The Loving Thing to Do

I was emptying the dishwasher.  There seemed to be a lot more items in it than usual.

Very carefully I stacked the big plates, followed by some smaller plates.  Then, I put some bowls on top of that and then topped it with some cups.  The stack was huge, but I was determined to carry it to where it went all at once.  I picked them up and shuffled towards the cabinet where they were kept.

Suddenly, I caught my toe on some unseen crack in the floor.  I tried to catch my balance, but it was too late...

Crash!

I opened my eyes.  I was lying in bed with not a plate to be seen around me.

Bang!

My beautiful wife seemed to be doing something very noisy with a fly swatter.  I looked at my alarm clock.  It was 11:15 pm.

"What are you doing?"  I asked Elaine.

"There were some very noisy flies in our room," she said.  "They were keeping me awake."  Bang!  "Got one!"  She said triumphantly.

Now, to be honest, I hadn't noticed the sound of the flies at all, but I sure did notice the noise produced by the fly swatter.

There is a verse in I Corinthians 13 that says "Charity suffers long and is kind..." 

Maybe I was being long suffering as I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but probably not.  The loving thing to do would have been to arise and help my wife wage war on the house flies.

I suppose there are times that loving thing is just to do nothing, but far more often the loving thing to do is to try to meet the seen need.  Even such a need as trying to kill house flies on a sleep Saturday evening.

The Water of Life

"I can't drink water," the lady told me dramatically.  "I never could."

"Really?"  I asked, a bit puzzled.  I've heard of many allergies, but never one to water.  Our bodies are about 70 percent water.  It is hard to imagine how anyone could survive without water.  "What do you drink?"  I asked her.

"Mostly diet sodas," she told me.  "And occasionally some sweet tea."

"Hmm," I paused for effect.  "I wonder what the main ingredient of those drinks is?"

"Of course, they have water in them," she said.  "I guess I should say that I like my water flavored."

It reminds me of a meme that I saw recently that said something like "I like eggs...  In cake."

During Jesus' ministry He use a lot of different metaphors to explain the Gospel.  One day, as He was talking to a thirsty Samaritan woman, He told her "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water."

The Samaritan woman didn't understand a lot about Jesus' message, but she did understand water.  The people in Jesus' day didn't drink soft drinks and sweet tea.  They drank water and maybe for special occasions some grape juice or wine, but probably most of them couldn't afford anything other than water.  Once or twice a day they made a journey to the well in their community to fill large pots with water.  If they skipped that trip often enough, they would die.

Water was (and is) necessary for life.  Jesus' message is just as necessary.

I am afraid that these days people want to mix the living water with other things.  They want to "flavor it" to make it acceptable to the modern palate.  But what we need is the living water, the message of Jesus Christ -- nothing more or less.

No one ever died due to lack of carbonation or cola flavorings, but plenty of people have died from lack of water, particularly the water of life.

A Faulty Messenger

"Vince, please do not talk with your mouth full!"  Anna said in a pleading voice.

"Anna," Vince said, with his mouth still pretty packed with tater tot casserole.  "Why do you have to be so bossy?"

"Because it looks so disgusting,"  Anna said.

"That's not an answer,"  Vince said.

I suppose that both of my children have their points.  It is pretty disgusting when someone insists on speaking with their mouth full.  There is a reason that most opportunities for oration do not take place in a Golden Corral.  On the other hand, it I probably discouraging when your older sister frequently tells you what to do.

Matthew 7 tells us to remove the log from our own eye before attempting to assist our brother with washing the speck out of his.  I guess for me, the bigger question is what to do when we are in the position of the brother being criticized (particularly when we can clearly see the log in the one doing the criticism's eye).

It is easy to focus on my brother's faults and choose to ignore the advice he has given, but that feels like exactly the wrong thing to do.  Regardless of the issues my brother has, I must listen to his admonition and hear the truth in it if I wish to grow.

