Invisible

This morning I was listening to Erwin McManus preach on the Mosaic podcast when a totally unrelated stream of thought grabbed me. Something Erwin said reminded me of a scene toward the end of The Princess Diaries in which the main guy character in the movie asks Anne Hathaway’s character why she chose him of all people to escort her to the coronation ball. Her reply: “Because you saw me when I was invisible.”

That reminder brought tears to my eyes as I remembered what happened at a youth retreat I led in 1986 as I was serving a church as a summer youth ministry intern. We were at Harrison Chilhowee Baptist Academy near Maryville, TN. There were probably 30 teenagers with us, but the key players in the story were a huge contrast in personalities. Jim (not his real name) was about 14. He was one of those kids that acted like a party just looking for a place to happen. He wore bright clothes (remember “jams”?) and had red hair with a personality to match. A couple of years older than Jim, Karen (again, not her real name) was a good, sweet kid. She was one of my favorites in the group, but she just kind of fit in without drawing attention to herself. Try as we might, we couldn’t ignore Jim … and the really agrravating thing was that he was so hard not to like. Karen was no less likeable, but she just easily disappeared in a crowd.

Thursday morning, Jim overslept and none of his bunkmates gave him the courtesy of waking him. Our daily schedule included “morning watch” before breakfast, and Jim’s absence was conspicuous. Because he tended to be obnoxious, I decided we’d return the favor in waking him up. I didn’t care if he didn’t like morning watch, he had to endure it just like the rest of the group. So I led the whole group in yelling toward the dorm to wake him up. It took several tries, but we finally roused him.

I had forgotten that Karen had overslept the previous morning and didn’t join the group until halfway through breakfast. When Jim wasn’t there, we yelled and woke him up … when Karen wasn’t there, we did nothing. So Thursday afternoon during free time, Karen went to the dorm, wrote a note, and swallowed more than half a bottle of Tylenol. Tylenol is not particularly toxic, but she did have to be taken to the local ER to remove it from her system. There’s more to the story than that, but the long and the short of it is that, though she was physically OK she needed some help (and got it) in order to get OK emotionally.

Some people want (and need) to be the center of attention, others really don’t … but nobody wants to be invisible. Some people will never know that they matter to God until they know that they matter to the people of God. That’s one reason we pass the peace of Christ in worship every Sunday. That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

A little different

Last week was very interesting for me, to be sure, but I’ve not yet had time to fully digest (or, to be more grammatically correct, fully to digest) the spiritual implications of what we experienced while with my family in Dothan. So I’m borrowing inspiration from someone else again.

Our worship of Jesus is always a response to who He is or, rather, how we perceive Him to be. If he is somewhat small in our hearts and minds, our response may remain minimal, mechanical and even miserly. But as we see Him more and more for who He really is, realizing what He has done for us, then pouring out our lives and resources will be our joyful response and our heart’s desire. ~ Nigel Morris

I had never heard of Nigel Morris before reading this single entry in a little book called The Heart of Worship Files compiled by Matt Redman. The book says that he was born and reared in England, but currently serves as a staff pastor, responsible for directing worship and the prison ministry in a church in California. What an interesting combination … and most appropriate in light of the definition of worship we find in Romans 12:1-2. I say again, but with different words (and this is mine, but anyone is free to borrow it), true worship is less about what goes on inside the walls of the church on Sunday morning than we tend to realize, and more about what we do as we live out our faith outside the walls of the church.

One more borrowed bit from one of my favorite Charlie Brown strips:

Lucy: Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud's formations. What do you think you see, Linus?
Linus: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean. That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.
Lucy: Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Well ... I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

The more I'd like for people to think of me as Linus, the more I realize I'm Charlie Brown.

That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.

Glurge or Not, Who You Are Does Indeed Make a Difference

At our recent annual staff planning retreat, I was asked to lead the group devotion. Here's what I came up with. I thought it blog-worthy. As you read the part after the story, keep in mind that I wrote the devotion in March of 2009. That's important. Here's the devotion as I read to my fellow church staff members in March:

This story falls in the category known as “glurge.” Glurge is a recently coined word from the internet era … specifically from snopes.com, the clearinghouse site for myths and urban legends on the internet. A frequent contributor to snopes.com coined the word to describe the hypersentimentalized stories that we’re all way too familiar with (because we get those forwards and chain e-mails, too). I’m happy to say that many people are checking most of the questionable stuff out with snopes before forwarding nowadays … but the phenomenon persists. It existed even before Al Gore invented the internet and e-mail, but the internet allows it to spread much more rapidly than before. Oddly enough, other than the internet, one is most likely to encounter glurge is sermons (not our pastor’s, thankfully). Glurge is not just made-up stories. There are true stories that fall into that category as well. (examples: Extreme Makeover – Home Edition; American Idol – the guy whose wife died 6 months before he auditioned). Almost any good story can be glurgified, and we’re all suckers for a good story ... or at least I am. According to snopes.com, this story is unverified … could be true … no way really to tell. You've probably seen it on the internet yourself, but here it is … and even though it is glurge, it makes an important point.

A teacher in New York decided to honor her seniors in high school by telling them the difference each of them had made. She called each one of them to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told them how they had made a difference to her and to the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read, “Who I am makes a difference.”

Afterwards, she decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each student three more blue ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgement ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom, and report back to the class in about a week.

One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon
and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him the two extra ribbons and said, “We’re doing a class project on recognition, and we’d like you to go out, find someone to honor, and give them a blue ribbon.”

