Words hurt?...

Sticks and Stones

When I was a kid, they used to chant that old saw, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  Seems like I recall a Peanuts cartoon once in which somebody chanted that, and the next frame had a bunch of sticks and stones falling toward the hapless child.   Now, they are trying to create a more gentle society, with laws against “hate speech,” (at least hate speech that isn’t PC), and school assemblies against bullying.  So, do words really matter?

Somehow, they really do.  You have seen it, I know.  A person says something unkind, the person spoken to wells up with tearful eyes, and the names hurt more than the saying admits.  Ephesians 4:29 (you can look it up) warns us that the only words that come out of our mouths are supposed to be words that edify.  There was a time in my life when a common phrase on a certain friend’s lips was, “Ephesians 4:29, Rich.”  So much so that I can’t look at that verse without remembering to add my name.  Not that my language is bad, mind you, but because my ornery side teases and puns its way into people’s hearts and minds…..until sometimes it grates on them.  Don’t mean it to, it just happens. 

Yes, words probably do matter more than we want to admit.  In part because Jesus says we are going to have to explain every careless word we have ever used.  And, so much so that the scripture says that it was words God used to create things in the first place.  In fact, John even uses “Word” to refer to Jesus, the creative and redemptive agent of God.  Yup, words matter.  And I can tell you, sometimes words are said without even thinking that can be very hurtful to people divorcing.  Simple phrases like, “bring your spouse,” or “I would NEVER think of marrying a divorced person,” often said without realizing who is in the room and the impact the words are having.

Somehow, in life, I often end up relating to the Psalmist who asks God to set a guard upon his lips to make sure his speech is pleasing to God.  How about you?  What kind of “lip service” will you be producing today?

TL:dr  God expects our words to reflect His Word.

Really... 'finger rings, nose rings?'

What’s YOUR Favorite Verse???

Have you ever noticed that the verses in the Bible don’t always make sense in terms of how they were divided?  (You do realize, don’t you, that the verse numbers aren’t original….they were added in much later, right?)  The placement is odd enough, that one of my friends and I used to share our favorite verses when asked as, “And the second” Luke 20:30 (that was his) and “finger rings, nose rings” Isaiah 3:21 as mine.  (Don’t believe me?  Look them up!)  The silly old story is that the guy who put in the verses was riding in a carriage at the time, and the wheel must have hit a bump or hole in the road at the moment he read that verse, leaving the ink smear that became the verse marker there.

Well, lots of people know where to point when you ask them their favorite verse of the Bible.  Others use the concept of a “life verse” instead.  I do have a verse that especially means a lot to me that I would tell you is my favorite if you asked (besides the Isaiah verse), but the truth is, there are many verses that really speak to me.  Because it is true that specific phrases and verses can have tremendous impact in our lives at certain times. 

However, like me, perhaps you have heard people quoting verses, and then later, when you looked them up, found out when you read around it, the verse didn’t mean at ALL what the people had indicated.  It is so important to check out the context of a verse, not merely the apparent meaning of a verse itself.  I think a good example is in Malachi 2:16, part of which is often quoted when people say, “God hates divorce.”  But the context implies there is a whole lot more going on than just that God hates divorce.  (I’m going to let YOU look it up yourself, just for practice in examining context if nothing else!) 

People say that P.T. Barnum once said, “There is a sucker born every minute.”  And the people who say that, are some of the suckers!   Because Barnum didn’t say it.  Look it up.  Someone could possibly say that there is a Bible verse misused out of context every day.  And they’d be right.  Just don’t let yourself be the sucker taken in by it, okay?

TL:dr  Biblical context is EVERYTHING when understanding biblical quotes.

I believe in God....do you mean it?

What do you mean, when you say; "I believe in God."

So, to follow up on the issue of believing in God.  When going through those extremely tough times, such as a divorce, we all find ourselves having to make choices.  Choices about time, about money, character issues, friends, and how we handle stress….you know, choices!  We make the same choices when things are going well, perhaps in a different way, but still the same kinds of choices.  Whether we are self sufficient, or dependent on God.   Whether we set aside time for worship, or make leisure and work or things a priority instead. 

  Our proof that we believe in God is demonstrated in these kinds of things.  Do we simply mean that we acknowledge God exists?  Pilate was willing to do that much with Jesus….acknowledge that He existed!  Do we mean that we believe that He exists, and that He will take care of us after we die?  Those who came to Jesus with that notion back in those days found that he usually expected more than that, he expected a lifestyle of following Him.  If we say we believe in God, and demonstrate it every Sunday (or Saturday if that’s when you worship) of our lives, but not on weekdays, does that mean we believe that all God cares about is what we do with worship time? 

