At What Point Are You?

On a mission trip some years ago, while bemoaning the behavior of some acquaintances (other missionaries we knew), a good friend, himself a second generation missionary, made that observation about all of us: "we're all at different points in our Christian process."  Though not excusing improper behavior, it's a valid comment on Christian maturity.  I know few mature Christians who are fully satisfied with their Christian walk. Those who claim to be satisfied make me quite suspicious, actually; so I'm skeptical of anyone who claims to be. The Christian life is indeed a process.  We come to a saving knowledge of Christ and then should begin to grow in that relationship; becoming more like Him as we go—at least that's the way it should be working.  In that respect, we're truly all at different points in our process and that process can be frustrating. 

I'm most often frustrated with my own point in point in the process.  When I start getting one part right, another seems to slip.  I get that back to looking something like it should and something else falls behind...it's a never ending job trying to keep it all together—and I work pretty hard at it.  It's only by God's grace that I keep together what does stay together. 

Another of my frustrations is that I didn't get serious about my spiritual life until I was a bit over 30—my life was pretty much unremarkable, nothing to take note of.  When I see young men aggressively pursuing the things of the Lord, I'm thrilled; though regret my own sluggishness in getting real about my own life until I was older—so much time lost.  I’m also frustrated by the other young men who are doing what I did—not that they’re bad; they’re just ho-hum.  I regret that ho-hum time.

As frustrated as I get with myself, at least I recognize a few my own failings.  It is yet more frustrating to see those who think that they have "arrived" cease to learn, grow, or be obedient to the Word.  These are often among my friends who are vocal about their beliefs, but live and behave in ways highly contrary—and often very visibly so—to it.  My statement to them is that God will not honor you if you fly in the face of His laws.  Some have heeded the advice, others have not.  Some of these friends boldly profess their faith, pointing out the error they see in others (possibly valid criticisms), while openly living wrongly—often arguably more in the wrong than those they criticize.    

Some of these are dear friends who have not recognized that faith and obedience are linked (Romans 1).  Though salvation comes by grace through faith alone, growth comes through obedience; obedience through knowledge; knowledge through teaching and diligent study.  When that part of the process is neglected the point in the process is a fixed point.  At what point are you?  

Random Observations on a Sunday Morning

As I was headed to church this morning I had to stop to allow for pedestrian traffic as another church emptied out and its congregants crossed to the parking lot.  I observed that there were many gray heads; but there were no kids, no teens and no young adults.  Contrast that to the Sunday morning service at our church ( the Baptist Church of Northville--yeah, I am promoting it   here:  http://www.baptistchurchofnorthville.org/) where there are families with infants, preschool, and all school-aged kids and older teens as well as a significant number of young adults, a few newlyweds, and a few soon-to-be-weds. We have the full spectrum of ages covered.  

We also cover a broad range in music, as was commented on this morning by our Music Director. This morning we had a special that was done to a Jamaican beat and in an island vernacular.  It was well done and well received. Our Sunday morning worship is graced by all types of music from a contemporary praise band with a variety of instruments, a great sounding choir of adult voices, kids choirs, bells choirs and endless specials. Any music that brings praise and honor to our Lord is used.  It's priceless to see senior citizens clapping to a modern song and youngsters singing the timeless and traditional hymns of the faith. 

I was also struck this morning by the commitment to service among some of our folks. One older gentleman--long a loyal servant within our church, having served in a variety of positions--now needs a cane to safely navigate from the parking lot, across open ground and into the sanctuary. However, he takes his place among the ushers when the time comes for the morning offering, though he may grasp a pew for support here and there. That's faithful service!  

Finally, over the last couple of weeks I've been in a position to notice the preparation that goes into worship. Our musicians practice beforehand, our sound people make sure everything is working, our maintenance man is standing by, ready to deal with the little needs that pop up with a high degree of regularity...yes, worship does take preparation. This begs the question:  Are we prepared to worship?  Are we already thinking on things of the Lord, or about the picnic this afternoon? Have we looked at the sermon outline that's usually available on-line and read the Scripture? Have we asked God's blessing on the hour? Hmmmm.

   

More of the "YOU OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER"

In the days before facebook; before Bing; before Google, there was email.  In those early email days, there might have been an excuse for passing on garbage by means of that novel mode of communication.  After all, who among us doesn't want to be the first to pass on a helpful hint, a warning of danger or maybe a juicy tidbit about a public figure?
But now, rarely does a day go by without a message from someone that is totally--or at least largely--bogus; and the facts of the matter are readily available with but a "copy-paste-enter."
A troubling part of this is that it's not just dopey people who do this. It's as likely as not to be the professionals.  As a disclaimer, everyone gets stung occasionally.  I too have passed on information which had come by way of folks who should have known better, and then been chided for not checking the facts. So much for trusting those who should have known better.   Mea Culpa!
I am particularly disturbed by those who value the same things as I do and pass on nonsense.  It kills their credibility and that of the causes they (we) hold dear.
So folks, check the facts--YOU OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER!

Some Things Just "Stick In My Craw"

Facebook has allowed me to connect with a lot of folks.  Some are friends from years past, some are quite distant geographically, some I might never have met; but through mutual "friends" we've connected and developed a dialogue.  Some post things that I can't wait to see--pictures of their kids, that kind of things; others post words of wisdom, whether just good sense or something of solid theology.  Some have postings that are a mixed bag of information and enough interesting things to keep me reading them, and then there are those who post drivel.  Yeah, that's right, drivel.
I might have ranted about this before; but this time I have a specific bit of drivel that has got me fired up.  I'm often seeing posts (generally passed on from others so far removed that the original source is totally occluded) that read something like "Say this prayer and in two hours God will do...." You've seen them, I'm sure.  They're the 21st century version of the chain letter.
I take a couple issues with this:

• First of all, I believe that God answers prayers of those who are His.  That's straight from the Bible.  He is under no obligation to answer those of a random person who passes on what another has written, often with not a thought, let alone a real prayer. 
• A prayer is something heartfelt.  Though they may be read from written material, those are all too often words from a page, nothing more.  There is no heart connection to God.
• Most egregiously, the person posting is invoking God's name and reputation; promising, on His behalf, that He will do some specific thing.  That is, I believe, a form of taking God's name in vain, which--in case you've forgotten--is part of the 10 commandments.  

