The Dilemma of Promises

Tis the season to question the integrity of wanna-be leaders. The presidential race in full force here in America offers us a profound insight into the human psyche and what it is willing to say to reach its goals. Our history is rife with promises made in hopes of garnering votes only to see those promises broken in the face of reality.

A Republican presidential candidate said in his campaign, “Read my lips. No new taxes!” That may have helped get him elected, but it was a promise he had to break after he took office. The most recent comment a president probably wishes he could take back is the infamous, “If you like your current health insurance plan, you can keep it.”

Mary Poppins speaks of a promise in the movie by the same name as a “pie crust promise, easily made and easily broken.” In our politics, perhaps in life in general, we have come to see most of our promises as being merely “pie crusts”. This is not so much a mark of our world’s reality as it seems to be a mark of human character. Integrity has become a victim of social expediency.

Promises should mean something. They should inspire trust. They should reveal integrity. A promise should shape a hoped-for future that will become reality if the one making the promise is willing to pay the price to carry through. Too many promises become “pie crust” promises.

The price we pay for such frivolous use of words can be high. The loss of trust, the loss of hope, the loss of personal integrity, all should be considerations in our minds before we make these promises. Can we afford the price?

Unfortunately in politics and other areas of life, that price no longer seems so high. Our disappointment in broken promises rarely translates into action that affects the one making the promise. Maybe the attitude is “I have the power, and you do not. Get over your disappointment.” Another perspective might be “I’m not running for reelection. You can’t touch me. Too bad for you.”

Life goes on and we adjust our expectations according to the experiences we have had with people making promises. We lose faith in a person’s promise, so we make them sign a piece of paper. Because we have learned their personal promise is meaningless and paper signatures can be just as meaningless, we have lawyers, lots of lawyers. Then we make tons of jokes about lawyers who cannot be trusted.

Where does this end? It ends where it begins, with each of us as individuals. Can I be trusted? Do I inspire hope in the people to whom I make a promise? Do I have integrity which is revealed in the way I am willing keep my promises?

Can I change the world? No, but I can create a climate of trust around myself. Can I live a life that tells others a person’s promise can be trusted? Yes, that is in my power.

I can be a person of integrity whose word can be trusted. I can be a person of integrity whose promises will be kept as far as humanly possible. I can be a person who will not make promises that exist only to win the approval of others.

As Jesus said,

Mat 5:33-37 "You have also heard that people were told in the past, 'Do not break your promise, but do what you have vowed to the Lord to do.' But now I tell you: do not use any vow when you make a promise. Do not swear by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by earth, for it is the resting place for his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not even swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. Just say 'Yes' or 'No'---anything else you say comes from the Evil One.

Promises create a dilemma only when we cannot be trusted to pay the price to back our word.

If You Want To

As I return to blogging on a different schedule and with a different motivation, I start this year of 2016 with a new awareness of my relationship with God. Time and events can change your perspective on things. It is enough I share my take on life as I meet it.

In the last few years three contemporary songs have come out by different artists that have spoken to my search for peace in this world. The first was by Kerrie Roberts and entitled “No Matter What”. Next Kutlass came out with “Even If”. The third and most recent was by Lauren Daegle entitled “Trust In You”.

The common theme among these lyrics is the petition to God that may go unanswered. How do you respond when God doesn’t seem to hear? It’s an idea that goes back as far as the character of Job in his book by the same name in the Old Testament of the Bible.

The theme is addressed in a major way in two early works by Phillip Yancey. In Disappointment with God and Where Is God When It Hurts, Yancey deals with the question of the silence of God. Job experienced it in an excruciating way until he is answered by God in a way that is far from his initial questioning.

Job raised his question with God and never received an answer to his complaint. He simply got humbled. Yancey relates example after example involving people who confronted tragedy, sought the help of God, and did not receive what they sought. Though that is not always what happens, it happens enough to envy the recipient of God’s grace in the following miracle.

Mat 8:1  When Jesus came down from the hill, large crowds followed him.

Mat 8:2  Then a man suffering from a dreaded skin disease came to him, knelt down before him, and said, "Sir, if you want to, you can make me clean."

