Just Visiting

By Kim Stokely –

On a recent business trip, my husband and two co-workers wandered the streets of Old Town Albuquerque looking for a place to eat. The guide book had said this was an eclectic section of the city filled with delightful shops and restaurants, but on this Monday night, things looked dead.

An old car rattled up beside them. Like something out of a movie, the driver rolled down his window and asked, “You want to buy some turquoise?”

My husband and his friends looked at each other, shook their heads and the guy drove off. For the rest of their visit they wondered whether the dude was really selling precious stones out of his car or was “turquoise” local slang for crack?

Some behaviors, like wandering a deserted part of town, instantly point you out as a tourist. Staring up at the skyscrapers in New York City or bringing a case of bottled water with you to anywhere in South America are other examples. Here in Omaha, visitors always seem surprised that cows don’t roam the streets and every house doesn’t have a cornfield in the backyard.

Sometimes, however, it appears that just our attitude can single us out as different.

I’ll never forget visiting relatives in England when I was a teenager. My aunt brought me down to her pub for dinner one night and before I’d even spoken a word, the cook asked if I was American.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Americans have a certain way they walk.”

I thought about that a lot. How someone could tell I didn’t belong somewhere because of the way I walked.

Did I swagger obnoxiously? Or maybe I slouched in like a thief? When I asked my cousin about it later, she told me Americans walk with a certain confidence that most others don’t.

I’d like my walk with God to single me out in the same way. Not that I want people to think I’m overly confident, but I want them to sense that I don’t fit in. After all, this isn’t my home. That’s not to say I shouldn’t walk in it and help out where I can, but people shouldn’t think I belong here. If I become too comfortable with the world around me, it means I’ve stopped focusing on God. I need to be like the tourists in New York City, my eyes looking up. Not on skyscrapers, but on my heavenly home.

Cheering for the Underdog

By Dawn Wilson –

It all began with a tub of crickets.

After a family dinner at an Outback Steakhouse – just my husband and I, our married sons and their families – we all decided to go to my oldest son Robert’s house. Megan, my oldest granddaughter, wanted to show me her newest reptile.

Yes, you read that right. Megan, now 12, adores reptiles. She has a big tri-level tank for them in her bedroom. Meg already had a leopard gecko named Lizzie, a blue-tongued skink named Azul, and a bearded dragon named Odin, but that night everyone wanted to meet Megan’s new friend.

“This is Mushu,” she said. “She’s a frilled dragon.” Now that was a treat, especially when Mushu flared her frills!

But then Robert declared it “feeding time.” The critters usually get meal worms, but tonight was a treat. The four pets would share a delightful tub of live crickets. This “family night” was not for the squeamish!

I watched, fascinated, as my favorite of the reptile clan, Azul, stalked and snapped up crickets with a sweep of his colorful tongue.

“Do you think crickets feel anything?” I suddenly asked the family. Honestly, my youngest son Mike looked at me, wide-eyed, like I might be part reptile. “No, really,” I continued. “I keep thinking about Jiminy Cricket. Do you think they have emotions? Can they feel anything?”

“Not for long!” Robert’s wife Tracy said.

But then, no doubt overcome by the reptiles chomping on scurrying crickets, Carrie, Mike’s wife, started cheering for the little hoppers!

“Run, crickets, run!” She shouted, to my granddaughters’ delight. They chimed in – “Run, crickets, run!”

I’ll never forget that night… Carrie cheering for the underdogs (or rather, the undercrickets). The cheering brought back fond memories of the movie Rudy. America, always bent on success and ladder-climbing, still loves to cheer for underdogs.

We were all once underdogs. Pathetic and incapable of saving ourselves, we didn’t stand a chance. The enemy stalked, desiring to destroy.

But for God, we’d all be without hope and forever lost. While we were dirty sinners, the scriptures tell us, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:6-8). It was not for the righteous He came, but to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32); and each time sinners do come to repentance, the angels in heaven rejoice (Luke 15:7, 10).

When I remember all the excitement on our family night—understanding the crickets’ fate and cheering for them to escape—I realize that will be nothing compared to the eternal joy over sinners escaping Satan’s grasp as they believe in the Savior’s death and resurrection on their behalf. Can you hear heaven cheering for the desperate underdogs, now overcomers?

“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57 NIV).

Joy-Math

By Rhonda Rhea –

I read somewhere that the reason shopping malls have benches is so that men can have somewhere to sit while they give up the will to live. I wonder how often guys have said the words, “I will give you five hundred bucks right here on the spot if you’ll just pick a pair of shoes right now. Any pair.”

Of course, any man who says that doesn’t understand that as the words are coming out of his mouth, the savvy woman shopper is already calculating how many more pairs of shoes that will buy. The poor guy doesn’t understand that he’s actually buying himself at least four more shoe-shopping trips. Most guys just don’t get shoe math.

We all have places in life we don’t particularly like to go. There are things that happen we’d simply rather not experience. That comes along with living in a world that groans under the curse of sin. But it makes all the difference in the world when we remember that He will be our joy along the way. No matter where we are in life, no matter what the challenge or heartache, there is always a reason to praise our God. He puts the song of praise right into our mouths. David said in Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” (NIV)

For the record, “slimy pit” might equal “mall” in guy math. But whatever the pit, David waited patiently. That leads me to ask myself regularly: Am I? Are you? Are we waiting patiently for what the Lord wants to do through our difficulties? Even at the mall? Or more seriously, even in the midst of piercing pain or deep sorrow?

