Truth Decay

"Truth Decay"
John 16:12-15


“...the Spirit of the Truth comes, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.”

If ever we needed the Spirit of Truth, it is now.  During his trial, Jesus said to Pilate, “I was born and entered thew world so that I could witness to the truth.  Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice” (John 18:37-38).  To which, Pilate gave his famous response,  “What is truth?”  Such is the bewilderment of our day--Pilate’s question seems to be everyone’s question.

Just pay attention to the news.  The IRS scandal, and how they made intruded on the privacy of individuals and certain groups.  Who knew what was going on and when did they know it, and who’s behind it?  What’s the truth?
The attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi--why was security so lax, and who’s spinning what story for what political purpose?  What’s the truth?
Is the planet’s climate past the tipping point, and heading for disaster due to global warming?  What’s the truth?
There was even a story about how it really wasn’t Yoko Ono who broke up the Beatles.  That it was John Lennon.  What’s the truth?

A group of students at Harvard once tried to fool the famous professor of zoology, Louis Agassiz.  The students took parts from a number of different bugs and, with great skill, attached them together to make a creation they were sure would baffle their professor.

They brought it to Agassiz and asked that he identify it.  As he inspected it with great care, the students grew more and more sure they had tricked this genius.  Finally, Professor Agassiz straightened up and said, “I have identified it.”  Scarcely able to control their amusement, the student asked it’s name.  Agassiz replied, “It is a humbug.”

Isn’t that what happens in most instances concerning the truth?  A lot of divergent pieces are carefully, sometimes deviously, stuck together, and dished up through the already skewed media as the “truth.”

Even the church is not devoid of its own brand of humbug.  Ongoing debates about Creationism and Evolution, the ordination of homosexual leadership into the church, whether the Bible is the word of God without errors, was Jesus Christ the Son of God or one of many?  And on and on.  All these issues are fracturing the church and the world, and one of the main reasons is we’re not sure where the truth lies.  And those who say they are absolutely sure they know the truth, are some of the scariest people out there.

Doesn’t it get frustrating?  Don’t you wish someone would just come out and be honest about these kinds of things, especially the news stories coming out of the political arena.

It’s kind of like the guy who was on the outs with his golf partner.  “Why don’t you play golf with George anymore?” Pete’s wife asked.
“Would you play with a fellow who puts down the wrong score, and moves the ball when you aren’t watching?” Pete asked.
“No, I certainly wouldn’t,” she responded.
“Well, neither will George.”

It’s amazing how disruptive a lack of truthfulness, and trying to move things around when you think no one is watching, can be to a relationship.

There is an equal sickness, that I just alluded to, on the opposite side of this coin of truth.  That is, thinking you have a corner on the truth, and then pushing something over as the absolute truth, and everyone who disagrees with you is just stupid or ignorant or both.

In August, 1835, the New York Sun newspaper began running a series of articles that would, in the space of two months, increase its circulation by many thousands.

The first article described a new telescope so powerful that the surface of the moon appeared to be only five miles away.  14 species of animal life had been observed on the moon, the inventor of the telescope reported.  These animals resembled buffalo, goats, pelicans, cranes, and bears.

The final article in the series proved to be the most sensational.  The inventor of this huge telescope claimed that he had adjusted his instrument so that the surface of the moon appeared to be less than 300 feet away.  He said he could see four foot tall creatures with faces like apes and wings that extended from their shoulders to the calves of their legs.

The articles were so well written that they were reprinted in pamphlet form and sold over 60,000 copies in one month.  Even the New York Times was taken in and declared the information the truth.  A women’s club began raising money to send missionaries to the moon.

Not too long after that, the truth came out that it was all a hoax.  The series of articles was denounced, but not before thousands of people had accepted the story as scientific fact.  Just Google “The Great Moon Hoax” and you can read all about it.

Makes you wonder how many other hoaxes we continually fall for, especially with such tools as photoshop and computer enhanced graphics that can completely fabricate pictures, video and movies, and make it look absolutely real and “the truth.”

  The same things happens in religion, especially in Christianity and Islam, where some nut looks through their private telescope, right into God’s mind, and starts telling people he or she knows exactly what God thinks, what God wants people to do, what God wants everyone to believe, or how God wants people to act.

So what does Jesus mean when he says the Spirit will guide us into all truth?  Does it mean we’ll be able to see through all the shams and phony-baloney that are served up as the truth?

