Social Rules to Live By

This post is a bit outside my wheelhouse, so to speak. What follows is some good advice that I wish I had learned earlier (or maybe paid better attention to when someone else was trying to teach me). Some of these may be more applicable than others, but I hope they will all be useful at some point in your life:

  1. Don’t call someone more than twice continuously. If they don’t pick up your call, presume they have something important to attend to.
  2. Return money that you have borrowed even before the person who loaned it to you remembers or asks for it. It shows your integrity and character. The same goes for umbrellas, pens, and lunch boxes.
  3. Never order the expensive dish on the menu when someone is treating you to lunch or dinner.
  4. Don’t ask awkward questions like ‘Oh, so you aren’t married yet?’ Or ‘Don’t you have kids?’ Or ‘Why haven’t you bought a house?’ Or ‘Why haven’t you bought a car?’ For God’s sake, it isn’t your problem.
  5. Always open the door for the person coming behind you. It doesn’t matter if it is a guy or a girl, senior or junior. You don’t grow small by treating someone well in public.
  6. If you take a taxi with a friend and he/she pays now, try paying next time.
  7. Respect different shades of opinions. Remember, what may seem like 6 to you might appear as 9 to someone else. Besides, a second opinion is good for an alternative.
  8. Never interrupt people while they are talking. Allow them to pour it out. As they say, hear them all and filter them all.
  9. If you tease someone, and they don’t seem to enjoy it, stop it and never do it again. It encourages one to do more and shows how appreciative you are.
  10. Say “thank you” when someone is helping you.
  11. Praise publicly. Criticize privately.
  12. There’s almost never a reason to comment on someone’s weight. Just say, “You look fantastic.” If they want to talk about losing weight, they will.
  13. When someone shows you a photo on their phone, don’t swipe left or right. You never know what’s next.
  14. If a colleague tells you they have a doctor’s appointment, don’t ask what it’s for, just say “I hope you’re okay.” Don’t put them in the uncomfortable position of having to tell you their personal illness. If they want you to know, they’ll do so without your inquisitiveness.
  15. Treat the cleaner with the same respect as the CEO. Nobody is impressed by how rudely you treat someone below you, but people will notice if you treat them with respect.
  16. If a person is speaking directly to you, staring at your phone is rude.
  17. Never give advice until you’re asked.
  18. When meeting someone after a long time, unless they want to talk about it, don’t ask them their age or salary.
  19. Mind your business unless anything involves you directly – just stay out of it.
  20. Remove your sunglasses if you are talking to anyone in the street. It is a sign of respect. Moreover, eye contact is as important as your speech.
  21. Never talk about your riches in the midst of the poor. Similarly, don’t talk about your children in the midst of the barren.
  22. After reading a good message, consider saying “Thanks for the message.”

APPRECIATION remains the easiest way of getting what you don’t have.

I am including the original post to give credit where credit is due.

Wanting and Willing

What follows was originally penned by Elisabeth Elliott. It speaks to the distinction between wanting to obey and willing to obey. The key is that you obey even when you don’t feel like it. You do the acts of love and then the feelings of love will follow:

“We don’t always have complete control over what we want to do because ‘wants’ are determined by circumstances, feelings, other people, social climate, times in which we live. Nobody ever wanted a pair of Reebok tennis shoes before Reebok tennis shoes were invented. The fact that you want it doesn’t mean you go and buy it. It’s a matter of ‘willing’.

The same thing is true of the will of God. We can determine to will to do the will of God. It’s a conscious choice. You may not w’ant’ to do what you know God wants you to do, but you can will to do what He wants you to do.

Don’t ever allow the devil to take you in with the argument, “You gotta do what you gotta do because if you do something that you don’t wanna do or you don’t do something that you wanna do, You’re being a hypocrite.” That’s rubbish! Do you think a mother changes a baby’s diaper only when she wants to, when she feels like it? No, she does it when the baby’s diaper needs to be changed. She WILLS to do it. It has nothing to do with whether she feels good about it.

Here is a poem I came across:

[ I believe the author was Anna J. Graniss.]

