Your Nose is Like the Tower of Lebanon

Today's reading in The Daily Bible (May 26th for those of you who will want to follow along) is Song of Solomon. If you haven't read Song of Solomon and are unfamiliar with it, its a... ummm... its about... Song of Solomon is a conversation between a lover and a beloved (and some friends who keep chiming in at seemingly inappropriate times). As with much poetry, it is difficult for me to follow exactly what the writer is trying to accomplish in this short book. And the difficulty is compounded by the fact that it is just hard to understand the sultry language that lover and beloved use to woo one another.
The plain cold fact is, if I told my wife, "your nose is like the tower of Lebanon," I would have the honor of sleeping for a couple of days...and when I finally awoke in the hospital room, my vision would be blurry for a few more days. But apparently, for Solomon, the tower of Lebanon is a pretty sexy compliment for a nose back in the day. (Personally, I didn't think there was a really good compliment for a nose - I know its nice to have one, but never found myself really admiring any one's nose.) I also never knew that temples that resemble pomegranates are a turn on. I thought the temple was supposed to be a gentle depression, not a prominent lump on either side of the head. (Turns out Frankenstein's monster is actually devilishly handsome in Solomon's eyes.)
Here's the deal - the language you use isn't really that important when you are conveying your love to someone as long as you communicate. Others may think your words are corny or stupid or funny or outright distasteful, but if your spouse understands you and the love that you are conveying it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. The real tragedy is in failing to communicate. To have a lovely bride and not tell her how beautiful she is in your eye is a good way to lose the intimacy of your marriage. To know the words to say to make your handsome husband feel like a king and never speak them is a good way to prevent your marriage from being the powerful union it could be.
If you haven't yet read "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman, read it. Learn how to speak to your husband or wife in a way that will cement your relationship together. Practice writing a note to her about how beautiful she is. Whisper in his ear how handsome he is to you. Read Song of Solomon together and take turns complimenting each other's features. ("Your waist is a mound of wheat" is another of my favorites.)
Life as I know it is best when I practice telling my wife how beautiful she is. I confess that I don't do it enough. How about you? When is the last time you told your husband or wife how beautiful they are?

Celebrating the Not-Lasts

Its the end of the school year and everyone is looking forward to the last day of school. There will be many "lasts" this week. The last Monday of school. The last Tuesday of school...Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We have already had the last programs. Coupled with the fact that we will be moving in a few weeks, the "lasts" at the end of this school year have seemed to been more poignant than in earlier years. So the actual last day of school will be the last day of this school for our kids...
All of the lasts that have been occurring over the past few weeks have started me thinking about the things before the last. We tend to celebrate the first and the last of everything. The first day of school and the last day of school are days of excitement, but the countless days in between are rarely celebrated. Opening day of baseball season is filled with anticipation and the final game of the world series is remembered, but during the middle of the season the games kind of run together.
If we aren't careful, our life becomes a monotonous drudgery of hanging on until we get to the end of something. Rarely is that type of life fulfilling. The people that inspire you don't meander through days hoping for something else - they take each day and make something good of it. Cal Ripken, Jr. didn't become one of the best known players by taking a day off because he wasn't in the mood to play that day. Brett Favre is respected by his youthful enthusiasm during each game, not just the big ones.
So instead of focusing on the last, focus on the not-lasts. Celebrate each activity, each day and make something of it. And if we do that, then when we have played our last game, we will be proud of our accomplishments.
Life as I know it is lived best when we don't wait until the end to try to live it. Make today count!