After the fishermen returned from a day’s outing, the rest of the family gathered around to check out their catch.  As the fish were compared, Grandpa, whose luck was usually poor, was being teased.  “Aw, c’mon, Grandpa,” one of the grandkids said.  “You didn’t catch those fish.  You bought them at the supermarket.”

All of Grandpa’s protests were ignored until a daughter-in-law finally came to his rescue.  “I believe him,” she said.  “I know he caught them himself.”  Grandpa, beaming unwarily, asked her to tell everyone why she believed him.  “They don’t sell fish that small in the supermarket,” she answered.

Or, there was a pub in a small college town that was popular with the students.  They ran an ad in the campus newspaper a week before Graduation weekend:  “Bring your parents for lunch on Saturday.  We’ll pretend we don’t know you.”

Seeing the ad, the campus chaplain ran a similar ad on the campus bulletin boards.  It read, “Bring your parents to chapel on Sunday.  We’ll pretend we know you!”

So maybe that’s a part of what Jesus meant--having a certain wisdom to see through things with double messages, or only are partially true.  Maybe being guided into all truth by the Spirit of God is see what’s true when truth and falsehood are all mixed together.  The Spirit gives us the ability to distinguish.  But ultimately, it seems to me, that would lead us to be somewhat skeptical people, always assuming we are never looking at the whole or unadulterated truth.  And maybe that is the truth--nothing ever is completely true.

Wouldn’t we rather be searchers of the truth?

The significant word in Jesus’ statement may not be “truth.”  Maybe the more important word is “guide.”  The Spirit of God will guide us into all truth.  Buckminster Fuller, the futuristic architect and philosopher once said that, “Truth is a verb.”  That way truth is something active, rather than static.  In other words, truth is not a neatly wrapped up package of knowledge and facts, but more a hide-and-seek game.  We use phrases like, “the quest for truth,” or, “finding out the truth,” or, “getting at the truth.”

In the movie, Missing, Jack Lemmon plays an American business man by the name of Edmond Horman.  Horman’s son was missing in a South American country, after a violent overthrow of the government in that country.  At one point in the movie, Horman discovers our own government officials have been lying to him about the whereabouts of his missing son.

Horman is a religious man.  He comes at the craziness and the lies from the quiet and calm that his beliefs bring him.  An American embassy worker went to a church to pick up Horman.  The worker interrupts Horman’s devotional time and prayer.  The official asked Horman what religion is all about.
“It’s about faith,” Horman replies.
“Faith in what?” the young official persists.
“Faith in the truth,” Horman replied.

Is that what Jesus is getting at?  Is Jesus asking his followers to have a faith in God which embodies a faith in the truth?  That the two are inseparable?

The 18th century playwright, Goethold Lessing said, “If an angel were to appear to me and in one hand he would hold “the truth” and in the other hand “the pursuit of truth,” and if he offered me a choice, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to choose “the pursuit of truth.” Know-it-alls learn nothing more.  Pursuers of truth have the most fun in life.”

The church, and Christians in particular, can live in the truth only if they are pursuers of the truth.  Only God is the truth.  Therefore finding the truth is in the pursuit of God.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  Notice the company in which the word truth finds itself.  Way--which is a path or a road or a direction one travels.  You don’t stop on a way.  You keep going.  That’s what a way is for--to travel on.

And “life.”  Life is something lived.  Something active.  Something you do.  Something you also pursue.  Truth is found in the company of way and life, all three active words of pursuit and travel, not being sedentary, inactive or stationary.

Remember, Jesus said we can be guided into truth.  But we can only be guided when we are living and moving and on the way.  Truth, and being guided in truth is not an, “I found it!” kind of experience, where once you think you’ve got it you can sit down right where you’re at and search no more.  Instead, the truth is more of an, “I am finding it” experience, where one discovery spurs you on to find more, which motivates you to keep up the search.

Of course that doesn’t mean that what we have come to know of the truth of God’s ways in the past was any less valuable or has somehow become less relevant.  What it does mean is that what we knew before provided a valuable stepping stone to what we now discover about God and God’s truth, and what we will continue discover as we live the life of God and follow always on his way.

