Primed for a Downfall

By Dawn Wilson –

I was fifteen, and a bit of a show-off. One day I somehow got the bright idea that I could swing across the room holding on to two parallel counter tops—sort of like being on parallel bars at the gym.

“Look at me!” I yelled to everyone in the room as I ran, placed my hands on the two counters, and made a deep swing forward like an Olympic gymnast.

It was a glorious swing, but I didn’t land right. It wasn’t pretty. I fell to the floor, crashing hard on my rear end. Everyone gasped, but I don’t remember anyone coming to help. They just laughed.

I picked myself up and crept away in embarrassment, my posterior throbbing with pain.

Alone in another room, I remembered a scripture verse I’d heard as a small child. In a newer version it reads, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18, ESV).

Talk about a teachable moment!

Pride has been my big downfall for most of my life. Pride keeps me from being real and authentic about my needs. Arrogance makes me compare myself with others and believe I’m better, or if I see that I am “not enough” in my comparison, prideful insecurities make me cast blame or justify my lack. A haughty spirit says “It’s all about me” when the Bible clearly illustrates over and over again that my existence is all about God and His agenda.

I like to think that with wisdom I’ve gained more humility, but the opposite is also true. Proverbs 11:2 says, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom” (NIV).

Humility is a choice. The scriptures tell us to humble ourselves (James 4:10), and if we don’t, God will allow opportunities for us to be humbled, because He hates and opposes pride and the behaviors that come from self-exalting attitudes (Proverbs 8:13; James 4:6).

In Luke 1:52 it says, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones….” We see this in the life of King Nebuchadnezzar who lost his kingdom after he exalted himself. He suffered until he finally exalted “the King of heaven” (Daniel 4). Pride has brought down many leaders throughout history, but pride isn’t only a sin for kings. It is rooted in the hearts of every one of us.

J.C. Ryle wrote, “Pride sits in all our hearts by nature. We are born proud.” Pride blinds us to our faults, keeps us from admitting sin, makes us self-righteous, keeps us independent from God and others, and worst of all, is an obstacle to trusting in Christ.

One of the ways I fight pride is to embrace my identity in Christ. All that I am is wrapped up in what the Lord has done for me. I not only have a new identity in Him, but also absolute security, dignity and purpose.

Because I sense the destructiveness of pride, I tell people to be alert and watch out for it. If we allow pride to dwell in our hearts unchecked, we are primed for an eventual downfall. And believe me, it’s going to hurt.

Truth Decay

By Rhonda Rhea –

We had some especially good pizza the other night for dinner. But just about every time we have especially good pizza for dinner, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking my teeth are wearing little sweaters. It seems I almost always have to pay for good pizza with that fuzzy-toothed feeling sometime after midnight. Has it happened to you? You sort of picture your teeth molding.

You can’t smack a few times and get rid of it. You can’t even de-fuzz with a drink of water. No, if you want to get rid of it, the only way to unbutton the little tooth-sweaters is to brush. There have been times I’ve felt compelled to fight off pizza-sweater cavities by brushing at two o’clock in the morning. I head back to bed a little tired, but at least feeling I’ve done my part to fight tooth decay.

“Truth decay” is pretty similar, though it’s not actually the truth that decays. The truth is ever sure, never fuzzy, always unchanging. It’s our personal honesty that can lose its sheen.

We can prevent personal truth decay by brushing up on God’s Word and sinking our teeth into His eternal truths. Time spent in God’s Word results in understanding more about His character, more about how we are to walk in Him, more about the life of righteousness lived in truth. He tells us in His Word in no uncertain terms that our honesty is important to Him. There are no “little white lies” in God’s book. Anything untrue is big and dark and ugly. The truth is completely non-elastic, so when we stretch the truth, it’s not the truth anymore.

God hates lies. He hates them because they’re opposed to His nature (He is truth) and because He knows lies hurt us and they hurt others. Ephesians 4:25 says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (ESV).

