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.

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?

Broken

When the wineglass shattered, rejoicing ensued. Much rejoicing. (See and hear for yourself here). My daughter and I danced, we slapped high fives, and we squealed and shouted so loudly in the detached garage that my wife heard us from inside the house with all the doors and windows closed tight. That shattering glass was our last ditch effort to get some part of her science experiment to work, and after hours and hours of effort and frustration, a short celebration was very much in order.

The experiment was supposed to be relatively easy: use sound to break wineglasses at their resonant frequency. We pummeled a variety of glasses with sound for hours and hours one afternoon with no success. We tried wineglasses; we tried glasses without stems; we even tried a mug. We tried not to get frustrated as the failures mounted.

After nightfall, we set up one more glass, and with the loudspeaker and amplifier cranked to 11, the glass exploded. After all that time, we broke only one glass, but what joy that one brought.

Consider how often God’s message of love and mercy and redemption and peace gets presented, and then rejected, by one person. I sat in church for years like a stout mug, with that message bouncing off my thick head. Just between 1^st grade and the end of high school alone, I probably sat through about 1,000 sermons and Sunday school-type classes. And who knows how many hundreds of thousands of times God tried to get my attention during the rest of my life when I wasn’t even near a church.

How many times did I stubbornly resist? 

How many times have you?

When His message finally resonated with me, I broke down and humbly admitted I needed Him. Apparently, when that happens, Jesus says “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). 

So if my daughter and I get excited enough to dance and holler when one glass breaks after many hours of trying, imagine what the celebration in Heaven is like after years and years, and thousands upon thousands of attempts to get a person to take that step of repentance? “Rejoicing” might be an understatement. Dancing, high fives, and shouts of joy are probably just the beginning. The celebration might be downright raucous.

Have you given those angels something to celebrate?

Boston 2013

(Boston Local 103 IBEW)

My heart got ripped out during the 2013 Boston Marathon. Although we have all anguished over the dead and injured many times after similar, senselessly tragic events, I always had a sense of detachment. They happened somewhere else. I didn’t know anyone directly involved. I’ve never been there.

But having grown up in the Boston area and run The Marathon just last year, the bombings this year became personal. I had been in the crowds and experienced the joyous electricity among the spectators as a kid, and I was finally able to fulfill a lifelong goal of being the focus of that excitement as a competitor in 2012. I can say the commitment and multiple years of training and preparation it takes to get to the starting line as a runner is matched only by the years of commitment and encouragement provided by a runner’s friends and families. Friends and families that were ripped apart for simply offering encouragement – 26.2 miles of beautifully loud and raucous encouragement - where it is needed most.

I keenly understood many aspects surrounding this event, and when I first heard of the bombings, my response was intensely furious. I’ve got to do something! Instinctively, I wanted the perpetrators brought to justice. If I were being honest, I wanted an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, severed limb for severed limb. But, honestly, what could I do?

In 2 Chronicles 20:1-30, the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, is faced with disaster thanks to an impending invasion by overwhelming army, and he’s wondering what to do. “Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord” (v3), and he prayed intensely before concluding with this appeal to God: “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (v12). 

The Lord answered “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out and face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you” (v17). The next day, as the people of Judah “began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes” against the invaders (v22), and the armies completely annihilated each other (v23). There is no mention of Judah’s people lifting a finger during the battle, only their voices. 

Whether it’s an invading army, mad bombers, natural disasters, a cancer diagnosis, bullies, or a host of other things that make hearts quake with fear, what can you do? We cannot control what might happen to us. As Jehoshaphat said, we don’t have any power over those things, and we should acknowledge as much by praying to the One who does.

The only control we have is how we respond to the situation. And if you are searching for victory, that response should include prayer, praise and perseverance, as the Lord does His work.