The alternative, of course is to guided by untruth.  Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov was asked in an interview about the kinds of adjustments he had to make after defecting from his native Russia.
“Most of all,” he answered, “I had to learn to tell the truth again.  In Russia, you lie all the time, not only in what you say but in the way you live and do your work.  If you don’t, you won’t work at all, and you might not live very long.  Everything is so different when you come into an open society where, generally, people are not threatened by the truth.  Along with telling the truth, I had to learn to trust people again.  When you have to lie and you know everybody else has to do the same thing, you don’t know whom you can trust--so you don’t trust anybody.”

Imagine living like that.  No truth, no trust.  How fundamental the value of truth is on a relationship and society as a whole.  The only way to value the truth in all things, and the only way to come to the truth, is by the guidance of the Spirit.  To immerse yourself in the Holy Spirit, is to be immersed in the truth, no matter how hard it is to face.  To be guided by the Spirit into the full truth is to live fearlessly and courageously and expectantly, because we have come to the truth through the Holy Spirit, and the pursuit of that truth can truly set us free.

Learn To Speak The Language

"Learn To Speak The Language"
Acts 2:1-13


I’d like you to imagine something.  Close your eyes, if you would.  It’s a hot day out.  Hot like it’s been this week.  You’ve been working out in your yard for a couple of hours.  In the heat.  You’re feeling the redness in your cheeks and neck and arms.  You are hot and sweaty.

Unbeknownst to you, a little boy sneaks up behind you with a couple of ice cubes.  He presses those cubes into the skin on your hot back and shoulders.  He rubs it all around.  You squeal and scream and maybe even yell a little.

Now, open your eyes.  Did anyone feel their back arch a little as I described the ice cube hitting your hot skin?  Did your back muscles cringe and tighten?

That is the impact and power of language through the imagination.  I created an image.  You recreated that image in your imagination.  Maybe some of you even felt that image being played out on your skin as if it were actually happening.

I did all that through words.  It was simply the words I spoke that carried and controlled the power of those images.

What would happen if I said the same thing but in this way.  Close your eyes again, and see if you can imagine this image.

A young human male, holding a cube-shaped block of super refrigerated hydrogen and oxygen molecules, began dripping some of those molecules onto the anterior side of your anatomy, striking the solar heated epidermis of your physique and allowing those liquified molecules to run down latitudinally upon the surface of your epidermis.

OK, open your eyes.  Anyone get a cringe of excitement from those images?  A tingly feeling?  Why not?  I said the exact same thing as I did before.  I just used different words, was all.  But it all means the same.  But it just didn’t communicate as powerfully.  Maybe if I was one of the characters on the TV show, “Big Bang Theory,” the second image would have been more powerful.

Or what if I said the same thing as I did the first time, only in Russian or Norwegian.  How many of you know either of those two languages?

In order to create powerful images, in order to have impact with your words, you need to:
1.  know your own language
2.  know the language of the listener(s)
3.  if one and two are different, how to translate the one into the other.


In the first chapter of Acts, as Jesus is getting ready to go back to Father God, he tells his disciples, “But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power.  Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world” (1:8).

I’d have liked to been there and seen the disciples faces.  Did they stop, even for a moment, and wonder what Jesus was actually saying to them?  Surely, one of them did.  Did they assume, like many who have never made it out of the continental United States, that there would be lots of people who speak the same language we do?  We’ll get along fine, we think; certainly there will be somebody who speaks English.  Even within our own country, within cities, with other English speaking people, really communicating can be difficult.

So did the disciples stop and think about Jesus’ statement?  How did they expect to communicate with people “everywhere in the world”?  Especially about the Good News of the Gospel.

I want you to put your imagination hats back on, and imagine another scenario.  Imagine that you are unchurched.  Some of you were, before you became a Christian.  You had no idea what “church” was.  You don’t know what people do there, on Sunday morning.  Someone says to you, maybe a family member, “You oughta go.  Check it out.  See how you like it.”

So you do.  The next Sunday morning, you wander into a sanctuary, much like this one, and sit down.  What is the “language” of the interior of the sanctuary?  The stained glass.  The pipe organ.  The pews.  The pulpit.  How is someone who has never been in here supposed to decipher the language, simply of the architecture?

And then the minister stands up and starts talking.  Words you have never heard before, in any other context, start coming out of his or her mouth.  It’s like you’ve been plopped down in a foreign country.