Mat 8:3  Jesus reached out and touched him. "I do want to," he answered. "Be clean!" At once the man was healed of his disease.

That is the question for all believers of Jesus Christ. It is not an issue of if God can heal. It is a matter of will he heal.

I had already read the books and come to appreciate the music of Roberts and Kutlass before I was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of last year. Cancer is something other people have. It’s something mentioned on prayer concerns list in churches and in conversations among church members. You don’t expect to have your name mentioned in the mix however. I looked back at songs and books and wondered if God was preparing me for what was to come.

No, this is not a sob story. Tests caught the cancer in early stages. The surgery resulted in a complete success. Recovery will take a while but that will give me a little extra time at home to do some additional writing. When I asked Jesus will you heal me, he did using an excellent doctor in the process.

I find it hard to consider myself a cancer survivor. I know those who have fought long and terrible battles to gain that title. I will not come close to what they have had to experience. Yet that statement still hangs in your mind, “I have had cancer.”

Quoting the lyrics of Kutlass, I choose to make the response,

“”You are God, You are good

Forever faithful One

Even if the healing

Even if the healing doesn’t come”

The man who came to Jesus only had doubts in the realm of willingness, never in the realm of ability. Our goal is to glorify God. That may come with healing from the Great Physician. It may come most powerfully in the faithfulness of the believer in the face of silence.

Continuing Thoughts

A little more than five years ago (October 3, 2010), I started this blog. In the last month I have lost the desire to continue it as it was going. At one point I had considered this as an outlet for personal thoughts on a variety of subjects as they surfaced in my life. Somehow that morphed into a stream of “how to” additions that left me empty and feeling like I was saying nothing. With so many experts already in the field where I was writing, I decided I was wasting my time and that of any readers.

After a hiatus of more than a month, it is time for me to start writing again. This time it will be less regimented as to publishing date. Gone is the constraint of writing every Wednesday. It will be less didactical and simply more self-revelatory. The one thing I will continue is to show how my thoughts and development have their roots in the words of the Holy Bible, the word of God.

King Solomon is described as writing thousands of proverbs springing out of his wisdom. He found insight as he watched people and studied nature. Life itself was his teacher. This increase in wisdom came about because he opened his eyes and ears to the world and his spirit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God.

To get the most from this brief existence we call life in this world, we must all do the same. It begins when you are born, and it doesn’t end until you die. We learn from what we take in through our five physical senses and just as much from what we allow to touch our spiritual beings. If we cannot put that in a test tube or under a microscope, that doesn’t mean we are not learning just as much. Perhaps in one sense we are learning the more important lessons of life when we are learning through our hearts rather than through our minds.

Jesus said:

Mat 11:28-30 "Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light."

This journey I began at conception more than six decades ago has been filled with lessons. Many I have missed and will never know what I could have been had I been more sensitive to their presence. Today I am what I am because of the lessons I learned or failed to learn. I am probably richer because of both, not necessarily better, just richer.

Through all that time my greatest teacher has been my Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes he spoke to me through his written word, the Bible. Often he spoke through those Christian saints who have already lived out their years in this mortal life. At times he has led me to see his lessons in the natural world when I was sensitive enough to let those experiences be interpreted through the nature of God.

In the future this blog will take a different form. For any who would take the time to read it, you will see the lessons I have learned and am learning under the tutelage of the Master Teacher. May God bless us both.

Ministers to Each Other

Neil Diamond, an American songwriter, wrote a song entitled “He Ain’t Heavy… He’s My Brother” containing these lyrics,

His welfare is my concern

No burden is he, to bear

We’ll get there

For I know

He would not encumber me

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.

Caring for our brothers, or sisters, or our neighbors, is fundamental to a civilized society. For a social network based upon the teachings of the New Testament and particularly those of Jesus, caring for those we consider family is critical for our relationship with God himself.

Jesus emphasized our responsibility to care for others in scripture.

Mat 22:37-40 Jesus answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Mat 25:35-40 I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.' The righteous will then answer him, 'When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!

