud hut and cook my food over a dung fire as millions do

Thank you that I have never once heard my children cry because they were hungry

Thank you for a standard of living that would make medieval nobility envious

Lord, let this be a settled thing in my heart.  I am a rich man.  I am wealthy.  I have more than I need and all too often more than I can intelligently use.

Please set me free from the illusions of materialism:

• That things will make me happy
• That I NEED something that I don't
• That my thoughts should not be filled with visions of stuff, how to obtain it, and how to use it

Please continue to grant me favor with my employers and wisdom in how to do my job

Please prosper my employers and bless them because they are a blessing to me

But help me to always, only, see You as the source of all I have and all I need.

Huston, we have a problem

Allah is pure will; he determines everything; and he can change his mind.  Because of this there is no such thing as right or wrong and there are no secondary causes.

Huston, we have a problem.

A good Muslim would probably take offense at the statement that there is no such thing as right or wrong, but if you modified the statement a little, he would agree with it.  "The will of Allah is right and that which is contrary to his will is wrong."  That second statement may sound very much like something we believe, but it is not.  It is miles and miles away from the way we think and what we believe.  As one Muslim teacher said, "Allah could blame you for another man's sins and cast you into hell forever, and that would be just."  It would be just because it was something that Allah decided to do.  Did you get that?

To the Muslim mind "right" has nothing to do with goodness, kindness, mercy, honesty, or fairness.  "Right" is "whatever Allah wants to do or wants me to do."  The other concepts are completely disconnected from the idea of "right."

Let me give you a couple of examples from the life of Mohammed.  When he first started out, he taught tolerance for other belief's.  Unbelievers were to be treated kindly.  The reason he taught this was that he didn’t have very many believers!  He had no way to impose his will on people.  As his power grew, tolerance went out the window.  He grew increasingly militant and began to teach his people to attack and kill unbelievers.

Here is another example.  Mohammed had an adopted son.  For whatever reason, Mohammed conceived of the idea that his son should marry a certain woman.  His son and the woman weren't too wild about the idea, but Mohammed said it was the will of Allah, so the marriage took place.  A short while later Mohammed dropped in to visit his son and accidently saw his son's wife in the bath.  In other words, he saw her without a Burka on.  In fact, he saw her naked.  To put it another way, it was the first time in his life he had laid eyes on her.  In Arab society at that time you didn't know what any woman outside of your own family looked like.  You had no idea.  You could probably get some sense of how much a woman weighed, but even that would be no more than an educated guess.  All you ever got to see were a woman's eyes.

What Mohamed discovered that day was that his daughter-in-law was an extremely beautiful woman.  And a short time later he came back with a new revelation.  It was no longer the will of Allah for his son to be married to this woman.  They must divorce immediately!  And so they did.  And then Mohammed married her; but not without controversy.  To the Arab culture of that period, this was almost as bad as marrying the daughter-in-law of your biological son.  People were very uncomfortable with Mohammed's actions.  But Mohammed wasn't done yet.  He had yet another revelation from Allah.  It turns out that an adopted son isn't really a son at all, he's just sort of a person who happens to live in your household!  These revelations are pretty convenient, aren't they?

But what about the conflicts in the revelations?  People noticed the conflicts and they were troubled by them.  But once again Mohammed "heard" from Allah.  When two revelations conflict, obey the most recent one!

What can we learn from this?

It makes it easier to understand how someone could strap explosives on to a mentally retarded person, send them into a crowded shopping area, and then detonate the explosives blowing up men, women, and children, some of which were undoubtedly devout Muslims.  Remember, the concept of "right" is completely divorced from concepts like fairness, goodness, truth, and love.  Right is what Allah wants.  Even if your conscience is bothered by it, if it's what Allah wants, it's "right."

The one true God has very little in common with Allah (who, if he exists as a single being, is probably a fallen angel).

God can't change.  He can't change because He is perfect.  The only way he could change would be for Him to get a little better or a little worse.  If He could get a little better, He wouldn't be perfect right now.  Being perfect means you can't improve; but he also can't become less perfect.  Real perfection means that it is impossible for you to become less perfect.  To become less perfect would require some sort of an inward weakness or susceptibility to change or decay.  God is not subject to change or decay.

This concept brings the greatest comfort to Christians as we contemplate our many sins and failures.  In the past few months the Holy Spirit has been teaching me about sin.  Sin is much worse than we think it is and we are much more badly broken than we think we are.  For reasons that are not entirely clear to me God has not made a provision for us to live in sinless perfection in this life.  What this means is that I am going to be a moral failure today.  It may fail less than I normally do or I mail fail more, but at the end of the day I will be a moral failure.

The only way I can avoid being a moral failure is to live today with absolute purity in thought, word, and deed.  I must be perfectly good without being the least bit proud of myself.  Every action, indeed, every thought, must be totally motivated by love and love alone.  I don't know how to do that.  I have never known how to do that.  None of this means that I can or should allow myself to live in a sloppy manner.  I can and should ask God for the grace to overcome the power so sin.  I can and should, over time, make progress in personal holiness and become more and more like Jesus; but I will never reach moral perfection in this life.  I will probably never have one day in which I am completely pure in thought, word, and deed.