Shooting the messenger only destroys the channel by which the message arrives.  Similar, maybe, to throwing your cell phone in the ocean when you hear bad news on it.

Some day, I hope that both of my children learn to deal with their faults -- talking with food in their mouth and bossiness, among others.  That growth will come faster if they learn to listen to less than perfect messengers (and even, sometimes, their siblings).

Reading to my Children

"Dad, this book is much more interesting than the last book you were reading to us," Anna said.

"I think technically it's the same book," I said.  "It's just that it is so long that they broke it up into three parts."

"Maybe so," Anna said.  "But the first part was kind of boring."

My children and I are in the process of reading the Lord of the Rings -- probably mostly because I enjoy it.  We just finished "The Fellowship of the Ring" and started "The Two Towers."

"Mom says that the Lord of the Rings is an 'Allergy,'" Vince proclaimed sagely.  "Sauron is sort of like the devil and the ring is like sin."

"Hmm," I said.  "I think the word is actually Allegory."

Elliot decided to put his two cents in.  "I think that the Lord of the Rings is telling us that it is bad to wear jewelry!"

With those words of wisdom, the conversation turned to other subjects.

I have read the Lord of the Rings several times.  If there is a unifying theme in the book, it is that small people, without great power, but with courage can change the world.  Regardless, the book can simply be read as a long story about another world.

I'm afraid that many people read the Bible the way that my children are listening to Tolkein's masterpiece.  Page by page they search for hidden meanings, struggling over prophetic passages with their weird symbolism and imagery.

The thing is that the important messages of the Bible are said very clearly.  Sure, there are passages that are difficult to understand, but there are a lot more that are like John 13:35 where Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

The problem isn't that we don't understand the whole Bible.  The problem is that we aren't very good at putting into practice the things we do understand.

All we are called to do is to live the things we comprehend.  That's enough, even if there are a few things in Scripture that never become as clear as the "Allergy" the Lord of the Rings.

Artistry

My wife Elaine draws better than I do.  She can sketch houses and put the sun, complete with rays coming out of them.  She can draw rabbits and cats and a number of other things which you can actually identify after the fact.

When I draw things, it is usually tough to figure out what I've drawn.  (Maybe that's why she's so much better at Pictionary than I am).  I often try to sketch things for my patients to explain some medical thing, but I'm never sure if my drawings help. 

A picture may be worth a thousands words, but I'm afraid most of mine are only worth about twelve and a half.

If I am truthful though, neither one of us is a great artist.  Rembrandt and Michelangelo would have nothing to fear from either of us from an artistry standpoint (although Elaine can bake a far better pie than any of the Renaissance artists could have).

There are different levels of drawing and certainly I am closer to the bottom than the top.  At the same time, if I compare my abilities to my three year old, Victoria's abilities, I am an amazing artist.

I am afraid our human tendency is to compare ourselves to others who are worse than us and then to over value our own skills.  This can lead to the belief that we don't need God's guidance in our lives.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

What actually ends up happening in this situation is that we do our own thing until we run into trouble and then call on Him to bail us out.  Even if we don't get into trouble, we don't experience the blessings we would have following Him.

God is the master designer and architect.  He sees the future as clearly as He does the present.  He knows the end just as well as He does the beginning.  More than that, He knows the people that He wants you and me to become.

We won't get there by following our own way or believing our skills to be more than they are.  We will get there by placing our hand in the hand of our Father and walking with Him wherever He wants to go.

A Million Bananas

"Dad, you know what?"  My son, Vince, asked me.

I generally have no idea what wisdom my son will impart to me.  Often it is some tidbit of information from the plant or animal kingdom, or perhaps some historical fact about the Reformation.  Not today...

"I don't know Vince, what?"  I asked him.

"One banana is better than a million bananas if you are someone who doesn't like bananas!"  He said emphatically.

(Vince doesn't like bananas).

