The Battle Belongs to the Lord

Last weekend I ran in the Bozeman Classic race, a 5K run that is part of the Sweet Pea Festival festivities in Bozeman.

As I ran, there were two impulses I had to keep in balance. The first impulse was to keep up with the people around me, ignoring my level of training and common sense. The second impulse was to ignore the people around me and maintain my own internal pace. Neither impulse by itself will help me run a good race, but both are necessary. The same is true in the race called life.

I could go through life trying to run at someone else’s pace. That may not be the best pace for me. It may not fit my talents or season of life. I could burn out too fast or not reach my full potential. Similarly, I could go through life completely oblivious to those around me. I would be true to myself, unconcerned about what they are doing or what they think of me. In this case, I risk heading off in a wrong direction or simply not learning from those around me.

God has a path set out for me. No one else’s path is exactly the same as mine. If I am too concerned about being like Jane or John or Jan, I will miss my calling. As the apostle Peter and Jesus were discussing Peter’s future, Peter asked, “What about [John]?” Jesus replied that that was none of Peter’s business. Peter had his own path to follow. (John 21:21-22) I have my path to follow. But if I set out on that path alone, I will miss out on the encouragement and example of others around me. God has placed a “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) around me to spur me on to go beyond what I think I am capable of doing. I thank God for those who run alongside me through life.

As I ran, there were times when I let those around me spur me on to pick up my pace and do more than I thought I could do. There were other times when I stayed firmly in my own pace. Keeping that balance paid off. I finished 9th in my age group (no, I’m not going to tell you which bracket that is) and made my goal of under 27 minutes with a 26:40 time. God grant that I keep that same balance in life.

The last two evenings my husband and I attended two very nice dinners.

The second was Honors Night for Montana State University. The Student Union ballroom was transformed into an elegant dining room. A guitar-cello duo played during dinner. No chicken at this dinner. Instead, we were served a delicious, brie-stuffed filet mignon. My husband, along with twenty other gifted faculty and grad students, were honored for their stellar achievements.

The first, the Spring Celebration for my daughter’s school was both an outreach to the community and a fundraiser for the school. The school gym was transformed into an elegant dining room. We were entertained by several talented musical groups of students and faculty. The high school students served a very nice meal of, you guessed it, chicken. But the similarities end here. The speaker for the evening was Dave Dravecky. He was a talented major league baseball pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, at the top of his career, when they discovered cancer in his pitching arm. Two games into his amazing comeback his arm broke; the cancer had returned. This time, they had to amputate his pitching arm. His faith in God hit a crisis point but also brought him through to the other side where he can now inspire others through his story. He spoke that night about the source of one’s worth. All too often we value people for what they can do, not for who they are. We honor the athlete, the artist, the academic for what they do, for the skills they possess. But when their talent fades, or is yanked away, what happens to them? True worth is found in who we are. We are created by God, in His image. God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins so that we might have everlasting life. Everything else is temporal. There is nothing wrong with being recognized for your accomplishments, for enjoying the accolades of your peers. But, you must always remember that those accolades do not define your true worth. When they fade, as they always do, will you still stand tall knowing you are more than your deeds, or will you crumble in depression and meaninglessness?

In honor of Tax Day, I give you the following quotation from an Ozzie and Harriet radio episode I recently stumbled across.

[Filling out income tax forms] is rapidly becoming one of America’s most exasperating traditions. It calls for a complete mastery of arithmetic, trigonometry, surveying, semantics, foreign languages (including Double-dog and Jabberwocky) not to mention mind-reading and above all, the control of temper.

From the Ozzie and Harriet episode “Tax Return and the Blue Suit”. From Old Time Radio Comedy Podcast, March 25, 2010.

Good luck to those of you still applying on your surveying, mind-reading, and Jabberwocky skills.

Last week I had something medical-related every day except Wednesday. The week started with a chest X-ray, blood draws, bone density test, and ended with appointments with the oncologist and the plastic surgeon. The bottom line is that I am doing very well. There are two more steps for reconstruction, mainly for aesthetic appearances, both fairly minor procedures. This time last year a cold postponed my first reconstruction surgery. This year the cold is all outside (Yes, it has been snowing all day today.) and the major surgeries are behind me. God is Good.