“I saw a little child
With bandaged eyes
Put up its hands
To feel its mother’s face.

She bent and took
The tender, gropy palms
And pressed them to her lips
A little space.

I know a soul
Made blind by its desires
And yet its faith keeps feeling
For God’s face.

Bend down, O Mighty Love
And let that faith
One little moment
Touch Thy lips of grace.”

The same thing as what our loving God does. Even if we are made blind by desires, the things that we want–yet faith–which is a willed act, keeps feeling for God’s face. And when we will to come to Him, will to seek His face, then He in tender love reaches down and takes our hands and leads us to Him.

George McDonald said, ‘f I felt my heart as hard as a stone, if I did not love God, or man, or woman, or little child, I would yet say to God in my heart, ‘Oh, God, see how I trust Thee because Thou art perfect and not changeable like me. I do not love Thee. I love nobody. I am not even sorry for it. Thou seest how much I need Thee to come close to me, to put Thy arm around me, to say to me, ‘My child’. For the worse my state, the greater need of my Father Who loves me.’

If anyone feels he/she has no religious feeling whatsoever, but still desires God, believe me, the Father waits for your slightest move in His direction and He will meet you” (Elisabeth Elliot).

Prone to Wander

“Robert Robinson had been saved out of a tempestuous life of sin through George Whitfield’s ministry in England. Shortly after that, at the age of twenty-three, Robinson wrote the hymn, ‘Come, Thou Fount. Come, Thou Fount of ev’ry blessing, Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise’.

Sadly, Robinson wandered far from those streams and like the Prodigal Son, journeyed into the distant country of carnality. Until one day—he was traveling by stagecoach and sitting beside a young woman engrossed in her book. She ran across a verse she thought was beautiful and asked him what he thought of it. ‘Prone to wander— Lord, I feel it— Prone to leave the God I love’. Bursting into tears Robinson said, ‘Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.’

Although greatly surprised, she reassured him that the ‘streams of mercy’ mentioned in his song still flowed. Mr. Robinson was deeply touched. Turning his ‘wandering heart’ to the Lord, he was restored to full fellowship” (Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories).

I love a good back story, especially when it comes to how hymns were composed. It’s no coincidence that the very words Robert Robinson penned were exactly the words he needed to hear when he had wandered from his faith. God used his own words to speak to him and woo him back.

God still speaks to us in a variety of ways, but primarily through His word. I think so many of us — me included — will go through the day with our Bibles closed and wonder why we haven’t heard from God.

I remember when I got my very first Bible as a first grader, the pastor wrote in the inside of the cover, “This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.”

How true that has been. We need God’s word and God’s people around us to help us find the way back when we’ve wandered. We may be prone to wander, but God is always faithful to bring His wayward child back.

A Lenten Prayer

“O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly,
I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations.
I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart;
I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace 
of darkness would be left in my soul.
But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning.
Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness
before they could see your light.
Let me be thankful for your gentle way.
I know you are at work.
I know you will not leave me alone, 
I know you are quickening me for Easter – 
but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.
I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter 
more fully into the mystery of your passion,
will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way you create for me
and to accept the cross that you give to me.
Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own cross.
You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.
Be with me tomorrow and in the days to come,
and let me experience your gentle presence.
Amen” (Henri Nouwen).

Lord, may the last three weeks of Lent not be wasted. Help me to use my time away from social media to create margins of unhurried space within my day for me to hear Your voice speaking to me. Give me a quiet heart and a calm mind to receive Your words. Above all, grant me the ability and willingness to obey what I hear. Amen.

Trials and Tragedy into Gold

I heard that the Middle Tennessee area got hit with some tornadoes today, some of which did significant damage. Six people lost their lives. It seems like such a random and senseless tragedy smack in the middle of the Advent season.

But then I remember that we live in a beautiful but broken world where nothing is as it should be and chaos seems to be the order of the day. But I’ve read the last chapter of the Bible and I know that the story doesn’t end in ashes. Hope wins. God wins. The best happy ending of all is coming.