Of course, this statement could be true for any food or activity you don't like.  Even for things you do enjoy, there is some extreme that would just be "too much."  I do like bananas, but one million of them just sounds like a mess to me.

Some level of moderation and variety in life adds quite a bit of spice to it.

There are a few areas where extreme levels are to be encouraged and even desired.  Love and kindness come to mind.  Most other things -- even lobster and chocolate -- have their limits.

I'm afraid our human tendency is to push ourselves full bore into things that just don't matter that much.  Jesus was different.  In John 13 it says, "...having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end."

It wasn't love of money or love of things or desire for power that drove Jesus.  What motivated Him was a love for His disciples and for us today.  His was a love that was more extreme than any love that we have known.

I would pray that that each one of us would learn the important things in life.  There really are only a few things that it is worth getting "extreme" about, but for those we should give our all.

Jesus gave His life because of love for us.  Can we do less for Him?

Eating Cake

I watched with great interest as the little boy across from me ate his birthday cake.  Carefully he scraped every bit of icing off of the top and sides (he had specifically asked for a piece with a rose on it for extra frosting).  It made a small mound on his plate beside his, suddenly unclothed, piece of chocolate cake.

Then, like the wolf swallowing the duck in Peter and the Wolf, he swallowed it all in just two mouthfuls.

He licked his lips and inspected his cake.  No, there was no other icing to be seen.  "Mom," he announced a moment later.  "I'm full.  Can I go out and play?"

I suppose it isn't an unusual thought that there are three ways to eat cake, the same as there are three ways to Oreos.  There are those who scrape off their icing and eat it first, there are those who scrape off their icing and eat it last, and then there are those "mature" eaters who eat the whole lot together.

Well, and then there are a few miserable souls who don't eat cake at all because it would be bad for their figure.  But of those, we will not speak.

It doesn't really matter how you eat your cake, but it does seem to me that people tend to take the same ideas to the ways in which they break down every day tasks as they do to ingesting cake.  There are those who save their hardest chores for last, those who do them first, and those who do a mixture of them.

I tend to be of the personality to get the hardest things out of the way with first, but there is really something to be said for doing a mixture.  Spending extended time grinding away on things we don't enjoy, without an occasional break with something we like, will wear any one of us down.

Ecclesiastes tells us "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might..."  Enjoyable tasks, jobs that are just a grind require the same commitment.

All your might...

That is the challenge.  It is easy to go full bore at things we enjoy doing, but not so easy to work through jobs that we don't -- particularly not to do them with all our strength and focus.

It might be nice to have no hard, onerous tasks, but that is not the way of things.  Most of the time, we have to finish our green beans before we can even look at our cake -- regardless of whether or not it has icing.

Regardless of how we separate our jobs out through each day, let us work at them with a will.  Those who only eat cake are bound to have some nutritional deficiencies later on in life.

Making Good Decisions

"Elliot, you need to go away!"  Victoria told her brother dramatically.  "I'm sick and you don't want to catch it!"

I chuckled a little bit as I heard her say this.  Elaine and I are always trying to keep our children away from each other when one of them is sick, although in all honesty, once one of them gets a dread malady, chances are pretty good that they will all get it.

Distance may help the heart grow fonder, but our hope is that it will prevent the transmission of contagious organisms, as well.

"But you aren't sick, Victoria," Elliot said.  "Can I have some of those chips?"

"No, Elliot!"  Victoria said in an even louder voice.  "They're mine!"

In this case, Elliot was exactly right.  Victoria was not sick.  I could only guess that she wanted the chips all to herself and so was trying to come up with reasons that her hungry brother had to stay far away.

I have discovered over time that my children are very good at coming up with "excellent" reasons as to why they should be able to do the things they want to do. 

This is not just something that children do.  If I am honest, there have been plenty of times that I have come to a decision and realized that I wanted to reach a particular conclusion and was just working backwards trying to figure out the reasons for what I just really wanted.

