Thorns

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When a wild rose grew up and bloomed unexpectedly in the hedge at the edge of our yard, we decided to relocate the rose to a more prominent location near the front of our house. Then, two stems turned into a bush, and its roots began to spread. New stems began sprouting out away from the bush over a larger and larger area, consuming more real estate than we ever intended. The rose bush had to be removed, which meant dealing with thorns.

Although I had thick gloves on to protect my hands, the thorns cut into my forearms and stabbed me in the torso as I wrestled to remove the bush. It’s as if the thorns knew specifically where I had minimal protection, and attacked me in those weak spots.

Some people are referred to as “thorny” for a reason. These are the people we wish we didn’t have to deal with, but just cannot avoid, like classmates, co-workers, clients, neighbors, and maybe even family members. Their words slash us. Their actions tear at us. Sometimes their mere presence intimidates us. And no matter how we try to protect ourselves, our vulnerable spots end up hurt.

We spend an exorbitant amount of time focused on the thorns. We end up thinking about how to avoid them, or confront them, or survive being near them. Thorny people chew up a lot of mental real estate, consuming our thoughts and hindering other parts of our lives because we cannot stop replaying events in our head, exclaiming “I can’t believe what he did!” And the more we retell the story to others – “Can you BELIEVE what he said?!?” - the more established the thorn’s roots become in our minds.

Who is the thorny person in your life? 

Despite the prickly nature of some people, we are supposed to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28). Thorny people should move us closer to Christ because they keep us humble, and provide opportunities to demonstrate His character when it is least expected. 

Loving, doing good, blessing, and praying for those people who hurt us enables us to release our grip on the situation, and place it in Jesus’s hands instead. Thorns only hurt when we wrestle with the rose bush. All that loving and blessing and praying enables us to get a glimpse of how Jesus views that person, and to realize that despite our focus on the parts of the bush that hurt us, every thorn does have a rose.

The Faucet

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The faucet handle blew off as the water erupted, soaking me and drenching the ceiling. In the next room, my wife and daughter erupted with laughter as I dove under the bathroom sink, frantically grasping for the water shut-off handle to stop the geyser.

By no means am I a plumber. You won’t catch me sweating pipe joints. But replacing a washer to stop a leaking faucet is so simple, even I can do it, and have many times before. So, I do know enough to turn off the water leading to the faucet before attempting to unscrew the faucet handle. Usually.

At some point that particular day, between deciding to fix the dripping faucet in the morning and actually attempting to make the fix in the afternoon, I convinced myself that I had, in fact, turned off the water to the faucet. I truly believed the water was off. But, I didn’t bother to verify what position the shut-off handle was in.

When we hear something that seems spiritual or sounds Biblical, how often do we confirm it actually comes from the Bible? When tempting Jesus in the desert, Satan quoted Scripture out of context to help support his lies (Matthew 4:1-11). To fight back, Jesus also quoted Scripture, but correctly. We also need to understand the Bible, so we can distinguish the truth from the quasi-truth or outright falsehood.

Even if they are meant for good intentions, phrases like “God helps those who help themselves,” or “Money is the root of all evil,” or “This too shall pass” sure sound Biblical-ish, but they are not. The website blueletterbible.org has a great collection of sayings not actually found in Scripture. (Small group discussion idea!)

But what other sayings or phrases have we repeated, or believed in, or relied on without confirming they are based on Biblical truth? God may work in mysterious ways (another often-quoted saying not found in the Bible), but He will not contradict Himself. If Satan has the audacity to twist the meaning of Scripture while speaking directly to The Author of Scripture, I don’t think we’re immune to his word twists either. Whether sayings, bits of advice, or words of guidance come from a friend, family, community leaders, or anyone else, we should verify they are based on truth before fully embracing them.

“Test everything,” Paul implores us (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Otherwise, what we believe in could blow up in our face.

Sound of the Psalms

Thanks to Keith Johnson and Life Covenant Church for allowing me to give the sermon back in August.

It's all about communication using descriptions of sound from the Psalms. Trust me, I'm an acoustical engineer.

Sockeye Fishing Lessons

Her smile stretched as large as the sockeye salmon she caught – big, broad, and beautiful. As I scooped my daughter’s fish out of the water for her to see, I thought the tightening net would snap because of the fish’s weight. After years of fishing for trout in the rivers and lakes around Montana, fishing for salmon in Alaska was, literally and figuratively, an entirely different animal.

Our friend Aaron gave us all the same instructions before we started plying the waters. Turns out you don’t trick salmon into biting a hook or a fly. You don’t delicately present your fly in a natural way, hoping not to spook the fish. You don’t select the right pattern or color to dupe them.

Instead, you chuck this mass of metal upstream, where it splashes in like a cannonball. The weights and hook bounce and drag on the bottom, until the river pushes it just pass you. Then you heave the hook horizontally out of the water with a sidearm motion . . . and hope the hook happens to snag an unsuspecting fish in the mouth.