I remember that God stepped into our world at its darkest and became a baby so that we who live in that darkness might have hope. That light of the world still shines, though all kinds of powers and people have done their best to put it out. All the darkness in all the world still can’t overcome even the smallest light.

The greatest gift of the Advent season is one that no wars or storms or pandemics or political unrest or anything else in the world can ever take away. We celebrate this season the coming of Emmanuel who can take the worst and turn it to good. Hope is born again.

Another God-wink Moment

I went for a walk this afternoon to check out some of the neighborhood Christmas decorations. It always helps me a little to get into the spirit of the season whenever I see a front yard all decked out with lights and inflatable Santas and snowmen and reindeer and other assorted characters.

Then I saw a little bird perched on a mailbox. Typically whenever I attempt to take a picture, the bird flies off just as I’m getting the camera app on my phone pulled up. But not this time.

This little bid waited until I snapped a couple of shots before it flew away, almost as if it was waiting on me to hurry up and take the stupid picture. That’s probably the first time something like that has ever happened to me (and quite possibly the last).

I think it was a bit of a God-wink moment, like a bit of serendipity or extra blessing in that small moment in time. It was a subtle reminder that all God’s promises are still good and true, and that if I feel like the world is headed in the wrong direction that I shouldn’t lose heart or give up on what God has already spoken. It will come to pass.

Maybe that’s me reading too much into a simple scenario. Maybe it was just me in the right place at the right time to capture an image. I think it was more. I think it was a God-wink.

Dumb Stuff

All I can say in my defense is that it’s been a long week and I was tired. I walked right out of that restaurant and got all the way home before I was reminded that I hadn’t paid for my dinner [insert face palm here].

Thankfully, I was able pay with my credit card over the phone, adding a little extra gratuity for my temporary attack of stupidity.

I confess my faux pas in order to remind us all that we will all do stupid stuff from time to time. We will do what we shouldn’t have done and leave undone what we should have done.

As I’m learning, the key is to give yourself grace and to allow yourself to be human. If God, who knows far more about you and your inner workings than even you do, is able to forgive you, why can’t you forgive yourself? Why can’t I?

Of course, the idea is to learn from your dumb stuff and not do a repeat of your stupid mistakes. Common sense and good judgment go along way. Still, there will be the inevitable lapses, especially when you’re tired, and you will have those head slapping moments when you realize just what an idiot moment you just had.

Give grace to others always, but in the process, don’t forget to give yourself a little grace as well.

 

Why I Still Love Grace

My pastor has said many times that grace is when you take that moment that you swore you’d never tell another living soul and that becomes the first line of your testimony.

Grace doesn’t mean that sin doesn’t matter and that God really doesn’t mind when you transgress.

Grace does mean that you don’t get what your sins and transgressions deserve.

Grace means that Jesus got what all your sins and transgressions deserve, and you get all that belongs to Jesus.

Man, I do love grace.

Grace Wins

“You see, the reason why grace isn’t popular or easy is because it’s not cheap. To give grace costs us our right to be resentful and it robs us of our privilege to be bitter. After all, shouldn’t people get what they deserve, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?’ Jesus responds to that saying, ‘But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also’ (Matthew 5:38). Why should we allow others to slip away freely from their wrongs against us?  C. R. Strahan said, ‘Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim — letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.’
Christ forgave the very men who drove nails through His wrists. And if the same power that raised Him from the grave lies in us, then surely, He can give us the power to lose, so that our aggressors weapons are rendered useless. We need to rob our enemies of the ability to offend us, by gladly taking the full brunt of their attack. It is then, and only then, that hostility is defeated and love conquers death. ‘Make allowances for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others’ (Colossians 3:13)” (Total Surrender, Matthew Terrill).

I think this nails it. In the current climate, whether it be political or spiritual or personal, it’s much easier to get self-righteous and morally superior over against those who oppose us and who seem to have diametrically opposite beliefs and convictions.

It’s much harder to forgive and to show grace, but so much more than worth it.

Always choose grace. Always choose forgiveness.