When you have a baby, you expect to do some extra work.  You know you will have a nasty job on your hands keeping that baby clean because they baby will be born without control over his bladder or bowels.  But you don't let it get you down.  It's not a fun job, but your love for the little fellow motivates you to do the same messy job over and over again.  Eventually you will get out the M&M's or whatever and bribe the little booger into buying into the concept of using the toilet.  Oh happy day when the last diaper is finally put away!

But that happy day doesn't come for everyone.  You may have a child with a birth defect and they may never gain control over bladder and bowels.  I take care of people with intellectual disabilities.  Some have as much control as you or I do; some have no more control than a baby; and some manage a measure of control but continue to have the occasional "accident" their whole life long.

And so we keep cleaning them up because we love them.  When our hearts and minds are right there is something inside of us that is like the heart and mind of a new parent cleaning up a messy diaper.  We don't love the mess, but we sure do love that baby!  And every day I need God to clean me up and His heart and mind is always right and He does it with love, and nothing but love in His heart.

There is nothing I can do that will surprise Him.  He has never once said to Himself, "I know I made a covenant to forgive him, but I was certainly never expecting him to do that!"  God sees everything in advance, He never forgets anything, and He never changes.

Next time we’ll explain why they don’t believe in the law of gravity.

We Must Practice the Truth

A man who practices the truth "will have two heavens - a heaven of joy, peace, and comfort on earth, anda heaven of glory and happiness after death."  Thomas Brooks

How To Read

IIt is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul.  It is not he who reads most, but he who meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.  Thomas Brooks

True Riches

Every parcel of truth is precious, worth more than heaven and earth.  By it a man will live happily, die comfortably, and reign eternally.  Thomas Brooks.

Spiritual Autobiography

My father's father was Catholic.  My grandmother was a protestant.  When grandmother would get the kids in Sunday school, a priest would come by and convince my grandfather to pull them out.  Couldn't have the kids going to a protestant Sunday school.

Then my dad went off to save the world in World War II, got shot out of the sky, captured, and spent some time in a German POW camp.  There was a Presbyterian minister in that prison, and although he never talked about it much, I think that was when my dad became a Christian.  I tell you this story so that I can contrast my childhood with the childhood of my parents.

We grew up in a household that was religiously unified.  My mom converted from Catholicism so that we could all go to church together.  Some of my earliest memories of from vacation Bible School and Sunday School.

My mom married a good man.  That probably wasn't as easy as it sounds.  Her mother married a guy, had a baby with him, and then the guy vanished.  Took a powder.  No one ever knew what became of him.  So what does she do next?  She marries my grandfather, the drunk.  So what does her oldest daughter, my aunt, who I never met do?  With these awful examples of men in her life?  She marries a guy who ends up in prison.

For some reason, if you try and marry the exact opposite of mom or dad, you frequently end up married to some sort of a clone of that person.  I don't know why this is so, but it is.  But somehow, my mom escaped that trap.  She married my dad.

So this was my childhood:  I had a better life than either of my parents did when they were growing up.  Really, you can't ask for more than that.  As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure if you can ask for that much.  What a remarkable thing they did.  They gave us more than they ever received.  My mom came out of that toxic family and made a better life for her children.

I can't find the words to tell you how proud I am of her.

Did we have some "issues?"  Yes.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  We will all have some issues.  Look at my kids.  They grew up thinking their father was a cannibal (that was a joke, honest!).  I wish my mom and I could have resolved our issues before she died, but it was not to be.

But then I got a glimpse of her in heaven.  Not a real, literal glimpse, but one day as I was praying, I got this sense from God of who she had become, of the person that I would be reunited with some day.  And you know what, she has leapfrogged past me again.  When we just started our relationship, she was the all powerful, all knowing mother and I was a little blood of protoplasm pooping in my diapers.  The years went by and I caught up to her.  I became an adult.  But before that happened, she was the one who took care of me and taught me everything.  She was my mom.

And then I sort of got the feeling that I had passed her up somewhere along the way.  I felt like I was more mature than she was, more whole than she was.  But I always knew that if this was so, it was only because she had given me a better childhood than the one she got from her parents.

And then she was gone.  And as I was praying I got this sense of my mom.  All of the pain that used to be inside of her is gone.  She is a being of pure light and deep wisdom.  Every broken place inside of her is healed and she has become perfect in the presence of God.  She had leapfrogged over me again.  When I arrive at the place where she now lives I will have so much to learn, so much to understand.  And there will be my mom, ready to teach me again.  And I don't think we'll even have to say a word about the "issues."  I think we will just hug and we will both understand.

