Some Hard Facts on Success

Me again, Son.  Have I told you recently that you make me proud?  You do!  You just seem to keep looking for ways to do the right thing.  And that’s good.  It’s not always easy.  But it’s good. 

So you want to talk about success?  Think.  Take the time to look things over, pray, and make wise choices.  If you rush into anything, or choose foolishly,  it doesn’t affect just you.  It has an impact on everbody around you, especially those you love.  If you get into a pattern of foolishness, it’s really hard to get back on track.  And your mamma, especially, would be fussing all the time.  Mamma’s are like that. 

You know this is another of those areas where everybody seems to have an opinion and everybody’s opinion seems different?  The bible says you can find wisdom if you take stock of what wise people say, but you do need to decide who you’re going to accept as wise people.  So here are some tips.

Some folks will do anything they can get away with just to put money in the bank.  They’ll cheat.  They’ll steal.  Maybe not outright.  They may not break the law, but they’ll bend it as far as they can.  They may not lie, but they won’t tell the truth either.  Then they’ll laugh about it over drinks on Saturday night.

People like that are looking for the easy way.  And sooner or later, it will catch up to them. You can see pretty easily what those people become.  Every day they turn a little darker, and die a little inside.

Now if you keep doing the right thing, that won’t happen to you.  And if you keep following God, and get to know Him and His ways, he will not let you go hungry.  That is a fact.  He’ll keep you on the right path, too, if you pay attention.  He has a real knack for derailing plans that are based on wrong desires.

Do you want to be successful?  Work.  If a person doesn’t want to work, or does a half-hearted job, that person will end up poor.  If someone takes hold of the opportunities that are there, makes wise choices, does the right thing, and consistently gives their honest best, that person will do well. 

But success takes time.  A farmer puts seed in the ground, and then takes care of his fields for a long time before they produce anything to eat or sell.  And when the time comes to harvest that field, he needs to be paying attention.  He needs to recognize the right time to harvest, and act immediately.  If he decides to stay in bed, or go on vacation when there’s opportunity or work to be done, well that’s just plain stupid. 

If you make up your mind and set your heart to do the right thing, you will be blessed.  Those “easy way” people with their fast money schemes are all talk.  And their talk is a cover for the fact that they really don’t care who they hurt as long as they get what they want.

If you build a reputation for doing the right thing, people will remember you.  What’s more,  that memory will keep on having an influence and blessing long after you’re gone. And make no mistake.  Folks remember the ones who hurt or took advantage of them too.  Those people may have even had a good name once,  but the memory of their bad actions lives on like a cancer, until there’s nothing left of the good.

If you’re honest, you won’t need to worry about your future.  Most good folks can see through a phoney, and eventually they figure out who the real crooks are.

If you listen with your heart to God’s commands and leadings, that’s wisdom.  Fools and self-appointed experts just run their mouths and are only interested in their own opinions.  And they end up getting knocked down to size. 

The guy who’s always got a new scheme to get rich and avoid work is a troublemaker…for everybody.  Don’t be taken in by promises of a sweet deal for a select few.

Don’t throw in with people whose fancy words just cover up arrogant and hurtful plans.
Underneath it all, their ways are just plain hateful. 

When you speak, speak the truth.  Speak wisdom.  Be a source of blessing and life to everybody you come in contact with. 

Don’t carry grudges.  They keep the hurt going.  Forgive.  Move on.   Above all, love.  Always remember to love.   That’ll help you get through a lot of stuff.  

I love you.  We’ll talk more later.

(hint:  Proverbs 10:1-12)