The Dial Tone. We take it for granted, but when it goes away, you appreciate all it represents. Yesterday we lost our dial tone. That means we couldn’t use our phone. We also couldn’t use the internet. Losing one or the other is not so bad. You can still get to the outside world one way or the other. (Or the outside world can get to you.) But to lose both… Let’s see, to report the phone failure, I could call the phone company. Oops. That won’t work. Ah, but they do allow you to report a problem at their website. Wait a minute, that won’t work either. It was an isolating feeling. If someone needed to get in touch with us they couldn’t. Fortunately we recently got cell phones so we had a means to call the phone company to report the problem. It was fixed this morning. The first call we received was a telemarketer wanting to give me a deal on my credit card interest rates. Oh well. I guess that’s the price you pay for access to the outside world.

I am a pack-rat. I admit it. You just never know when you might need something. You want the instruction booklet for that clock radio we bought 5 years ago? I’ve got it. Instructions for that clock radio we got rid of 7 years ago? Well, um, I probably have that too.

This week, however, I have been decidedly un-pack-ratty. The school my daughter attends is having its annual garage sale. Tomorrow I will take my fourth car-load of stuff to donate. Such bold measures are not without consequences. Car-load number two included a car booster seat. Just after unloading, I went to get my daughter and two friends to take to gymnastics. One of the friends still needs to use a booster seat but didn’t have hers with her. Well, I went right back to the pile of stuff I just dropped off, retrieved the booster seat and away we went. (I did re-donate it with car-load number three.) It’s enough to send me back into pack-rattiness.

Why do I keep things? Part of it is prudence. The Bible commends such storing up. Saving up during times of plenty to see you through times of want is wise.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Proverbs 6:6-8

However, part of it is also selfishness and lack of trust in God’s provision. It is selfish because I let my stuff sit around gathering dust in my crawl space, or worse, deteriorating to the point where it is of no use to anyone, “just in case,” rather than letting it be of use to someone else. It is a lack of trust in God’s provision because by keeping stuff, I am telling God “I don’t believe you can provide for me in the future so I am hanging on to this stuff so I can provide for myself.”

 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Matthew 6:25-27

Where is the balance? If any of you figure it out, please let me know. In the meantime, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and that’s a good place to start.

I’ve been reading the book ChurchNext by Eddie Gibbs. Our church librarian needed someone to vet it before putting it on the shelves. Here are some quotations from chapter 6 which deal with worship.

“In true worship God is the audience, and the congregation are the participants. Worship is the wellspring of our witness.”

“People are not looking so much for worship that is relevant as they are for worship that is real.”

“Real” worship is worship where people are engaged with the Living God, proclaiming His greatness & responding to His goodness. It is the outpouring of an intimate relationship with God extends through the week. The reality of that relationship shines through and attracts others to God. Such worship is neither going through the motions nor manufacturing emotions. “Relevant” worship is worship that is more concerned with how people will respond to the worship service than with how they are responding to God. It may be a good show but it has no depth. Like a piece of candy, it is enjoyable at the time and gives you a quick sugar rush, but there is no nutrition to fuel you through the day.

“God graciously approaches humankind along a variety of paths to meet us in our varied cultural settings. Worship is always contextualized so that no one style should be regarded as normative or more spiritual than another. What turns on some people is likely to put off others.”

“Worship leaders are not performers attracting the admiration of the onlookers but prompters who model the act of worship. In order to function authentically in this role they must prioritize worship as the highest form of service to God. … To return to our sports fan analogy, the players on the field so involve the crowds in the stands that the ‘field of play’ extends to include all present.”

We can’t simply be passive observers of a worship service, even if it is not interactive. In a sporting event, the “spectators” are actively engaged in the game, even if they are not running around the field getting sweaty. I hadn’t thought of things that way. Special music or listening to a sermon should be no less passive than congregational singing.