The Strength of His Hands

Take a moment to look at your hands. No, really - take a moment to look at your hands...this blog will not go anywhere while you are staring at your hands.
Notice the uniqueness of your hand - from the lines that give your hand character to the fingerprints that are like no other fingerprints in the world, from the callouses that show years of work to the soft pliable folds that can gently caress a tear away. Listen as the scars tell the stories of how they came to be. Remember the hands that your hands have touched and held.
Now then, imagine that you were looking at the hand of Jesus instead of your own hand. Carpenter's hands roughened by years of labor, yet softened by an eternity of loving compassion. Teacher's hands that animatedly punctuated the stories he told. Healer's hands nimble and deft at touching in just the right manner to bring comfort and health. The Savior's hands - rough, soft, animated, lively, nimble, deft...and nailed to the cross.
Can you focus in on Jesus' hand nailed to the cross? Can you imagine the pain of that nail protruding from your own hand? Wouldn't that pain drive you to the point that you would do anything to cause it go away? If it were in your power, wouldn't you pull your hand off of that cross, remove the nail, and walk away?
Isn't that the remarkable thing about God's love shown to us in His son, Jesus Christ? For he did have the power to pull his hand away from the cross. He could have pulled the nail out and walked away. He had the strength, he had the ability, he had the power to escape the cross. But he didn't. Instead of using the strength of his hand to pull away, he used the strength of his hand to stay...suspended on a cross, nailed to a tree, dying for you and me.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." -- Hebrews 12:2

Life as I know it is best when I remember the strength of the Savior's hand and realize that he is capable of holding me safely in his grasp.

Surely He Was the Son of God

Ever been late?
Not the type of late that is the “coming in to class or worship a couple of minutes after it started” type of late. Ever been the type of late that you want to kick yourself for? Like having the realization of the exact words that would have calmed a situation or comforted someone who was hurting – thirty minutes after you said something stupid? Or maybe you were wrapped up in your own little world and didn’t realize that you could have helped someone – until they had turned away and gone down a dangerous path and wouldn’t listen to you anymore?

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!” Matthew 27:54

Of all the people gathered near the cross of Jesus, perhaps the most unlikeliest group we would expect to confess would be the soldiers guarding Jesus. Remember this calloused group of professionals whose job it is to make sure that the condemned die in an efficient, yet brutal manner? They were not looking for anything spectacular. They had no idea who Jesus was. They didn’t know of the rumors or the claims that were being made about Jesus. But the events of the day – the earthquake, the way the rocks split open, the darkness that had enveloped them when the sun should have been shining its brightest – all these things told this brazen group that Jesus was not just a criminal hanging on a cross.
In unison they cry out their cry of worship: “Surely he was the Son of God!”
If only they had realized earlier… perhaps they could have cried out a different song: “Surely he IS the Son of God!”

This morning we gather at this table like we do every week. As a result of its frequency, it can become something that we merely go through with a glazed look and a mind racing toward the afternoon and all the things we have to do today. Before this moment passes us by and we race off to do all the unimportant things we have scheduled for today, stop and take a look around. Listen to the voice of Jesus as he breaks the bread with us. Hear his compassion as he explains the cup of the new covenant.

This morning, let us focus our thoughts and fix our eyes on Jesus. In the few moments that it takes us to eat this bread and drink this cup, let us concentrate our efforts on what this meal means. Let us break the body of Christ and drink the blood of the new covenant with reverent thanksgiving. Let us mourn our sinfulness and stand in awe of God’s grace. Let us confess our specific sins to the Father and feel the warm embrace as he welcomes us to this table and fellowships with us.
We gather around this table to celebrate God’s love shown through Jesus Christ. We gather to remember his death and the life that it brings. We gather to cry out with the soldiers, “Surely he IS the Son of God!”
Don’t let this moment pass without recognizing God’s presence with us.