As rough and tumble as it sounds, there is a technique to it, which Aaron explained and demonstrated to all of us many times over the course of two days. When my wife and I were lucky enough to snag a fish, however, his instruction evaporated from our minds, and we reverted back to what we knew – trying to land a trout. The result: lots of Aaron’s tackle lost, and no fish.

But my daughter’s brain, and the brain of most kids, is like a chalkboard. Her little mental eraser wiped away the instructions about catching trout once Aaron started explaining how to catch salmon, and new instructions appeared. She approached salmon fishing like the child she is - innocent and unencumbered by any preconceived notions or I-know-what-I’m-doing pride, unlike us adults.

Jesus said we need to receive the kingdom of heaven like a little child (Luke 18:17). To do so, we adults need to wipe away all the clutter of what we think heaven should be like, and what we think we should be doing to serve Him. We just need to accept His personal instruction for us, act on it, and be patient. Otherwise, we’ll end up thwarted, frustrated and angry, which is not a good combination for getting into heaven, and apparently, not good for catching sockeyes either.

My Aching Big Toe

It all started when the cast iron griddle fell off the shelf and onto my foot, striking just above my left big toe. No bones broke or fractured, but then again, nothing was ever quite right after that either. Even though it happened over a year ago, my toe still aches from time to time when I land on it just the wrong way.

And when my toe is in pain, I’ll shift my gait ever so slightly to try and lessen that pain. That puts odd stress on my left ankle. Which means my left hip starts to bother me. Then I’ll put more pressure on my right leg as I limp to compensate, which causes my right knee to act up. Which means my back gets thrown out of alignment because I end up moving in this weird, herky-jerky motion as I hobble around. Who knew my big toe could make me a physical wreck?

A foot problem causes a chain reaction that wreaks havoc with many, many other parts of your body, primarily because the toes and the foot are intended to provide stability to the rest of you. They are the foundation on which you stand, and if they have a problem, you won’t stand correctly for long.

What are you standing on, thinking it will hold you up? The stock market, job, social status, bank account, friends or family name? They might not be as stable over the long term as you think. People shift. Seasons change. Things happen. So what or who do you rely on for stability when little things go wrong, and start adding up to bigger and bigger problems, wreaking havoc with your life?

Jesus said a person who comes to Him, hears His words and puts them into practice “is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it because it was well built” (Luke 6:47-48).

In other words, no matter what trouble comes your way, with Jesus as your rock-solid foundation to stand on, you won’t have to go limping through life.

Litton

The story of Kip Litton is amazing. In the August 6, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, Mark Singer details just how amazing, as this dentist went from overweight to running marathons. Inspired, he set out to finish a marathon in less than three hours in each state. To cover 26.2 miles in under three hours, while not utilizing transportation with wheels, is a difficult and significant accomplishment. To do it repeatedly is astounding.

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Litton started and maintained his own website to chronicle his feats, which initially went unnoticed. However, for about a year when he was 48, he averaged about one marathon per month, and traveled all over the country to race. In many of these races, he finished near the top of his age group. Incredibly, he actually won the West Wyoming Marathon outright.

And people did begin to take notice of Litton’s performances. People like the overall fourth-place finisher at the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon. Litton’s time put him in third place overall. But the fourth place finisher was actually in third place at the halfway point, and he swore he did not get passed during the last half of the race. He would have noticed, too – the last half of the course consisted of a six-foot wide trail.

Other runners, bloggers and race directors failed to find Litton in the myriad of photographs taken during races, except at specific timing checkpoints. People sleuthing the internet eventually figured out Litton fabricated the entire West Wyoming Marathon that he supposedly won, from creating the event website, to inventing the names of the other “participants” and their times.

Litton was exiting each course between timing checkpoints, utilizing transportation with wheels to travel to the next checkpoint, and then re-entering the race. Once he crossed through the checkpoint, he repeated the process. He was cutting the course, which is a running term for “cheating.”

As Singer concludes, “Litton’s story could have been a small but admirable one: an out-of-shape Midwestern dentist who transformed himself into a competitive marathoner. But he had insisted on transforming himself further, inventing a heroic avatar, ‘Kip Litton,’ that couldn’t be sustained.” Singer continues, “But whatever glory he felt was surely short-lived” as people exposed him as a fraud.

What stories are we spinning to impress people, stories based on deception and cheating, which only require more cheating and more deception to maintain? What front or what mask are we putting up for people to see, when the truth is actually very different? Whether stories or facades, they are still lies.

Maybe we’re fooling those people now, but we can’t sustain it. Frauds do ultimately get exposed. As it says in the Message translation of Numbers 32:23, “You can be sure that your sin will track you down.” 

And then the story won’t be so amazing.