We who are here, who have been here for years, decades maybe, know the language.  We know the vocabulary of the Christian faith.  We have our own way of speaking and acting, that is unlike anything out there.  But we expect every visitor to understand what’s going on when they come in this place.  We expect that they just know the vocabulary and the language of what we are doing and what we are saying.  But it’s the same as if we traveled to inland China.  How out of place we would feel!

Many of us know our religious verbiage fairly well.  The problem is we cling to it so tightly, thinking this is the only way to speak religiously, or as a Christian, that we don’t find ways to “translate” it into other “languages” or contexts.

Anyone read the religious column in the paper?  I get frustrated with my comrades in ministry who fill that column with in-house religious verbiage that, in my mind, fails to communicate with impact.  Half of any community is unchurched.  So how is half of Pratt supposed to understand what’s written in that column?

Each person, each group of people, each organization, each “culture” if you will, no matter how large or how small, have their own language.  Each has, not only its own vocabulary, but also its own way or style of communicating that vocabulary.

In a couple of my summers between my college years, I worked construction as a laborer.  One summer day in Seattle, one of the carpenters said to me, “Hey! Hand me that international screwdriver over there!”  After about 5 minutes of searching through his tools, he finally got exasperated and said, “The hammer, you idiot.  Don’t they teach you nothin’ in college, college boy?”  Well, I knew some things.  I just didn’t know the language, and how to translate it.

There’s the old story about the prison inmates that numbered all their jokes.  One guy out in the yard would shout out a number and everyone would laugh.  A little while later, another number was called out and laughter would again erupted.  One of the new inmates thought he’d give it a try.  He shouted out a number, “19!”  No one laughed.  A little while later, he shouted out, “37!”  They just stared at him with straight faces.

The new guy went over to one of the lifers and said, “Why doesn’t anyone laugh when I call out a number?”
“Some people,” said the old guy, “just don’t know how to tell a joke.”

And there’s the problem.  Some people just don’t have any impact with their language because they either don’t know their own, don’t know any other ways to say things, or, if they do, aren’t willing to make the jump into saying it differently.  Think of the “cultures”, the different contexts in which you live each day.  How would you “tell everyone about Jesus” in those contexts so they’d understand?

Fortunately, we have help.  This is one of the main roles of the Holy Spirit, given at Pentecost.  The role of the Holy Spirit, all through the Bible, is the role of creativity.  The Spirit hovered over the chaos at creation and created something out of nothing.

So, are we willing to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit who can speak something, even when we think there’s nothing within us to work with?  The Holy Spirit gives us the creative capability, even when there is no hint of ability.  Imagine being able to communicate with anyone, any where, just like that.

The reason for the Spirit’s help in this work is to tell people about Jesus.  It isn’t so we can go out and impress our friends:  “Hey, listen to this!”  The Holy Spirit doesn’t help us in this respect so we can order food in a fancy French restaurant.  This gift isn’t given so we can go out and get a job at the United Nations.

The Holy Spirit helps us communicate one thing:  Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit helps us say things, that when we are done saying them, wonder, Where did that come from?  That ever happen to you?  How did I ever think to say that? you may wonder.  Well wonder no more.  It’s all the Holy Spirit who is giving you the ability to speak across cultures about the wonders of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

We can have such an impact!  First, know your own language.  Know Christ.  Know the ways of Christ.  Know the message about Christ that we have to speak.  Secondly, know the language of your listeners.  Have the sensitivity to listen how they communicate, rather than expect them to first learn yours.  And lastly, with the special assistance of the Holy Spirit who gives us such remarkable abilities, translate our Good News of Jesus in a way that makes sense to those others.

You Know It's A Bad Day When...

"You Know It's A Bad Day When..."
Acts 16:16-40


If you’re not sure if you’re having a bad day, someone has compiled a list of you you can tell it’s a bad day:

You come to work and your boss tells you not to bother taking your coat off.
Your car horn goes off accidentally and sticks on the freeway behind a group of Hell's Angels.
You turn on the morning news and they are showing emergency routes out of the city.
Your twin sister forgets your birthday.
Your 4-year-old tells you that it's almost impossible to flush a grapefruit down the toilet.
Your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife/ex-husband.
You call your wife and tell her that you would like to eat out tonight and when you get home there is a peanut butter sandwich on the front porch.
Your doctor tells you that you are allergic to chocolate chip cookies.
You realize that the phone number on the bathroom wall in the bar is yours.
Your kid’s school calls and surrenders.
You look out the window of the airplane and the B.F. Goodrich Blimp is passing you.
The gypsy fortune teller offers to refund your money.
You have to hitch hike to the bank to make your car payment.
Your suggestion box starts ticking.
You're so bored you play hide-and-seek by yourself.