In Zechariah 8:16, the Lord spells out our truth instructions. “These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace” (ESV). Sometimes truth is work. It’s easier to make up an excuse about why we’re late or exaggerate a success—leave out a fact here and embellish one there. The truth might even get about as tiring as midnight brushing, but His Word tells us it’s our part. And God wants our truthfulness to be part of who we are—right down to our souls. Psalm 51:6 says, “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place” (NIV).

When we’re respecting the truth in every way we delight Him. Proverbs 12:22 tells us that, “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful” (NIV).

If you’ve been a little careless with the truth, maybe it’s time to delight your Father by polishing up your commitment to integrity and complete honesty. You’ll be refreshed in the truth and armed for right living. Armed to the teeth, even.

History of Church Seating

By Carol Barnier –

It’s happening again. Another local church is talking about ditching the traditional pews in favor of something more plush and comfortable. I really feel uneasy about this. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere in Leviticus a warning about the ungodliness of a relaxed posterior and the slippery slope of comfortable worship.

Amazingly, the idea of sitting in church didn’t even emerge until the Reformation. It’s true! Up till that time, those poor German peasants worked hard all week long and then went to church on the day of rest to do what? STAND and listen to a sermon in a language they didn’t even speak. You may not have known this, but when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, thesis number 58 was, “It’s time to let us sit down in church for crying out loud!”

In some churches today you’ll see kneelers. These little flip down steps of wonder were put in place for the ease of congregants whose church liturgies involved more and more kneeling. But no such devices can be found in the earliest church structures. That’s because the preferred submission position was prostrate (face down, flat on the ground) and the early church architects felt a flip down panel accommodating this practice would require too much space between the pews. Besides, early attempts of this device revealed a flaw that sometimes catapulted would-be-supplicants up and over the altar.

Eventually kneeling did emerge as the preferred method of humility. However, for quite some time, the earliest congregations needed no such kneelers. They were of hardier stock and found the cold solid stone against their knees refreshing. But then the Church Potluck was introduced and folks began having problems with the getting back up part. Enter: the kneelers. Followed by kneelers not quite so close to the ground. Then, the padded kneelers. Then ,the intricately needle-pointed padded kneelers. I think heated gel pads and a lift ticket are the next obvious mutation.

Now seating is growing more and more like expensive theatrical events. Stain resistant. Deeply cushioned. Padded armrests. Sometimes even with cup holders. I fully expect this trend toward more technology will eventually include an electronic circuitry panel embedded into the backs of the seats in front of us allowing us to provide constant assessment and feedback of the pastor’s efforts.

My current level of interest….hmmm…my mind did wander just a bit there. I’ll give him a 4. Clearly he’s trying. But that passage about Cain and Able could have used a bit more action and drama. A video clip would have been nice. Well, maybe just a 3 then.

I’m thinking we’ve got this backwards. The technology should be on the side of the preacher. If we begin to whisper and be distracted or start nodding off, he would have several buttons of wonder at his disposal. First offense, the chair simply vibrates. Sort of a you’ve-been-warned sensation. The second option would be a sort of elevator that lifts you up over the crowd a good three feet, so that others will know of your transgressions. For the really offensive congregants or those who’ve completely gone to sleep, I’m thinking a mild seat-imbedded tazer is in order.

Okay, perhaps a bit much. But you know what they say.  If you laid all the sleepers in church end-to-end along the pews … they’d be a lot more comfortable.

Smoky the Baptist Rides Again

By Connie Cavanaugh –

“I hate camping,” my husband confessed, late one night.

“You hate camping? Since when? We’ve camped for years!”

“I know,” he admitted. “But I’ve never liked it.”

“You’re the one who researched space efficient camping equipment and bought all those supplies,” I declared. I couldn’t believe my ears. We had camped all across the country with three kids. Everything fit into the trunk of a Volkswagen.

“I like research,” he said. “But not camping. I do it for the kids.”

Our kids loved camping. These adventures were the highpoint of their summer.

We were in a pickle. Not only had we promised our kids we would go camping as soon as school let out, we planned to go with another couple.