It isn't wrong to choose chocolate ice cream over strawberry and say "I just wanted chocolate today."  But to delude yourself into thinking that you chose chocolate because the countries that produce cacao beans are really need of financial assistance and you are doing your part to help needy farmers in the third world is probably a stretch.

The most important thing is simply that we are honest with ourselves.  True wisdom begins with knowing God.  The next step to wisdom is knowing ourselves and our desires.  Only then can we separate rationalizations from reasons.

It is not surprising that a three year old would want to eat all the potato chips herself, but learning to share is the path of wisdom.

Jessica's Marshmallow Cloud Cookies?

"Oh, dear," Anna said with a very dramatic sigh.  "These cookies just aren't turning out!"

"What's that white stuff coming out of them?"  I asked.  The cookies appeared to be some kind of chocolate cookie, but there was some kind of white lava that was emanating from the center of them.

"Dad," Anna said.  "They are Jessica's Marshmallow Cloud Cookies.  They are from Mrs. Fields' Cookie Favorites recipe book, but in the book they look beautiful, but all of mine sort of exploded when I baked them."

"They have marshmallows in the middle?"  I asked.  I guess I'm pretty old school, because growing up, I thought the word "Cookie" was synonymous with "Chocolate Chip."  Certainly my mother never thought of putting marshmallows inside her cookies.

"Yes, Dad,"  Anna said.  She was really upset.  "They are for a cooking contest our class is having."

"I'm sure they'll taste great," I said, reassuringly.

"But Dad, Mrs. Nan said that we would be judged not just on how things taste, but on how they look.  They call it 'Presentation.'"

"Well, I think they look tasty enough to eat and I would give you a blue ribbon," I said.  That didn't seem to help the situation much, but I did help myself to a cookie which was, as I thought quite tasty.

Anna never did figure out the cookie recipe.  She froze the marshmallows harder before she surrounded them with dough, but they still insisted on blowing holes in her cookies once they got heated up in the oven.  Finally, she left the marshmallows out and sadly took Jessica's Marshmallow-Free Cookies to school for the contest.

There is one simple fact that was messing her cookies up.  The reason why marshmallow came out of the cookies when they were heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit in our old Kitchen Aid oven was because that was what was inside of them.

Jesus said, "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."  (Luke 6:45 ESV)

What comes out of me when I am stressed and under pressure reveals the truth about my heart.  That is the time when the filters are stripped away and anger and bitterness or (hopefully) peace and joy can be truly revealed.

Nothing can come out unless it is first inside.

I pray that each one of us would know the heart transformation that only Jesus can bring.  Only then can we learn the lesson of Jessica's Exploding Marshmallow Cookies.

A Scary Frog

"Dad, it's a scary frog!"  Victoria said excitedly, holding up a little stuffed tree frog.  "It is going to eat you!"

"Oh dear," I said, pretending to tremble with fear.

This apparently was the right response, because her voice got a little louder.  "He's coming to eat you!  He's coming to eat you!"

And so it went over the next five minutes as the stuffed frog approached me, but never actually ate me.  In fact, he didn't seem even interested in nibbling on me.

Now, I can honestly say that I have never been frightened of stuffed frogs.  I'm not even afraid of real live frogs, even though I know that I know that there are very poisonous ones, like the Poison Dart Frog.  I have never once, in my whole life awakened in the middle of a nightmare shaking with terror because a large and terrible frog was pursuing me.

Victoria isn't scared of frogs either.  On the other hand, she is greatly afraid of insects.  I was trying to get her to go into the house the other day and she wouldn't move.  "I'm scared," she told me."

"Of what?"  I asked, scanning the yard and trees for some wolverine, bear,  or other terrifying creature.

"Of that," she said pointing at the ground a few feet in front of us.

I couldn't see anything at first, but then, there on the ground, I saw a little gray sow bug, headed to his place of business.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," I said, taking her hand.