The Apostle Paul added these directions for his readers among the churches in Galatia:

Gal 6:9 So let us not become tired of doing good; for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest. So then, as often as we have the chance, we should do good to everyone, and especially to those who belong to our family in the faith.

Within the context of the Bible study small group, such ministry is eminently possible. Members get to know each other in ways a large group in worship or elsewhere never would. Through sharing prayer requests and life experiences, members learn the special needs of others within this developing spiritual family. With this knowledge they seek ways to meet those needs.

The physical needs are most obvious. They may not, however, be the most serious. The pain of surgery is real. Just as real is the pain of a damaged or broken relationship. There is pain in crushed dreams and unrealized expectations. There is pain when a personal value or idea is dragged through criticism as well meaning as that criticism might have been.

The members of the small group family have many paths by which they may be ministers to each other. Different needs call for different skills and different resources. Physical resources may be provided by members as needed. Symbols of encouragement can come in a variety of forms. The most important thing is for the class to remember they have a responsibility to minister to each in the name of Christ.

In times of sickness, meals for the individual and family remove one more thing others in the family need not have as a concern. Sitters allow the family caregiver a chance to get out of the house for a while. An individual or group who is willing to give the time to do chores around the house help the family retain some sense of normalcy.

Nothing is more powerful than the gift of presence. Giving of personal time to be with someone else says simply, “I remember you and I care.” When words are insufficient and material needs do not exist, the presence of an individual who shares compassion can make all the difference in the world.

The small group above all else allows us to minister to one another.

Small Group Prayer Power

 Jesus assured his followers of his presence and the power that would mean as they met together.

Mat 18:20 “For where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them."

In the previous verse Jesus had emphasized the power of agreement in prayer. This is also a great promise, but one that is often abused. There is so much more to effective prayer than a handful of sinful believers agreeing on what they think should happen.

Mat 18:19 "And I tell you more: whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”

Jesus tells us so much more about what is necessary for effective prayer. His words are expanded in the teachings of the writers of the early letters in the New Testament. It is enough to know at this point that Jesus seeks unity among his followers so that their prayers will have the power to fight evil in this world.

The Bible study group, the Sunday School class, must teach its participants the importance of prayer. This is done through Bible study. It is also done through practice. We were not called to study prayer as necessary as that may be. We were called to practice prayer, use prayer, and communicate with our heavenly Father through prayer. Prayer is the lifeline between child and Father, servant and Master.

In the small group the participants can learn to trust one another. Trust is the foundation for honest and vulnerable prayer. In our times of solitary prayer, no one hears but God. In a time of sharing with one other individual, the intimacy is held between just two people. In a small group setting there are more minds listening. There is a great variety of background experiences through which we see the prayer concerns of others.

These background experiences will shape how we respond to the revelations in our group. We must be sympathetic and compassionate. We may be tempted to be judgmental and critical. We can never let this happen as we are all sinners in need of God’s grace. In a spirit of supportive prayer, the members of a small group must be willing to listen and seek the will of the Spirit of God and not an answer according to a personal agenda.

As this openness and vulnerability are practiced within the group, trust is developed. Every individual is seen to be equal in light of their need for God’s intervention through strength and forgiveness. Joining together in group prayer creates a bond among the members as all realize we stand equal before God.

In group prayer praise becomes a corporate activity. The people of God become worshippers through their praise of who God is and how he has revealed himself in creation and especially through his Son Jesus Christ. The group uses prayer to praise God for what he has done in the life of each individual and for the Body of Christ, the Church.

The Bible study group intercedes for each individual member through the use of corporate prayer. One person’s need is lifted up by multiple individuals. Prayer for the individual takes on an added dimension as others reveal they have the same need. God’s intervention is sought for all with a particular concern.

Though more is needed to make prayer in unity effective, that unity is vital. Members of the group all seek the will of God through humbled and vulnerable hearts. The group confesses its own weakness to meet the needs of others. The group seeks the wisdom of God, the strength of God, and the grace of God.

In all this the individual sees the need for a dependency upon the power of God to face each day and everything that day may bring. When the group confesses the need for prayer, the individual sees the need on a personal level. Then the power of prayer becomes more effective for all.