For Paul and Silas, they knew it was going to be a bad day when they started out for the place of prayer.  That woman was back again.  She was following them around and shouting.  She had been at it for days.  Paul and Silas may have realized it was going to be a bad day.  But little did they realize how much worse it can get, and how fast it can get that way.

It started out innocently enough, as most bad days do.  This the continuation of the story in Acts from last weeks message.  Their day was begun with high Christian aspirations.  Paul, Silas and Luke would go to the place where the few Jewish people prayed each morning, down by the river, just outside the city walls.

Paul needed to make contact with what Jews were there.  His desire was to share the Good News of the Gospel with them.  But Paul also needed them so he could keep doing what he was doing.  Each religion practiced in the Roman Empire needed permission from the government to do so.  The Christian faith hadn’t received such permission.  So Paul and Silas needed to get in with the Jews wherever they went to use the Jewish religion's governmental approval as an umbrella to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Lydia, an astute business woman who sold purple material was one of the early converts.  She later became pivotal to the spread of the Gospel in that area, her home a center for Christian worship.

But there was another woman.  This weird woman who kept following the men around, shouting.  There was a snake cult religion in Philippi that worshipped pythons.  This woman was caught up in that cult big time.  Her owners may have been priests in that cult, using her fortune-telling abilities to raise money for their religion.  Certainly you don’t want to start your day until you’ve heard your horoscope.

Now it wasn’t that what the woman was shouting was untrue.  She was speaking the truth:  Paul, Silas and Luke were servants of God, showing people the way of salvation.  But there are ways you can speak the truth, that nullify the truth you have just spoken.  It’s one thing to say:  (in a voice of awe) These men are servants of the Most High God!  They are telling you how to be saved!”  It’s another to say the same thing, like this: (in a high, screechy voice)  These men are servants of the Most High God!  They are telling you how to be saved!”

I think you can imagine how irritating that would get.  Day after day.  Her screeching would distract the crowds who listened to Paul and Silas preach.  She would have been enough to turn off the people who listened.  Which was probably the intention of the snake woman’s owners.  Paul and Silas preached a message of real power, competing for an audience awash in snake oil shysters.

Instead of having the woman kidnapped by a cult deprogrammer, or carried away by men in white coats to the nearest mental institution, Paul does what most of us do not feel equipped to do:  in the name of Jesus Christ, he jerked the evil spirit out of her.

That really irritated the venture capitalists who had made an investment buying this girl and keeping her in business.  Jesus can be bad for business, you know, if you’re in the wrong kind of business.

Up to this point, Paul and Silas probably weren’t sure if anyone was listening to his preaching or not.  So far, he had only made inroads with a few Jewish women.  But once the fortune-telling woman is relieved of her demon, Paul found out in a hurry that the ones behind this woman were listening intently.  And if Paul was going to play hardball with their little python cult business venture, then they were going to play hardball with Paul and Silas.

The day was just about to take a nose dive for the worse.

The snake oil people got Paul and Silas promptly arrested for propagating a religion unapproved by the Roman government.  The python cult leaders were able to create quite a backlash, literally for Paul and Silas.  Their clothes were ripped off, and their backs were beaten with the lash within inches of their lives.  Keep in mind, please, why it is that Paul and Silas were being treated so brutally.

Through grimacing tears, with each land of the lash, Paul saw at the front of the crowd, a girl.  Tears in her own eyes.  Her own now clear eyes, no longer fogged in by the presence of her demon.  She was the reason Paul and Silas were being beaten.  Once held captive, she was now free thanks to them.  Once free, Paul and Silas were now captive, thanks to her.

The terrible juxtaposition of grace.  The irony of grace, of the whole spectacle, was not lost on her.  Or Paul.

Paul watched her.  She watched him.  In his look, in his face, she saw the vision of what she was now free to be.  As she looked into his eyes, she saw that he, better than anyone, knew how powerful a vision of freedom in Christ can be.

No longer a gold mine, stripped of her demon, she was worthless to anyone--except God.  She didn’t understand any of it.  Yet.  Paul watched her, as the last lash landed across his shredded back, as she turned, and was swallowed by the crowd.  Another soul embraced by Christ, he hoped.