"No," she said, resisting.  "I'm afraid."

In that moment, I picked her up and carried her into the house, past the scary sow bug and any other insects she hadn't noticed.

Each one of us has fears.  Perhaps it is a phobia of heights, spiders, or of tight places.  Maybe it is more worries about life events, like a fear of cancer, poor health, or bad finances.  The hard part is what to do with these fears.

For the most part, I think we try to avoid them.  Tree frogs (at least in Virginia) seem to be pretty easy to avoid.  Many other terrors are difficult to stay away from and linger in the backs of our minds causing anxiety about the present and the future.

Psalm 56:3 says, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You."

That, I suppose, is the key.  Our trust may not be very strong, but if our Father is strong then it is enough.  My heavenly Father is exactly that.

When I am not strong enough to even put my hand in His and allow Him to lead me past my fears, He will gently pick me up and carry me to a place of safety.

That's the beauty of faith.  It gives courage for each situation, not because I am so great, but because God is.

When I am afraid, I will trust in Him.

Always.

Building Trust

"So, you're the new doctor?" The older man sitting in the exam room said to me.

"Well, sort of," I said.  "I've been here since last July."

"Oh," he said.  "Well, I guess I haven't heard too much bad about you yet," in a tone that said that maybe next week he would hear about the former patients I had buried in my crawl space.

"I know you usually see Dr. Jones," I said.  "But I'll do my best to take good care of you.  What brings you in today?"

"It's my shoulder," he said.

The next several minutes were spent gleaning information about his shoulder and examining it.  "It looks like rotator cuff tendinitis," I said.  "You've probably just been overusing it."

"Well," he said.  "What do I do about it?"

"I think the best thing would be to put a shot in it and then probably do some physical therapy on it," I said.

"What kind of shot?"  He asked.

"A steroid shot," I replied.

"Is it going to hurt?"  He asked suspiciously.

"Oh, a little," I said breezily.  "You'll be fine."

"Easy for you to say," he said, sarcastically.  "I guess go ahead."

I went out and drew up the medication I would be injecting, very carefully.  I returned to the room with the syringe.  I carefully marked the area, cleansed it with alcohol, and picked up the syringe.

"All set?"  I asked.

"Go for it," my patient told me through his gritted teeth.

I gave the shot.  "You'll feel a stick and then a burn.  The burn is worse than the stick," I said as I pushed the Depo Medrol into the joint.  I don't know why I say that, but literally every shot I give I say the same thing.  "All done," I told him, slapping a Band-Aid on the posterior aspect of his shoulder.

"When are you giving the shot?"  He asked.

"It's in," I said.

"Wow," he said.  "You're pretty slick.  I hardly felt a thing."  He paused a moment and then said, "I do believe you might work out here in Brookneal after all."

It's a bit of a boring story from one of my days.  No one passed out, no one had to be resuscitated, and there weren't gallons of blood being transfused.  There was only a first meeting between a doctor and a patient and one that (hopefully) went well.  Of course, the bigger question will be known in a few days.  It doesn't really matter so much whether the shot hurts, it is whether or not it works.

I think about this a lot.  The relationship between doctor and patient is built on trust.  When I give my patients advice, they need to believe that I know what I'm talking about.  That confidence comes because of experience.  It comes because in each little event in my patient's lives I am there and take good care of them.

Our relationship with God requires even more trust -- we call it faith.  The knowledge that God will lead us through whatever trial we are in and that He will not leave us.  We can get this knowledge from God's Word and from reading the promises there.  Even better, sometimes, is just to sit and remember the dark times in the past and how He brought us through each one.

My memory isn't always the best at remembering how discouraged I was in the past when dealing with my son's speech delay or, a summer vacation disaster, but if I try, I can remember that those times were awfully dark and God took me (and my family) through each one.

Today's trials are big -- maybe they are bigger than any we've faced in the past, but regardless, our God can take care of them all. 

He's always been faithful before.