Some of these folks come from backgrounds about which I have no idea.  Maybe they were not taught any better; in this day, that's certainly understandable. Others, and these bother me more, were raised where the truth was taught.  They are without excuse.
I have thought about responding to these things with an all capitalized "YOU OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER;" but as of yet have not done so.  It gets more tempting all the time.
So folks, if you are one to post such things, think about what you're doing.  Don't presume to speak for God unless you've truly studied His word and have a grasp of what prayer and answered prayer is all about (hint--it's not about what you want; it's about what He wants for you).  If you make a statement based on Scripture, good for you.  If you're posting because you like passing on nice-sounding things, think about what you're doing.

Yeah, Been Quiet Again

Just been a busy few weeks.  Work, mini golf business,  more work, family....yeah, like that. In the middle of it all, I've started to study Greek.  Its coming pretty well actually.  It's not "all Greek to me" anymore.
So that's my quick update on life here.

Game Warden Files--Staten Island, part 3

One of the new guys out of the academy was John.  He was only in the region a couple weeks when he went back to the academy again for Defensive Tactics Instructor school.  He was young, eager to work hard, and fun to work with.  Early on with John we were out on the water in New York Harbor in the Mako and saw one of our local lobstermen tending a pot line about a half mile off the sea wall along Brooklyn's Promenade.  This lobsterman, though not a bad guy, was something of a bandit--as were most of them.  At that time, the big issue in the harbor was undersized lobsters.  We always assumed that they were being sold to either neighbors or small restaurants in the lobstermens' neighborhoods, as they never seemed to make the major markets.
I'd caught this guy once before at the dock as he was off-loading about 200 short lobsters, so after we'd watched him long enough to see that he wasn't throwing anything overboard, so we assumed we'd find him "holding shorts."  Our boat was readily identifiable, so our method of approach was to disappear for a while, hide behind a larger vessel going in the direction of our suspect boat and then appear from behind it to make our surprise visit. It usually worked pretty well.
All went pretty well actually.  We ran a few miles out to sea and got lost among some inbound tankers and freighters.  We got down in the wake of a rather fast moving freighter and waited until we were in what we thought would be the right place to make our move.  I hit the throttles, pointed the bow over the wake and as we crested the peak of it saw the lobster boat RIGHT THERE!  Apparently he'd move off the line he'd been working and was now on another one.  So, here we were, surfing down the other side of the wake on a collision course with a much larger boat.  I put the throttles in full reverse, and as my mind recorded the scene in slow motion, the wake passed beneath both boats, bringing our deck on the level of the the lobster boat, John stepped very gently aboard the lobster boat, with all the workers busily pulling pots on the other side.  I blew the siren to let them know they'd been boarded, and disappeared behind the wake as it passed beneath me.  I can only imagine the minds of the lobstermen when they heard the siren, turned around and had seen ECO's standing on the deck of their boat, with only a wall of water behind him.  Where did he come from?
After the wakes had fully passed, I circled back to the lobster boat and found John calmly talking with the lobstermen.  After a complete check of the boat, he'd found them to be totally in compliance.  All that hard work for no violation; but I'm sure those lobstermen were always looking behind them after that!

Game Warden Files--Staten Island, part 2

We quickly grew to love our life on Staten Island.  We found Bethel Evengelical Free Church and quickly became embedded into it.  It is still home to us in many ways.  Peggy did some office work for the pastor and made some great friends there so she was comfortable.  It was also close to New Jersey where we had some friends from her childhood.  They were now within about an hour's drive, closer than they'd ever been. By the time we moved there, I'd become the senior--no, make that the only--ECO in the region.  I was now the game warden for the entire city.  There was a captain, a lieutenant, and me.  Everyone had either transferred out or was in the academy along with the replacements for those who had transferred out.  I got to run all five boroughs of the city.  Actually, one day I did answer complaints in all five boroughs of the city!  In spite of the overload, it was fun.  I got to know a little of the culture and geography in each of the areas.  When the new guys all came out of the academy, I got to do the break-in for most of them also, that also took me to all over the city.  It was a time of great exploration.
Staten Island also brought me another boat.  I'd had the 31 footer in Brooklyn, and now I had a 19 foot Mako with twin 75 horsepower outboards.  I was also about the only officer who could operate the big boat, so I still ran that quite often, also.
One part of myself that I discovered while on Staten Island was that I'd finally grown into myself.  I was confident, competent and had become a good communicator.  I started to realize this when I went to open an account with the local fuel company and was turned down because I was a renter and not a home owner. I was offered the chance to speak to the owner of the company, a very down to earth gentleman who looked over my application while we spoke.  We talked about many things: the nature of my job, which interested him; the nature of society; even the fact that I had once delivered fuel oil and serviced furnaces for a living, including that I'd had to collect before delivering on all too many occasions.  After a few minutes of pleasant conversation, he smiled, told the girls behind the counter to give me an open account and thanked me for my time.  I found that if I took the time to let people know what I was about, they were far more likely to be trusting and agreeable to my desires.   My supervisor, Jim Molenelli noticed that ability in me also.  He once commented that he was surprised the city had not yet made a personal exit for me on the West Shore Expressway, since it did run right by my house.