“Hello. Where are you?” seems to be a common telephone greeting nowadays. It used to be that when you called a telephone number and someone answered, you knew exactly where that person was. Today, if you call someone on a cell phone, they could be anywhere in the world. I wonder what Alexander Graham Bell would think of what we’ve done with his invention?

First, I want to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We spent Christmas in Tacoma visiting my mother-in-law and other family, far from easy internet access. We came home to a message waiting for us that the new iMac we had ordered before Christmas had arrived. Since Monday I have been working on migrating over to the new machine. It is our third computer in 16 years. It is amazing to look back at the specs of what seemed to be pretty high-powered machines at the time.

Aragorn¹, 1994: a PowerMac 7100, one of the first macs with PowerPC architecture, clocking in at 66 MHz (yes, that is mega-Hertz), 250 MB Hard Drive, ?? RAM, 33 MHz bus speed, and a floppy drive. Over time we added RAM, upgraded the processor to about 300 MHz, and added 1 GB external hard drive.

Isidore², 2003: Aragorn was limping along by the time Apple finally hit the 1 GHz clock speed, 9 years later. For a little less than Aragorn, we got an iMac G4. The design was slick. It is still my favorite looking machine to date. It clocked in at a whopping 800 MHz, 80 GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, 133 MHz bus speed, a built-in modem, and NO floppy. It served us well but was just not up to the rigors of a power user like myself. So along comes …

Jubal³, 2010: For about the same price as Isidore, we now have Jubal. It was hard waiting for Apple to announce a Nehalem-based architecture chip in their iMac line, but it finally came. It has been worth the wait. It has 4 processors on the chip, running at 2.8 GHz, up to 16 GB RAM, 2 TB (Terabyte) Hard Drive, no front-side bus, no modem, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and built-in WiFi and camera. Maybe, just maybe, we won’t fill up this hard drive before it is time to retire Jubal. But, that’s what I said for just about every machine I’ve used. Time will tell.

1. We like to give our computers unique names. Aragorn is named after the character from The Lord of the Rings. We named the additional external hard drive Shadowfax, from the same book.
2. Named after the patron saint of computers.
3. Named after the biblical “father of all who play the harp and flute”

I came across this poem by Julie Stoner in First Things magazine (Dec. 2009). It put words to how I often feel about the way our culture, both within and without the church, celebrates Christmas.

Hush that anguished hymn you’re humming:
“Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Trumpet Christmas! Fix his coming
firmly at “The First Nowell.”

He’s already come in glory!
Why plead, “Savior, come at last”?
Let’s talk Christmas! Tell a story
safely in the distant past.

Drown out John the Baptist. Edit
out “Prepare! Make straight the way!”
Cut to Christmas! Buy on credit.
Square things up another day.

Advent’s dreary. Let’s start living
Christmas now! Wear red and green!
While we’re at it, skip Thanksgiving!
Deck the halls at Halloween!

Then, when the Incarnate Verb
overnight becomes passé,
carry Christmas to the curb.
Pack the Prince of Peace away.

Advent is supposed to be a time of preparing for Christmas. I don’t mean the decorating, present buying, or Christmas party after Christmas party. I mean a time of preparing our hearts for Christ’s coming. On Christmas Christ entered our world as God incarnate. He also wants to enter each of our hearts if we let Him. He is coming again, which should motivate us to “live a life worthy of our calling.” (Ephesians 4:1) Instead of using Advent to allow God to change us, we like to be comfortable with the little baby Jesus. He is so cute and sleeps so peacefully. He doesn’t ask anything of us. Let’s just sing about the Baby in the manger. Everybody loves babies. We don’t want to hear about how that little Baby grew up, challenged the status quo, died for our sins and rose again, ascended into heaven and is coming again to judge the world. No, facing those realities would require stepping outside our comfort zone. So we run back to the safety of “Christmas” and all its trappings.

My prayer for this Advent and Christmas season is that I come away changed in some way by encountering Christ in a new way. How about you?