Later that day, the junior executive went to his boss, who had a reputation for being kind of a grouchy fellow. He told him that he deeply admired him for being a
creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon, and give him permission to put it on him. His boss said, “Well sure.” The junior executive took one of his blue ribbons and placed in right on his boss’s jacket above his heart. Then he asked, offering him the last ribbon, “Would you take this ribbon and pass it on by honoring someone else? The teenager who gave me this ribbon is doing a school project, and we want to keep this ribbon ceremony going and see how it affects people.”

That night the boss came home and sat down with his 14-year-old son. He said, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of my employees came in and told me he admired me, and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine! He thinks I’m a creative genius! Then he put a blue ribbon on me that says, ‘Who I am makes a difference.’ “He gave me an extra ribbon and told me to find someone else to honor. As I was driving home tonight I started thinking about who I would honor with this ribbon. I thought about you. I want to honor you. My days are hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. I yell at you for not getting good enough grades and for your messy bedroom. Somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and tell you, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most
important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you.”

The startled boy began to sob and sob … he couldn’t stop crying. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, “Dad, earlier tonight I sat up in my room and wrote you a letter explaining why I had taken my life and I asked you to forgive me. I was going to commit suicide tonight after you were asleep. I just didn’t think that you cared at all. The letter is upstairs. I don’t think I need it after all.” His father walked upstairs and found a heartfelt letter full of anguish and pain.

The boss went back to work a changed man. He was no longer a grouch, but made sure to let all of his employees know that they made a difference. The junior
executive helped many other young people with career planning, one being the boss’s son, and never forgot to let them know that they made a difference in his life. In addition, the young man and his classmates learned a valuable lesson: Who you are does make a difference.

I have a voice-mail on my phone at work that was left at 9:49am on Monday, December 10, 2007. It’s old and out of date, but I don’t want to delete it. Right now there are only 2 messages in my voice-mail inbox. I’ve deleted all of the out-of-date ones, but I have a tough time even thinking about deleting that one. It’s from Steve Lamb following the Christmas music on the previous Sunday evening. I had seen him in the balcony when I went to touch base with the sound guy and make sure he didn’t have any questions he needed to ask me. I paused briefly and chatted for a few seconds with Steve and with Buddy Oakley. Before leaving to go back downstairs, I asked them to let me know what they thought. Steve’s words in the voice mail were: “Okay, you asked for it, I’ll give it. This is Steve Lamb. I rate it A+. It was as good as I’ve ever gone to in my life, anywhere, any time. And furthermore as far as First Baptist goes, I know it was an all-time greatest. And it’s just heartwarming to see the talent we have and the direction it has, and most importantly it enriched the spirit. Again, I’m glad I came, and I’ll see you soon. Bye.”

I cannot bring myself to delete that message from my phone. I don’t go back and listen to it at all, but when I’m going through and deleting old messages from the inbox, I hear the first couple of words, then hit skip … not delete … skip. But every time I hear those first few words and I remember who the voice-mail was from, my spirits are lifted again … and again … and again.
How long did it take Steve to send that message? Maybe a couple of minutes. How long have I benefited from that encouragement? I can’t answer that because I’m not done with it yet.

Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (NIV). The Message puts it this way: “Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit—you choose.”

I’m not talking about flattery. Flattery is insincere and dishonest.

Proverbs 26:28 – A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin.

Proverbs 28:23 - He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue.

I’m talking about taking the time to say things that are true to people who need to hear them. The old playground adage about sticks and stones is a little off-base. Words can hurt, and they can hurt more deeply and longer than sticks and stones. A bruise on my arm hurts for a few days. A bruise on my spirit can hurt for decades. But words can heal also.

Proverbs 12:18 - Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 15:4 - The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

So what do we do with this? How do we respond?

So I'm the April Fool on This One

Last Friday morning I was heading to Greenville around 7:00 or 7:30, hoping to get to the surgery center in time to be with some fairly young parents in the church as one of their twins was undergoing a tympanotomy. By the time I got there, they were already on their way home … but it wasn’t a completely wasted trip because I caught a glimpse of truth about me.

The weather and the early morning available light conditions required that we use headlights while on the highway ... not just so that the driver could see, but so that others could see the cars. I’ve always been a rule-follower about this kind of thing – and not just a compliant rule-follower, but one of those obnoxious ones who also lets you know if you’re not following the rules. For example, there are a couple of places on our campus there are signs that say “NO PARKING AT ANY TIME.” It frustrates me that many of our people ignore those signs. What is so hard to understand about “NO PARKING”? Are you so selfish that you think the signs don’t apply to you? I freely admit that it’s silly of me to do so, but I still waste emotional energy over it.

Anyway, as traffic got heavier around Simpsonville, there were a couple of cars in my vicinity that did not have their headlights on. I flashed my lights at a couple of them, but on they continued ... driving dark ... in total oblivion to endangering others by their neglect.

“That’s it,” I thought angrily. “It probably won’t change anything, but this is showing up in my Musings. Somebody’s going to read how I feel about this!” With an air of superiority (bordering on boorishness), I began to compose in my head what I would write once I got the opportunity. I would extil the virtues of following rules, how they are meant for the good of all, etc. And I would enjoy just being right.

On my way home, there was more sunlight, but the fog was still hanging heavy over the ground. Weather and traffic conditions still called for headlights and most cars and trucks around me had them on. I was still composing my self-righteous rant when a car that really needed lights on appeared in my vicinity. As I reached for the switch to blink my lights at them, I discovered that my lights also were … OFF. Then scripture hit me:

“Do not judge others and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging will be the standard by which you will be judged.” (Mt. 7:1-2, NLT)

And all of a sudden I began to think about giving grace to others. That’s enough to think about for now. The peace of Christ to you.