Grady, Goober and The Night Before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Santa was crazy.

He’d left all his reindeer with Goober and Grady

He said just to keep them all happy and safe,

And they did, ‘til someone left open the gate.

When Santa came by to load up the sleigh,

Goober told him they’d all run away.

Grady said, “Santa, you don’t need not to worry.”

And off like a flash they went in a hurry.

“We’ll find some replacements for what we’ve done lost,

And I bet we can do it without any cost.”

So down to the river they went in a snap

And hoped that by midnight they’d find in their trap

Eight tiny reindeer stacked neatly as logs

But to their amazement were dumb feral hogs.

“Eight of them buggars,” Goober was happy to say.

Exactly what Santa would need for his sleigh.”

So back to the house they hauled off their prize

Then harnessed them up according to size.

“The fat ones should be back here in the rear,

 And let’s put the small ones further up there.”

The hogs were all squealing and making a fuss

Then Santa yelled out “Stop all this ruckus!

Now Earl, and now Floyd, and Leon and Claude

On Gertrude and Agnus and Wanda and Maude,

Get up and get going, let’s head to the skies.”


They grunted and groaned but nothing would rise.


Down the dirt road they drug the red sleigh,


Kicking up dust and rocks on the way.


Then Goober yelled out, “I think you’re too heavy.

Throw something out or you won’t clear the levy.”

To lighten the load, Santa threw off his sash,

But the weight was too much and they started to crash.

Grady and Goober just stood asking why.

But everyone knows that pigs can’t fly.

Compared to You...

We rarely give our best. Best requires effort beyond what anyone else would expect from us, even beyond what we expect from ourselves. All we expect from ourselves is to be better than bad. Bad is the unacceptable performance. Anything better than bad is good enough.

Problem is: the line we’ve drawn to indicate where bad begins isn’t fixed and is quite blurry. We’ve made it that way so we can always find a favorable point to make our comparisons. I may not be a good singer but as long as I find someone who is worse, then by comparison I’m better. If I’m better, then at least I’m not bad. I may not be good looking, but if I find someone less good looking then I am, I’m better. If I’m better, then at least I’m not bad.

Behavior is where we make the most comparisons. Forget for a minute that God has a standard of holiness held up to our lives, a standard that requires our best. Since I rarely give my best, I choose to ignore the standard and find another way to rate my life, usually other people. If I find someone whose actions are distasteful to me, then I have a great place to set the bar for my behavior. The things they are doing are things I wouldn’t do. And since I don’t do them, I’m better than they are.

If I do hold up God’s standard, I will typically place other’s behavior next to mine. If they are doing a worse job of it than I am, I’m better. If I’m better, then at least I’m not bad, so I must be okay.

I’m able to justify everything about my life through comparison to others. I don’t have to shoot for the best, just shoot for better than them. And even if I can’t find a way to be better than someone else, I can always accuse them of dishonesty or hypocrisy. One way or the other I’ll find a way to label myself as better. And if I’m better, then at least I’m not bad.

^{2CO 10:12} For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.

Glad I’m Not God

If carrying all the responsibility of being God wasn’t hard enough, how about answering prayer? Take today: it’s raining. We need rain. We’re in a drought. How many people pray regularly for it to rain? But many don’t like to work in the rain. Many, like me, are home unable to work because of the rain. How many of them prayed it wouldn’t rain? What’s God to do? How does He choose which prayers to respond to and which ones to disregard?

Or, football games. You’ve got Christians on both teams praying to win. You’ve got fans in the stands or in front of a TV praying to win. Who gets God’s favor?

Or, a person with great dreams begging God for success? God’s got to look at much more than desire to determine if what they are asking is best. What if my idea of success ruins another person’s life? Or, gets in the way of future plans God has for me? Or, turns me into the kind of person I don’t want to be? What if my plans aren’t God’s plans?

Isaiah wrote: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

That’s why I don’t always get what I ask for. My thoughts don’t come up to the level of God’s thoughts and my ways are far inferior to His ways. Not only do I not have the perspective He has, I don’t know what’s best in every situation. He does.

If I throw up to Him a list of preferences and desires, He sorts through them with greater patience and understanding than I used to create them. Much of my praying is impulsive. I have no idea what I’m really asking for. Fortunately God isn’t obligated to me to do what I ask. He loves me too much. He is obligated to do what’s best. That’s His promise—working things out for good—accomplishing good as He determines it.

I may pray for someone’s healing when God’s ready to take them home. I may ask for comfort when discomfort will accomplish a greater purpose. I may beg for mercy when justice is God’s intention. Not that it’s wrong to ask, only wrong to assume God is being unfaithful if His answer doesn’t match what we asked for.

So, when it comes to praying, I’ll continue to ask but I trust God will answer, not according to what I’m asking for, but according to what He knows is best.

You Need to Use a Template

When I’m woodworking and need to duplicate several pieces, I often make a template. It represents the standard that I wish to use as a pattern for how each piece should look. It makes reproduction a whole lot easier.

 

Occasionally I need a piece to fit into a particular space. Instead of risking messing up that piece, I’ll get a scrap board and work it down to the right size. It then becomes my template.

