Smile

Can you predict a person’s future based on their smile? In a 2011 TED Talk, Ron Gutman summarized the results of some smile research. For example, one study looked at pre-1950 baseball cards, and measured a player’s smile. The average lifespan of a player with no smile turned out to be 72.2 years, but if a player was beaming, he had lived to a ripe ol’ 79.9 years. The bigger the smile, the longer the player had lived.

In another study cited by Gutman, smiles in yearbook pictures were compared to the success and well-being of those students throughout their lives. The researchers were able to predict how fulfilling and long-lasting their marriages were, how well a student performed on tests of well-being, and how inspiring a student was to others. The bigger the smile, the higher the student’s level of success had turned out to be.

Looking back at my high school yearbook picture above, I think Mr. Gutman would say I am doomed. And you would probably agree, if this was the only picture of me you ever saw. However, it is only one snapshot of one second during what had to be one very bad day for me. After all, I was forced to wear (gasp!) a tie.

Since the picture is of me, I know more about the subject than anyone else, and can definitely say the picture is not indicative of the rest of my story. The truth is, I actually enjoyed high school, and nearly every other picture in the yearbook with me in it demonstrates that somehow. Horsing around with teammates, goofing around with friends, and yes, even cracking the occasional smile. Yet, if that picture was the only thing you knew about me, you’d probably say I was destined to be the grumpy, miserable failure I appeared to be at that moment.

The good news is God already knows the rest of my story, and the rest of your story, too. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’“ (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV). 

The future looks good, regardless of whether you’re smiling at any given instant or not.

Is this the Best You've got?

How do you relate potty-training, lousy sale offers, and Godzilla to the story of Cain and Abel? Better have a listen to sort this all out.


Thanks to Life Covenant Church for letting me speak this past weekend.

Lou Swanson

“I can see your name is Lou,” the TV reporter confidently stated as he approached my grandfather outside of his beach cottage. The reporter looked up at the “Lou’s Haven” sign over the cottage door, and continued, “Can I get your last name, too, and then ask you a few questions?” He had come to do a story about some recent happenings at the beach, and had seen my grandfather puttering around outside.

All the beach cottages had names. Lou’s Haven sat next to the Patricia Lee and the Silver Sands, just down from the Pilot and the Open Deck, near the Summer Place and the Sandbox. In my grandfather’s case, Lou built the cottage. Lou named the cottage. Lou sold the cottage to my grandparents. But my grandfather was not Lou.

So with a mischievous gleam in his eye, my grandfather – Joe Connolly – responded, “Swanson. With an ‘O’. Lou Swanson,” and then proceeded to answer the reporter’s questions.

That night, after the segment aired with Joe Connolly’s face and “Lou Swanson” emblazoned across the bottom of the screen, the calls flooded in to my grandparents. Lou Swanson? Everyone wanted to know, why Lou Swanson? My grandfather’s response: “Well, the reporter didn’t seem interested in my real name, so I said ‘OK. Have it your way.’”

And my way is typically right on par with that reporter – making snap judgments and inferring things before gathering all the facts, before asking questions, and without taking time to listen. We are supposed to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19), but we tend to reverse the two so we are quick to speak and slow to listen.

I mean, who’s got time to be patient these days while someone drones on and on and on about their situation or what they are going through. Can’t we can make a few quick assumptions after they’ve said a couple of words, and solve the problem in three speedy bullet points? I’ve got a full schedule here! Time to move on to the next issue already!

How can you tell if you’re not listening? When you start finishing someone’s sentences for them, when you start thinking “Oh, I know where this is going” as someone starts talking, and when you assume someone’s name is Lou. 

Take heed and listen up, because as the Message Bible so eloquently puts it, “Answering before listening is both stupid and rude” (Proverbs 18:13).

Understatement

ESA/Hubble

According to the Creation account in the NIV translation, God used:

• 13 spoken words to create about 1,800,000,000 cubic miles of sky, 

• 16 words to form approximately 57,500,000 square miles of land and 139,400,000 square miles of ocean, 

• 25 words to craft roughly 321,000 species of plants,

• 20 words to make about 31,300 species of fish and 10,000 species of birds, and

• 25 words to fashion approximately 1,264,000 land-based vertebrate animal species and millions species of insects (Genesis 1:6-24 and Wikipedia).

In addition to the words God spoke to create, there is this very footnote-esque statement during Day 4 of creation: “He also made the stars” (Genesis 1:16). Five simple words that refer to, oh, about 400,000,000,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone, and possibly 100 sextillion (that’s the number 1 followed by 23 zeros) stars in the entire universe.