Want a better math formula? Patience equals trust. Trust means we keep right on following, leaning all the more on Him. “My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You,” (Psalm 63:8, AMP).

There’s victory in the following. There’s comfort in the leaning. There’s joy in the clinging. Psalm 30:5 reminds us, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning,” (ESV).

Everything He’s doing on the inside of us keeps us joyfully going, praising as we go—never giving up. “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory,” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17, HCSB).

The joy of the Lord is greater than any trial. Times infinity. Now there’s some good math. We do well when we embrace the truth that we can lean into Him, that He will be our joy and that our glorious future is sure.

Incidentally, I think the guys would do well to just go sit on the bench. And instead of giving up the will to live, maybe form a support group with all the other guys sitting on benches.

The Cone of Shame

By Kim Stokely –

There’s nothing quite so pathetic as a dog who has to wear “the cone of shame.” If you’ve seen the movie “Up” you know what I’m talking about. It’s that huge, Elizabethan collar device meant to keep a pet from licking or scratching at some medical anomaly – could be a rash, could be stitches.

Our older dog, Cali, is presently wearing the “cone of shame” because of recent eye surgery. Believe me, she knows she looks stupid. She keeps glaring at me with a “You did this to me,” stare. I tried to explain that I didn’t know the cone would be a necessary part of her recovery, but she doesn’t seem to believe me. She thinks I planned with the vet to humiliate her.

The first night home she’d obviously not worked out all the anesthesia and spent the evening walking into walls. Not only walking into them, but then standing in front of them as if she could miraculously move them with her doggy brain. Spatial relations seemed to be a foreign concept to her as well. Used to walking through doorways without any problem, she’d start through only to have the cone catch on the threshold. She’d stop in her tracks for several minutes again trying to move the threshold instead of her head. I won’t even try to describe her walking outside in the snow, other than to comment that the cone makes an excellent scoop.

Now that the anesthesia has worn off, she’s back to her ornery self. Instead of stopping when the cone gets stuck on something, she shifts her head and pushes through whatever obstacle is in her way. She’s always been fond of sleeping under our nightstand. I would have thought it impossible to get a two foot “head” into a foot wide space, but she keeps shoving her head around until the cone collapses enough for her to get through. This is done with much scraping, grunting and bumping- often in the middle of the night. 2:00 a.m. seems to be a favorite time.

I’ve been thinking how she and I are alike. You see, when she first came home with the cone, she got frustrated with bumping into things and so waited until I stood in front of her and led her into the next room or through the door to the outside. She was glad to keep her eyes on me so she wouldn’t get hurt. In my own life, I know things are easier when I choose to follow God’s voice and daily seek His will. But just like my dog, I get stubborn and want to go back to old habits or follow my own path.

Several verses in Proverbs 16 warn us about trying to do things our own way and the blessings that come when we follow God’s way. In the big scheme of things, I’d rather wear a “cone of shame,” than follow a path that “leads to death” (Proverbs 16:25). Sometimes a little humiliation is just what we need to keep us on the right track.

When We Don’t ‘Get’ Life

By Dawn Wilson –

“Aaaaurgh! What’s wrong now?”

Staring at my monitor, I tapped my computer mouse harder. “Oh come on!” I yelled, growing more impatient with the “stupid technology!” that wouldn’t work.

Then I looked down at my mouse. Only it wasn’t a mouse. It was my cell phone, next to my mouse.

Jokes abound concerning elderly people using computers. While I don’t consider myself “elderly,” I do sympathize. I read about a grandfather who took a course called “Computers for the Terrified.” He was a quick learner, but kept calling his mouse a “mole.”

I watched a video of a cute old couple that couldn’t figure out how their computer video camera worked. Their chat about how the video wasn’t working (“Is it on? … Is it on?”)—while the camera captured their conversation—is hilarious. Plain and simple, it’s hard for the older generation to keep up with all the changes!

All I had as a child was a boxy television and radio. My mom couldn’t call me in from play on a cell phone. I had to rely on the street lights coming on to know when it was time for dinner. The Bible tells us “knowledge will be increased” in the last days (Daniel 12:4), and we can certainly see this is true.

In 2010, nearly 220,000 patents were granted by the US Patent Office, a sign of the creativity and growing technology in the United States alone. Think of changes in the medical world: MRIs, ultrasound, CT scans, laser surgery. Think about the evolution from the vinyl record to cassettes, eight-track tapes and CDs. Consider iPods and iPads!

In every aspect of life, new technologies and fresh thinking have revolutionized our lives. In the midst of all this change, I am comforted to know that God is never surprised by our new discoveries. The One who created our minds can certainly understand our technologies. It’s sad that with new ways of thinking, many consider God’s ways old-fashioned. They cast off His Word like a 1950’s telephone. The Lord wants to help recognize today’s foolish thinking with His unchanging wisdom.

Jesus encouraged His disciples with a promise—the Spirit of Truth would guide them into all truth and show them “things to come” (John 16:13), to be their teacher as well as their Advocate (John 14:26).

This same Spirit wants to encourage us today: to give us peace when we feel busy and overwhelmed; to give us wisdom when our seventh grader asks us questions and we don’t have a clue; to comfort us when life gets too big for us to handle; to help us choose joy when circumstances get tough.

We can smile when we mistake a cell phone for a mouse, but God understands our real difficulties; and when we don’t “get” life, the Spirit of God is always ready, waiting for our questions.

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