Change

I'm writing this here to link it to facebook because facebook only allows 420 characters for a status update...and this one will probably be a bit longer.
At the end of June/beginning of July, the information on the side of this blog and the information on the information page on facebook will change. In January I received a call from one of the elders of Garland St. Church of Christ in Plainview, TX. They were looking for a preacher. I quickly told him, "I am not looking for a preaching job." For reasons that I cannot explain, the questions that he asked me and my quick statement that I wasn't looking for a preaching job bothered me. So the next day I wrote a letter to the elders in Plainview saying that I wasn't looking for a preaching job, but if they wanted to look at me they could - because if God was leading us to Plainview, I didn't want to go against what God was leading.
To make a long story shorter, on Monday night of this week the elders called and offered the job and my family has accepted their invitation. We are looking at being in Plainview by July 1st.
So, the things you read in the near future will have to do (I would imagine) with change and moving and saying goodbyes and things like that - if there is time to write. I ask that you keep the church here in Abernathy in your prayers as well as Garland St. and my family.

Perfectly Alright

I remember my dad coaching my little league team one year. As I recall, he was at the meeting and the team needed a coach. He didn't know a lot about baseball, but he coached us. I think about that a lot while I crouch down in the back yard "coaching" Lori as she learns how to pitch softball. (Other thoughts that go through my head while crouched down like a catcher: "I don't think my leg has ever hurt quite like that before," "gonna have to invent some sort of catcher's seat that will propel my body upwards so that I can stand," "please let her chunk one over the fence so she will have to go get it and I can stand for a minute," and "OK, how do you stand when both legs are asleep?") I don't know exactly how to coach her, but I still know a little bit more than her and can see what she's doing that is making the ball miss the mark.

We work on things together. I try to tell her what I'm seeing and offer ways for her to correct her motions so that she can throw more consistently. I constantly encourage her to keep trying. I've tried to notice when her arm starts to get tired so that I can tell her that she will have to concentrate and focus more - hoping that she'll realize that athletic pursuits are also mental pursuits. And I encourage her some more to keep trying, to have a little bit of patience with herself, to focus on the only pitch that matters - the next one.

Through all of this, Lori thinks the goal is to be perfect. She often gets frustrated when she sails one over the fence or rolls one toward some point between third base and home plate. And she also thinks that I expect her to be perfect with every pitch...because I keep holding the glove in the same spot asking her to pitch to that exact same spot over and over and over.

And somewhere in all of this, I've learned that I'm not the only one doing the coaching and Lori isn't the only one being coached. In that crouched down position watching pitch after pitch hit or miss the mark, God is coaching me. The lesson that He's slowly been teaching me is that He's not looking for perfection. He's looking for effort and attitude. He wants me to improve, but He knows I'll never be perfect. And still, He holds the glove in the same spot and asks me to hit the target over and over and over...

Life as I know it is sometimes learned when the knees hurt and the legs fall asleep and the heart swells with the joy of watching a child learn. God calls us to be his children. And if there's one thing I've learned from being a father, its that I love my children. And God desperately wants us to realize how much he loves us.

And Mary Stood Nearby

How often are we called to take our minds back to the cross? How often do we try to imagine that scene? How often does it come out looking like a silhouette or like a scene we saw in a movie once?
This morning I want to ask you to take your minds back just a little ways away from the cross. A little to the side of the cross. Imagine the scene as you hear these words from John’s gospel…
“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother…”

Have you ever seen the cross through her eyes?
Watching your own son die?

Have you ever stood in her place as God offers forgiveness to the world?

We talk freely about God sending his one and only son into the world to save sinners. Somehow we think that God had everything worked out and so it didn’t really hurt him all that much. We figure that God already had the power to destroy death, so what did it really matter that Jesus was going to be dead for a couple of days.
But have you ever seen the sacrifice from Mary’s point of view? She didn’t know he would rise again. She didn’t fully understand the battle that was being fought or the victory that was being won that day. She saw her son – beaten and bloody, hanging, dying, on a cross. Perhaps she remembered the words Simeon had spoken when she and Joseph had taken Jesus to the temple after he was born, “and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

This morning as we gather around this table, let us remember the real sacrifice that was made. Let us remember the pain and anguish of this sacrifice. Let us be touched again by the real, raw, emotions present with us at this table. And let us be thankful that the sacrifice was made that can bring us peace.