Paul and Silas, energy and blood drained, were dragged to the innermost cell in the prison.  A mixture of urine, dried blood, and defecation from so many prisoners before them, slapped them in the face.

Their wrists and ankles were blocked to the stocks.  Their hamburgered backs rubbing against the rough, cold, stone wall.

When the thick wooden door slammed shut, so went all light.  In the utter darkness, emasculated, neither Paul or Silas could ask each other, “Are you all right?” Or, “How’s your day going?”  In the darkness, the answer was clear.

Locked down, in the innermost, darkest, scummiest part of the prison, with the tormenting stinging, the throbbing pain of the wounds on their backs.  For what?  Being a Christian?  Following Christ?  Freeing a girl from demon possession?  You’d think someone would understand.

Apparently not.

Understanding may not be the response you get when you stand up for Christ.  When you witness for Christ.  When you make a demonstration of your Christian faith.

How many of you have been arrested because you stood up for Christ?  How many of you have been whipped, publicly because you spoke out for Christ?  How many of you have been imprisoned because you attested to your faith in Christ?  How many of you have been locked in stocks, and forced to stand in human waste, because you witnessed to the power of Jesus Christ to change lives?

None of that would happen to you, anyway.  Not in this country.  I mean, what’s the worst that could happen if you stood up for your faith in Christ?  Really?  Probably be ignored.  Maybe misunderstood.  Maybe someone wouldn’t like you.  May even make fun of you.

But that’s about it.  Certainly not even close to what Paul and Silas endured.  Does it make you wonder why we’re so timid in expressing our faith in Christ in the face of nothing, while Paul and Silas were so fearless with their faith in the face of real danger and bodily harm.

But that’s not all.  It was midnight.  Midnight, when half the night is gone, and half the night is yet to come.  Midnight--the longest part of the night.  Midnight, when life is totally bereft of light.  When things look bleakest, darkest, and most hopeless.

At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed.  At midnight, they sang praises to God.  In the stench, chained to the blocks, with oozing whip wounds, at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing praises to God.

For people, in Paul and Silas’ condition, most would ask God, “Why?”  Why me?  Why all this?  What did I do to deserve this?  Why does life have to be so hard?  This is too much.  This is more than I can bear.  Why are you doing this, God?

Not Paul and Silas.  There were no bellyaching “why’s” coming from their lips. For much lesser things, people have asked God, “Why?”  For Paul and Silas there were only praises sung to God.  Imagine Paul and Silas, in their condition, singing:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise God, all creatures here below
Praise God above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Remarkable!

Not on their own selves, or on their own condition, did they concentrate; but on God, on praise to God, singing praises to God.

The great people in the Christian faith are not the egotistical.  They are not like movie or sports stars who are always in some way saying, “Look at me!”  No, the great people of the faith all have one thing in common:  they keep their focus and our vision on Christ.  Not themselves.  No matter how bad their personal condition might be.

What those faithful people have discovered is that praiseful attention on Christ, rather than narcissistic attention on the self--even if your self has a back that has been blistered by the cane--praise-full attention on Christ is where the healing is found, and where the miracles happen.

Singing to God through pain, Singing to God in wretched surroundings, Singing to God in the most confining captivity, is what makes doors open.  And others, because of your singing, ask you what you’ve got, and how they can get it.

The Way Life Goes

"The Way Life Goes"
Acts 16:6-15


A young mother was in a toy store looking at puzzles for her daughter.  The salesman was pushing a particular puzzle, but the mother protested.  “Isn’t this one a bit too complicated for her?”
“That, madam,” replied the salesman, “is an educational puzzle designed to prepare your child for life in today’s world.”
“How so?” the young mother asked.
The salesman answered, “Any way she puts it together is wrong.”


Life is a puzzle.
Sometimes
you pick up piece after piece
and find its place right away;
the big picture begins to take shape,
the boundaries become more distinct
and final
the parameters of life
will go so far
and no further.
But some pieces of the puzzle
are obstinently shaped
refusing to fit
anywhere;
How will such a piece
ever fit in--
does it even go
with what has already been pieced together
in your life?

That’s the way life goes
sometimes--
the pieces fit,
sometimes they don’t.
But the puzzling thing is
they are all your pieces--
you’ve got all these pieces
scattered out
all over your present life
all to be fit in
hopefully
some day in your future.
Or not.