This world is full of pain and suffering because this world is full of sin.  Sin pains and scars us all.  Sin warps our development as human beings made in the image of God.  But in the end, all things will be made right and all of God's children will be made perfectly whole.  I am so looking forward to that.

Spiritual Autobiography

So my mom was the queen of darkness; a witch on wheels!

Well, not exactly.  Here's the rest of the story as Paul Harvey like to say.  My mom was the product of an alcoholic father and a mother who was some kind of a mess.  What was wrong with Grandma?  Well, I'm told that when I was born, she was so mad at me that she pretty much ignored me for a couple of years.  My sin?  My mom and dad already had a son.  I was supposed to be a girl.  Well, nobody told me about it.  You can't fulfill these expectations if someone doesn't yell at your mother's stomach while you are in the womb and explain to you what gender you are supposed to be!

I don't remember grandma ever being mean to me.  I think she got over it by the time I was old enough to notice.  But how bent do you have to be not to go crazy about the birth of a grandchild, even if she turns out to be a little stud-muffin such as myself?

And grandpa?  I don't know where to start.  Apparently, he was omniscient.  He knew everything.  He was never wrong.  And he was ready to argue about it to the point of death.  I remember visiting him back during the Arab oil embargo in the early 70's.  He had it all figured out.  All of the refineries in Chicago were connected by secret tunnels.  The whole oil shortage thing was a plot to drive up the price of gas.  The federal inspectors would go to the Standard Oil refinery, and they wouldn't find any oil there.  Do you know why?  Because the Standard Oil people saw them coming and opened up their secret valves and sent all the oil to the Shell Oil Refinery.  Then the federal inspectors would go to the Shell Oil Refinery and they would find no oil there!  Can you guess where they sent the oil?  Can you?

He really believed whatever came out of his mouth and he was willing to argue about it, loudly and angrily, at the drop of a hat.  Visits with grandpa largely consisted of biting your tongue.

Here's a great story.  Mom was a "latch key" kid.  That meant both her parents worked and she had to let herself into the house when she came home.  This was very unusual back then, unless your dad was a drunk who was liable to blow the whole paycheck before he ever made it home.  Under those circumstances, the mother had better go out and find a job.

So here is my mom as a little girl arriving home after school.  Only she doesn't have to unlock the door.  The door is already unlocked.  There are strangers in her house.  They are measuring the windows for new curtains.  Grandpa lost the house the night before in a poker game. 

My grandma died when I was in the fourth grade.  A few years later grandpa called.  He wanted the money.  Grandma had saved up some money.  $20,000 as I remember it.  That would be worth about $100,000 today.  Mom had the money.  Her instructions from her mother were simple.  See that her dad got the interest from the money, but never let him touch the principle.  My mom was the only surviving child, and my grandmother meant for her to have that money.

But Grandpa wanted it.  And my mom had to make a decision.  She could keep the money or she could keep the relationship with her father.  This was way before my dad started earning big money.  We weren't poor, but we definitely weren't rich.

They sent him a check.  Things like that make a big impression on a little boy.

Fast forward a few years into the future.  Grandpa is remarried, and he is starting to drink again.  He is being a tad abusive to the new wife.  The new wife calls mom.  Grandpa had been put in a sanitarium when he was young because he had TB.  He had horrible memories about the place.  So mom, doing what she thought was right, told her dad that he had to get back on the wagon or they would put him somewhere until he got dried out.  He got back on the wagon.  But he never forgot.

Fast forward a few more years.  Grandpa is dying of cancer.  His wife is my mother's step mom.  There are things in the trailer they lived in that belonged to my grandmother that she would like to have.  And there was the little matter of $20,000.  Grandfather, on his death bed, tells mom that he has made on of his wife's sons the executor of the estate.  After he is dead, she is to so see him and he will tell her about all the arrangements.

So she hangs around for a couple of days after the funeral, only no one is contacting her or talking to her about a will.  So she goes to see the guy who grandpa said was the executor and the guy looks at her like she's from Mars.  He has no idea about Grandfather's will.  No one has ever talked to him about it.

She finally finds the attorney.  There is no mention of her in the will.  She will never get into the trailer to get her mother's things.  Her father, as he departed this life, set her up to be humiliated.  He rejected her after she had faithfully gone to visit him and put up with him year after year.  In his dying moments, he reached out to leave a permanent emotional scar on the only child he ever had.

I preached at my grandfather's funeral.  I didn't know about the little poison pill he had left for my mom, or I maybe wouldn't have been willing to do it.  At the visitation, whenever I would wander by my Grandfather's friends, they would hush up, like they weren't that comfortable being that close to me.  Then I finally figured it out, from a few words I managed to overhear.  These were the men who had worked with my grandfather on the railroad for years.  Drinking buddies, probably.  And all they wanted to do was tell "Ceil was a moron stories" and laugh at the dear departed.  That was grandpas name, Cecil.  And his cronies came together at his visitation to mock him.

So maybe this gives us a little perspective on my mommy?

To be continued . . .