The creation numbers are staggering, incomprehensible and unfathomable. I mean, how can God use so few words to create so much? Each step in the creation process is an understatement of Biblical proportions.

If it were me, I’d be holding press conferences, bragging, and posting millions of selfies on the internet to draw attention to myself and what I had done. But God? Not so much. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). One of those divine qualities is humility, since He let His creation speak about Him. No boasts. No need for attention. No grandiose verbiage.

And His humility was on display that first Christmas Day. Rather than choosing to make a lavish and impressive show to accompany the birth of His son - the King of Kings and Lord of Lords - God chose the humblest surroundings. Surroundings unworthy of someone destined to change the course of world history. Surroundings that were probably dark, dirty, and reeked of manure, since Mary placed the baby Jesus in a feeding trough (Luke 2:7). And instead of splashing the news all over the world, angels announced the birth to shepherds, one of the humblest professions (Luke 8-15).

We often get confused when our expectations are not met, something I’m always reminded of at Christmas. This Christmas, remember that flashy, glitzy, attention-grabbing events and gifts may not be nearly as meaningful or profound as something simple and understated. Consider the example of God, who created a sextillion things with a few words, and changed the world with an infant.

What if . . .

My eyes snapped open when I heard it. I had been starting to doze off on a bus tour as part of a professional conference. My mind lazily wandered from one foggy, disconnected thought to the next. Looking out the window as the bus chugged down the highway, I caught a glimpse of a sign for an approaching exit, and recognized the name of the town.

A girl I went to college with had grown up in that town. My thoughts drifted back to years ago, and I remembered, recounted and reminisced as my eyes drooped. Then my mind switched to questions: What’s she’s doing? Where is she now? What if things had turned out different …?

Anything can trigger a memory. These reminders conjure up thoughts, feelings and emotions that range from comforting to spine-tingling. A certain song prompts you to remember a specific event. A smell reminds you of Grandma’s kitchen. A unique sound transports you back to the place where you first heard it.

In my case, it was a simple place name that caused my thoughts to meander. But I was a different person back in college, with different priorities, different thoughts, and different motivations.

Where does your mind go when it wanders? Ever catch yourself wondering or dreaming or hoping things could’ve been different or better? There is a danger in letting our thoughts repeatedly return to the past, especially if that past did not include God. If we continually dwell on what was, then we begin to lose focus on where we are right now, and lose sight of where we want to go.

So before my thoughts drifted too far off the road with my “What if …?” question, I heard “Then you wouldn’t know me.” Like sudden, strong gust of wind, the Lord snapped me back to the present tense, and the fog blew away with His answer. I was instantly awake, alert, and looking around to see who on the bus was invading my thoughts.

Once we know the Lord, He will provide corrections to our course as needed. Which is why Isaiah says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (30:21).

Are you listening?

Faith

www.crh.noaa.gov

The fog would roll in like a magician, eventually making things invisible. From my grandparents oceanfront cottage, I marveled as the fogbank washed the colors out of other cottages further down the beach, turning them gray until they finally disappeared.

The fog enveloped our cottage too, but it never seemed as thick and dramatic as it did down the beach. As a boy, I wanted to be in the thick fog, not the flimsy, wispy fog around our place. I always wanted to walk down to at least the O’Brien’s cottage; it always seemed to vanish. I thought about how cool it would be to go there and not be able to see my hands at the end of my extended arms.

So, I’d wander with my bemused grandaunt down the beach, but could never quite get into The Fog, even in front of the O’Brien’s place. The truly dense, thick, exciting fog always seemed to be somewhere else, just out of reach. 

Nowadays, I read Chapter 11 in the Book of Hebrews, the Faith Hall of Fame, and I can hear that same little boy, wondering and longing. Wouldn’t it be cool to move to some strange land at God’s direction like Abraham, not knowing what is going to happen. Or spearhead a huge, building project like Noah. Or be part of some unbelievable miracle, like the Israelites passing through the Red Sea or making the walls of Jericho crumble.

In the verse immediately following his Hall of Fame list, Paul writes, “since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). The inductees to the Hall of Faith are not literally enveloping us like a fog bank. Their stories are held up as examples, to bear witness, of what awesome and incredible things are possible through faith in God.

Things so incredibly awesome, they seem out of reach.

However, we don’t have to go very far to demonstrate our faith. God hasn’t called us all to be missionaries to a foreign land, or to inspire great crowds of people, or to be a miracle worker. But He has made us parents and spouses and children and acquaintances and employees and friends and business owners. 

And thanks to those relationships and connections, we don’t have to go wandering off to be in the thick of abundant opportunities. There are plenty of chances to display the calm confidence that faith generates, right where we are.