My wife says that at one church she used to attend, the minister would cut short his messages if there was a noon kickoff time for the local NFL team.  What in your life is so important that you will let it cut short your time worshipping or serving God? I wonder how my wife or your loved one would feel if we told them we couldn’t spend our usual date time with them today, because kickoff is in 10 minutes.  Probably won’t earn us very many points, huh?  So, what do you mean when you say you believe in God?  When the verse in James says that the demons believe and tremble; I suspect the idea is that they believe that God exists and that God is going to hold them accountable for everything they have done.  Is that what you mean when you say you believe in God?

Is there not a difference between a person saying that he believes in marriage and a person BEING married?  Could that be the distinction God desires of us?  I like the old illustration that it is one thing to say that you believe an elevator can carry you to the 99^th floor of the building.  It is another to get on the elevator and trust it to get you there.  My point is this:  are you believing from a distance, in a non-committed observational sort of way, or are you on board for the full experience in a committed relational sort of way?  As near as I can tell, the last one is really the only one the Bible endorses, even if our culture and a lot of our church folks endorse something less. 

For those of you going through a divorce, I just want to urge you NOT to fall prey to those pressures that can cause you to lose track of what is important.  Don’t let yourself end up like those demons, trembling when you realize God is going to expect you to give account for all the choices you are making now.  Just thinking out loud, so to speak.

 

TL:dr  Discussion of the question, “What does believing in God really mean?”

Picture information:

http://bugssite.org/blog/2009/04/14/nasa-photos-show-giant-cosmic-hand/

The actual image is of a nebula surrounding a small pulsar – a stellar remnant, a neutron star – the crushed core of a massive star, spinning and channelling electrons along its magnetic field. Pulsars produce regular radio wave pulses as their polar regions point to us and blast emissions from accelerated electrons in our direction. Radio signals tell us where they are, space telescopes point and check them out in other wavelengths to see what they do. The pulsar doing all this is estimated at a diameter of 12 miles, with the nebula 150 light years across. The entire system is 17,000 light years from us and estimated to be 1,700 years old. The pulsar is called PSR B1509-58, but is known to its friends as B1509.

The Awareness of God..

It IS a big deal!

Well, blog readers, owe you a bit of an apology, I suppose.  Haven’t posted much at all lately.  Have been in kind of a whirlwind of activity, primarily book related.  As we near the production stage, have been reviewing cover proofs and text proofs, and book format.  Anyway, without getting into the nuts and bolts of it, have been doing some significant revamping to make things come together in the best way possible, making various extremely time-consuming adjustments along the way.  However, just sent in one of the last major pieces of email, so should be turning a big corner.  Although, there were more steps than I knew, all of which have taken more time than expect, the indication is I should be able to tell you within just a few weeks that copies are available.  You will be able to get some directly from me, but they will be able to be ordered through your local bookstores as well, or the publisher.  Will provide details at the appropriate time.

So how about a thought for the day?  Am reading a really good book I’ll tell you about later, but one of the issues it raises is how much we take for granted the freedoms and benefits those of us who live here in America have automatically because we are here.  Education, a generally benign government, infrastructure…that sort of thing.  Sometimes, I think it wouldn’t hurt to ask the same question of us Christians.  That is, do we take things for granted in our faith?  I believe absolutely we do.  I want to share one with you just to get you started thinking about it a bit.

Here’s the deal.  In visiting with folks who aren’t particularly religious, sometimes I will ask them what they believe in terms of God and so forth.  Nine times out of ten, the answer I’ll get is that they believe in God, and often, not much else.  I raise the issue with them that the book of James tells us that the demons also believe…..but they tremble.  Then I point out that the individuals pretty glibly said they believe in God, but the demons tremble when they say they believe in God.  Is that not a disconnect?  Do they (we) REALLY believe?  How is it that we, mere humans, can so flatly state we believe in God, but have so lost the awe, the reverence, the understanding of God that we don’t know enough to say so with a degree of trembling?  

Okay, sure, Jesus came and taught us God loves us and opened the way to the throne, so there is a different relationship set up.  But even so, it is still a THRONE, and the one who loves us is still GOD.  Have we reduced God down to merely a nice old guy who loves us from there in heaven somewhere?  Have we eliminated expectations from him?  Do we forget what the word omnipotent really implies?  I’m going to stop right here.  I want to invite you to really think about what I am asking.  And examine yourself.  Are you caught up in the reduction of the awesome?  We’ll talk again.

The photo was taken by the Hubble Telescope and is an image of gas and dust inside the Carina Nebula...pretty awesome, made by God!

TL:dr  Have we lost track of the awesomeness of God?