Cutting crown molding can get confusing. You have to think upside down and backwards. To minimize the brain drain I’ve made templates of inside and outside cuts so all I have to do is match my blade to how I need the cut to go. They are my templates.

 

Templates are not essential but very useful when you need to hold to a standard.

 

When I read Scripture, I find quite a few commands that bring me to a certain response. That response is a standard God has set for how my life needs to be lived. But more than just tell me how to act, He has provided me with examples of men and women who have lived out the response He is expecting. They aren’t the standard but rather are a template to which I might adjust my actions.

 

If I need to test my faith, I might place my actions next to Abraham’s. Have I abandoned my trust to God as strongly as he did? If I need to test my obedience, I might place my actions next to Moses. Am I committed to follow God at all costs? If I need to test my worship, I might place my actions next to David. Do I wear my devotion like a linen ephod as I dance before Him? If I need to test my proximity to God’s intentions, I might place my actions next to the Prodigal Son. Am I wandering or resting at home with the Father? If I need to test my vision, I might place my actions next to Paul. Am I intent on following God through the doors He has opened? If I need to test my heart, I might place my actions next to John, Mark, Ruth, Samuel, Saul, Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack, Abednigo, Rahab, Deborah, Samson, Mary, Martha, Nichodemus, Mary Magdaline, or a hundred other templates God placed in the story to help us flesh out what it means to walk with Him.

I don’t have to make up the agenda. I don’t have to recreate the wheel each time I need a circle. I need to read the story with an open heart to see how God worked with people throughout the book. Since He’s the same God and works in the same way, maybe I can learn from their lives how to bring my life closer to the pattern He expects from His children.

Who is your template?

Damage Control

My truck is in the shop today because it failed its smog inspection. From what I’ve been told, there is a leak in the system somewhere and it’s sucking air from where it shouldn’t be. If that wasn’t bad enough, it has caused two other components to fail. Apparently they were fine until the hole appeared. They are secondary issues caused by the primary issue. In other words, they are collateral damage.

I learned that expression during the first Gulf War. When a bomb would hit its target, often it created a sphere of damage that affected surrounding people, places or things. They referred to it as collateral damage. Unintentional destruction caused during the process of hitting a specific target.

Now in the big picture collateral damage is still damage and whether it was intended or not things have been destroyed. If someone is firing a gun at random and I happen to get hit, I am no less hurt than if the guy aimed it at me. I’ve still been shot.

Much of the misery in our lives is collateral damage. It’s the stuff we never see coming, the stuff we get caught up in that wasn’t targeted at us but hit us anyway. Someone is sick or someone has a tantrum or someone commits a crime or someone runs a red light or someone dies, may have little to do with me directly but indirectly it affects my life. I have been collected into the net being dragged behind else’s life.

How might understanding that help me? It should encourage me to not take those actions affecting me personally. Once I take something personally, I suddenly enter temptation. I begin to doubt God’s faithfulness, or assess blame, or feel violation, or seek revenge. How dare this happen to me…as though I of all people should escape life’s mishaps. By taking something personally, I begin to absorb the event instead of package that event and hand it to God.

If I absorb what’s happened I immediately lose perspective. My fight or flight instincts take over and I begin to act according to how I feel. In that moment I have become ineffective in dealing with what’s going on. Suddenly I forget I am a Child of God and have been woven into the promises of God, grafted into the family tree of blessing and engraved into God’s hand.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if I was the target or standing close by. If I will immediately trust God I will stop the damage from continuing to spread into other areas of my life. That’s called damage control.

In other words, had I been able to stop the leak when it was first discovered, I’d probably have saved myself the extra bucks it’s going to take to fix my truck and the pain that’s going to cause in the pocketbook.

It’s Not the Critic Who Counts [Quote]

Copied from Michael Hyatt's Blog...

			It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.””

Theodore Roosevelt Citizenship in a Republic (Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910)

Stop!

Stopping at the right place is important. If my son and daughter-in-law hadn’t stopped when they name my grandson Jude he would have been called Revelation. That would have been an unusual name to live with.

When something is lost and then found, we often say it was in the last place we looked. Why would we continue looking once we found it? Stopping our search at that point was appropriate.

Typically, we continue looking when we think there might be something better. You find a shirt you like and carry it around with you while you keep looking for something else. You surf through the channels while watching one show to see if there is something else on of greater interest. You have one child then keep having more to see if you can do better. (Well, maybe not on that one.)

But we’re always looking to see what else might be coming along. People that win the lottery usually keep playing to see if they can win more. They can’t just stop the search and be content.

The issue is thinking what we need is still yet to come.

Paul said we need to learn contentment. Believing that at any and every moment we have what we need. It’s a declaration of sufficiency. I may not have all I want but I have all it takes.

When he wrote “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he was establishing the base line of what makes life work for him. Whatever I am called on to do, whether that be financially, physically, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually, I can do it because the strength necessary is already provided.

I never have to feel impoverished. I always have enough.

That being the case, looking beyond the Lord for our strength means we have continued looking after we had found the answer. Quit looking. You’ve arrived.