He will continue to be trustworthy, whatever we face, one day at a time.

 

From Teaspoons to Serving Spoons

"This spoon isn't big enough," my son, Elliot, said.  "I need a bigger spoon."

"Then get one," Anna told him.  "You know where the spoons are."

"OK," said Elliot and went over to the silverware drawer in search of a spoon larger than your standard issue teaspoon.  In a few moments he returned.

"Elliot, that's way too big!"  Anna told him.  She was right.  Elliot had gotten a very large serving spoon out of the drawer to eat his soup.

"It's not too big, it's just right!"  He told her, unconsciously quoting the famous philosopher Goldilocks.  He proceeded to eat his chili with said serving spoon, contorting his mouth in odd ways the whole time.

It probably is not a unique observation to me that people tend to fluctuate between extremes.  Someone who has just burned their tongue on McDonald's coffee runs to soothe it with ice cream.  The couch potato who hasn't exercised seriously for three years gets a bad report at his doctor and goes home to put on jogging pants and attempts to get through a mini-marathon.

While our human tendency is to fluctuate between opposite ends of the spectrum, our psyches don't deal well that.  An emotional roller coaster of a life is bound to wear most of us out.

The prophet Elijah experienced such ups and downs.  He went from defeating the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel to fleeing for his life in a few days. 

It was at that time that God lead him out into the desert and explained a few things to him.  Elijah wasn't alone.  He still had a purpose and God would give him the strength he needed to fulfil that purpose.

I think that's what we need to hear when we come crashing down from Cloud Nine into the deepest dungeon.

God is the same God in times of intense highs or deep lows.  He still has a purpose for you and me and will give us the strength to fulfil that purpose.  We are not alone.

Let's just not make the mistake of exchanging our teaspoons for a serving spoon.

Better Than a Sparrow

"Dad," my son Vince said to me.  "Look at the bird feeder.  There are lots of sparrows there."

"Sure, enough, there are," I said. 

 "I like to see the sparrows," Vince told me.  "I know that there are prettier birds, like cardinals, but when I see sparrows it always reminds me that one of the sparrows will not fall to the ground without God knowing it.  God cares about the sparrows, doesn't He?"

"He definitely does," I told my nine-year old son.

Of course, I care for the birds too.  I'm the one who is buying them bird seed and honestly, not a single one of them has ever thanked me, or sent me a card of appreciation in return.  I think they are beautiful and like seeing them at the feeders, even if bird seed is not free.

The verse my son was referring to does tell that God cares about the sparrows, but it doesn't stop there.  Jesus told His disciples, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Matt 10:29-31)

It is a blessing that God cares about the very smallest parts of creation.  He notices when sparrows and hummingbirds die.  Even more it is a blessing that He sees me as valuable and knows the tiniest details about me.

God knows us better than we know ourselves.

I don't know how many hairs there are on my head and my guess is that few people out there do.  The number of hairs isn't important (except, I suppose as they gradually lessen), but the fact that God knows this, extremely trivial aspect about us, indicates that He also knows and cares about the things that are important to us as well.

God sees us as valuable.

There are plenty of times that I don't feel valuable, times when I feel the tiniest part of this Universe.  God doesn't care that I'm tiny or that there are seven and half other billion humans out there.  God sees me as a worthwhile and important part of his vast creation.

I don't understand it, but that's what God thinks of us.

God does not want us to fear.

This passage doesn't promise that sparrows won't go through hard times.  It does state clearly that sparrows will not fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father.

In the same way, we will go through difficult times.  That is certain.  At the same time, God has promised that we will not go through these situations apart from Him.  He has stated that He will be with us regardless.

In the end, God cares for the birds.  Sometimes He uses generous people like myself and our bird feeders.  Sometimes He uses worms from the ground, but either way, the birds do not worry about their future.

The next time you see a sparrow stop for a second and think.  That tiny bird is important to God.  How much more am I?