The Real Key

Alright Son, so you want to live a long and peaceful life?  Then don’t forget the things I’ve been teaching you.  The simple rules.  Don’t be like a fool who lets good advice go in one ear and out the other.  Don’t just write them down on a scrap of paper and then lose the paper!  Write them on your heart.
     Do you remember when you were little, and you kept your house key on a special chain you wore around your kneck?  When you got home, you could always open the door.  God’s truth is like that key.  Keep it close, over your heart, and you’ll never be locked out.
     Never, ever, stop being kind or truthful.  That’s the way to keep a good reputation.  It pleases the Lord and it gains you favor with anybody else that really matters.
     Now here’s the thing about trustin the Lord.  That trust has got to come from the heart!  You can’t do it half-way.  You either trust Him totally, or you don’t.  It’s your starting point.  It makes you who you are, and it colors everything else about you. 
     Give up trying to figure everything out on your own.  It’s never going to happen anyway.  Just live your life so that everything you do points back to Him, and He’ll show you a path to walk that’s straight and level.
     A lot of people think they know it all.  They think they have all the answers.  They’re never wrong.  Just ask them!  Don’t be like that.  If you’re wrong, own up to it.  and if you don’t know, don’t bluff.
     You’ll keep your head and your heart straight if you just keep your eyes on the Lord.  You see, compared to Him, we all fall so far short that it’s scarey.  He is so totally pure and loving and powerful and full of wisdom…It’s impossible to really wrap our minds around it.
     Son, the world is full of people who have opinions about God.  A few even set themselves up as experts of some sort.  And a lot of other folks spend their entire lives running from one “expert” to another trying to figure out the real truth.  In the end, though, they usually wind up settling on something that just “fits”.  Kinda like picking out a comfortable sweater or a new pair of sneakers.  I guess that’s fine if you want to simply make up a god that suits your tastes.
     There is another way, though.  Stop trying to know all about God and finally just get to know God.  Spend time with Him.  He really is there.  And He’s a person.  And He wants to be close to us.  Talk to Him.  Listen to Him.  It can be the most important thing in your life.
     I know it’s not easy.  Getting to know someone never is.  And this is GOD we’re talking about!   I mean, if it’s intimidating to walk across the street to meet a new neighbor, the idea of actually getting to know GOD is absolutely terrifying!  But you already know that Jesus made it possible, right? 
     So where do you start?  I guess we come full circle back to trust.  Sure, God is HUGE! And He’s holy.  And He’s powerful.  And He’s pure.  And He’s the standard for good and truth and beauty and love against which everything else is judged.  And we’re not!  But like I said, He WANTS to be close to us.  Mind boggling as it is, His desire is for us!
     The first time I was really with Him, close like I sit and talk with you, it was so intense I almost ran away.  I think it helped me understand those people in the bible who kept saying, “No way, Moses, He’s too scarey.  You go talk to Him.”  I knew He was there.  Right there in that place with me.  And in me.  And all around me.  I knew.  Not just with my mind, but with my everything.  I felt like I was covered inside and out with liquid light and fire and electricity all at the same time.  And I could feel His love and I could actually hear him somewhere inside me.  It didn’t hurt, but still, all that light and love and power and pure was too much for who i was.  My knees literally buckled under the weight of it.  All I could do was be there, in Him, knowing that I’d never be the same.  I wanted to run away, and I wanted to stay there just like that forever.  It was terrifying, but good beyond anything I can begin to describe.  It’s still too much for who i am.  But having experienced being with Him in that way, I can’t go back to just knowing about Him.
     I think this is a bit of what the bible’s writers meant by ”the fear of the Lord”.  And it’s a good place.  For everyone.  Because, if this is where we always begin, and where we always return, then we should have no problem recognizing evil and wrong and turning away from them.  
     Of course people are still going to do bad things, and make wrong and selfish and destructive choices.  And sometimes, just being a part of the world and living life will get us “slimed”.  But if we continue to come back to Him, to be with Him and know Him more and more deeply, then being with Him will clean us up and heal us and change us and make us fresh and strong.  And more and more, we’ll come to be like Him.
     When it comes right down to it, Son, that’s what He wants for you.  The best!  To be like Him!  And that’s what I want for you too.  I love you.  
     We’ll talk more later.   

STRANGE LAND–Where Is the God of Elijah?

In the mid-seventies, I read a fascinating book by William Stringfellow entitled An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land.  The emphasis, as the title might indicate, was that real biblical faith calls real Christians to live lives that are always in some sort of tension with the world around them.  To live, in fact, as aliens and strangers in a foreign land. 
     I’ve been privileged over the years to have developed relationships with believers from all over the world.  One thing that baffles so many is the degree to which American Christians in particular, and Western Christians in general, have come become accustomed to a position of privilege in society.   They may not be members of a privileged class economically, but for the most part they do live lives which are more or less free from the threat of persecution.  But this privilege comes with a price.  Silence.  In exchange for the freedom to worship relatively unhindered, Western Christians have tacitly agreed to play by certain rules and allow certain socio-religious assumptions to go unchallenged.  Faith is a private matter.  At best, outside the four walls of the church building, it serves to make nice neighbors, good honest workers, and peaceful obedient citizens who pay their taxes and don’t rock the boat too much.  In recent years, the faith community has seen its national influence wax and wane in relation to certain domestic policy issues, but almost always to the degree that that influence has been linked to broader political and social alliances.  Power politics.  
     New Testament Christianity was something wholly other.  Here was an emerging community that lived and functioned by a different set of rules.  And the very life and understanding of that community as an outpost of God’s Kingdom in the world served as a constant prophetic countersign to the values and agendas of that world.  They saw themselves differently.  Their identity was as citizens of the Kingdom, living by specific Kingdom standards, and serving ONE authority.  Their life on earth was as aliens, strangers in a strange land.  
     We’ve lost our prophetic edge in America.  We’ve given it away in trade for a bowl of stew.  And until we make it our priority to articulate and embrace distinctly biblical values and agendas rather than simply American values and agendas, we will never be what we are called to be as Christians in the twenty-first century.  Are the god of America and the God of the bible one and the same?  How safe are we in assuming that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is on our side?  When living in the city, working in the marketplace, or standing in the public square, “what WOULD Jesus do…really?”
     The prophet Amos confronted his hearers once, asking, “Do you REALLY want the day of the LORD?  Do you honestly know what you’re asking for?  Are you ready for what it takes when the very Presence of God actually shows up in the streets?”  I think we need to take a hard look at what we so glibly claim to desire as Christians in the West.  We need to regain the realization of who we truly are, and who our Lord and our God truly is.  Then, as a community, maybe we can step forward and begin crying out “Where is the God of Elijah?”