We finally concluded that tent camping was too rustic. Perhaps if we brought along a few more comforts, we would enjoy it more. The day we arrived at our campsite we looked like a Saharan camel train. Our van was stuffed, had a bulging topper strapped to the roof and we pulled a huge pop-up trailer.

When we got to our site, within ten minutes our bicycle camping companions, who carried everything in two backpacks and four saddlebags were finished. They erected their pup tent, slung a hammock between two trees, and made tea on what looked like a Bunsen burner. They sipped and watched as we constructed our forest kingdom.

It took three hours to assemble the trailer, the tent, and the screened gazebo for our camp kitchen. We looked like a feeding station for tornado victims. By the time we were done, it was late and everyone was hungry.

Dad got ready to fire up the Coleman stove on the picnic table inside the gazebo. The first “firing” of the season was usually worth watching. We dubbed him Smoky the Bear since he had stomped out many a potential forest fire that resulted from his pyrotechnics. Smoky’s method was to pump the stove until it threatened to burst and then stand back and toss a lit match. The explosion was spectacular. After the mushroom cloud dissipated, the small burner would flame merrily and we would cook dinner.

But this time, something malfunctioned. Kaboom! Flames shot up and out. Only this time, they kept shooting.

Smoky grabbed a beach towel to use as oven mitts. Gingerly he picked up the stove and, dancing like the great Ali, struggled through the tiny zippered opening in his attempt to save the gazebo. Once outside he doused the inferno with water and stomped on the smoldering towel.

He mopped his sweaty brow with the charred towel and looked up to where we were all standing, watching him with grateful amazement. This had been the best annual fireworks display to date. Slowly, we began to applaud.

”Whew!” he exclaimed. “I almost didn’t make it through that dinky doorway. Maybe we should leave it fully unzipped from now on in case this happens again.” The kids and I had noticed that the explosion had melted one entire mesh wall in the gazebo. You could drive a car through the hole that resulted.

“Oh that’s ok,” one of the smart alecks quipped, pointing. “Leave it zipped. We can use this new opening. It’s much bigger.”

Knowing he could never outdo this performance without risking hectares of prime forest, we made that camping trip our swan song. Nowadays we “camp” in an RV at a national park where open fires are not allowed.

Furry Friend

By Karen O’Connor –

One morning as I reached for my breakfast food in the back of my station wagon at a campground in the Sierra Mountains, I noticed that several of the plastic bags had holes in them. One in particular was badly punctured. I had filled it with various nuts and dried fruits. When I picked it up, most of the contents fell out.

How strange. I was certain I’d put this mix in a brand new zippered bag. “Oh well, I’ll deal with this later,” I muttered. It was time for the group’s morning hike and I didn’t want to be late.

My friends and I returned to our site that afternoon and I opened my car to take out a snack and some water. To my surprise several more bags were full of holes. Even my Kleenex tissues were perforated. I assumed it was an insect and let it go. Flies and mosquitoes were all around so I chalked it up to life in the outdoors.

At the end of the week we broke camp and said our good-byes. Then I drove down the mountain to the motel where I planned to spend the night before heading home the following day.

I organized my gear, did a couple loads of laundry, ate dinner, and headed for bed. The next morning when I opened my car a terrible stench hit my nose. What is that? I wondered. I didn’t have any fresh food in the car so I was really puzzled.

Then suddenly I noticed a small furry creature curled up in a little open box I had left on the floor of the back seat. A long tail hung over the edge. A field mouse. “Eeek!” I shrieked and shivered at the sight. Poor fella must have snuck in when my car was open, and then died in the extreme heat of the day after I locked my car.

“Help!” I called to one of the employees at the motel. “A dead mouse. I can’t bear to touch it. Would you please remove it for me?”

The man chuckled, reached in, and carried the little guy, box and all, to the trash container. I thanked him and off he went. But then I had a shame attack. It was just a field mouse, after all. Why did I make such a big deal out of it? He was one of God’s creatures, too. And if the Lord could make a place for him on the earth, surely I could allow him to help himself to a few nuts and berries.

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:7-10 NIV).

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