Life is more than a puzzle--
it is a teaser
a practical joker:
some of the things you expect to happen
don’t
and,
the things you don’t expect to happen
do.
Life expects you to deal with either
or both--
you have no choice.
That’s the way Life goes.
Life’s expectations
can
and will
supersede your own.

Paul,
the great apostle of Jesus Christ,
stood at an intersection:
north to Bithynia
south to what was then called Asia.
Both places
equally ripe for the Gospel
equally ripe for Paul.
But,
every time
Paul flipped a coin
to see what direction
Life would take him
it would land on its side.
Every time.
Life had other plans for Paul.
That’s because
Life
more often than not
has more options
than heads or tails
than we are able to see.
Paul got stuck
thinking there were only two options--
thinking
“that’s all there is”
“that’s all there ever could be.”
What Paul had going for him, though, was
Conviction.
Conviction means
trusting Life.
Conviction means
knowing Life
has lots of options.
Conviction means
some times
patiently waiting
so Life
can show you
what those options are.
Conviction means
that you are at peace
even though
you aren’t in charge
of Life
or the direction
Life will take you.
Neither north
or south.
Paul finally asked the right question:
How about a different direction?
Maybe west?
He flipped the coin.
Heads!
Life was on the move again!

Life
can make your vision change.
Long-held dreams
even the short-held dreams
get altered
or scraped
by Life.
Besides conviction
the other best quality to have
when dealing with Life
is
adaptability
or
flexibility.
Only the adaptable people
survive
when Life forces a direction change.
Only the flexible are able to
bend
without breaking
when the Spirit of Life
blow hardest.

It is difficult
and some times sad
when an original
and long held vision
is pursued
and suddenly
and forcefully
Life says, “NO!”
North to Bithynia?
NO!
South to Asia?
NO!
But why?
NO!
No?
YES!
For mysterious
or frustrating reasons
the original vision
evaporates
and Life demands
that a new dream
must be dreamed--
a new direction
must be discerned.

Ever since my son, Ryan
was a little boy
he loved basketball.
From the first time
he slam-dunked
the nerf ball
through the nerf hoop
attached to his crib
when he was only a week old
he has loved the game.
He quickly graduated
to the official Michael Jordon hoop
affixed to a sturdy
thick,
cardboard paper tube pole.
That lasted,
maybe,
two weeks.
Finally,
I bolted a real
metal
basketball hoop
to the studs of our basement wall.
With me playing on my knees
I found out quickly
how humiliating it is
to get schooled
by a one-year-old in diapers.
He had hundreds of basketball cards.
Still does.
We have hundred of hours
of playing together--
I’m lucky I still have hair
my head’s been dunked on
so many times.
He has
I have
hundreds
if not thousands
of hours
of memories
of watching Ryan develop
and play so well.
It had always been Ryan’s dream
to play basketball
for as far as he could take it--
college
the pros.
For years he envisioned himself
a basketball player
who would keep making the cut
into the levels of the elite.
He had his sights set
on Bithynia
and Asia.
But during a two year period
Life stepped in
and changed his dream.
The vision
of his future
became squashed
by sad
and often painful
circumstances
by a coach.
Painful
for him to live through
and for me to live through
with him.
Through those two years
I prayed
and prayed
that Life would hold him up
and show him the way.
I prayed that his convictions
about himself
would keep him
as he would keep his convictions.
I prayed
that he would find peace
in being adaptable
and flexible.
I prayed
that even though Life
was saying, NO
to his dreams and vision
that Life
would say YES
by showing him
a new dream
and a new vision--
that Macedonia
whatever that would become for him
would catch his attention
and draw him forward.

When Paul arrived
in Macedonia
after being denied
going North or South
he landed in Philippi.
Though Paul had been
so many places already
doing ministry for the Savior
Philippi was to become his favorite--
and to the Philippians
Paul was to become their favorite.
It all worked out for the best.
By saying NO
to Paul
and his desire to go in one of two directions
and by saying YES
to Paul
to move in an unanticipated direction
Life
made his life
meaningful
purposeful
and most of all
blessed.

That’s the way Life goes.
That’s the way Life went
for Ryan.
I hope the same
for you.
I have experienced Life
that way
because
Life is God
and God is Life
and Life
and God
always has a way
of bursting forth
with a YES
even after
a NO
has been spoken.