Why I Like Roosters

It was early on a Sunday morning. I was sitting in my living room as the sun was coming up thinking and praying (I wish I could say “watching and praying,” as that sounds so much more biblical, but it is what it is). Outside my window, I could hear the rooster in our back yard welcoming the dawn. Yes, we have a small flock, which includes a rooster or two.

I like roosters, although most people don’t. There are lots of reasons not to like them. They can be aggressive; we had one that would attack your leg if you got too close. They are messy, noisy, and generally unproductive. You can only eat them once, but hens lay lots of eggs. But I still like them.

Roosters are mostly known for crowing at dawn, but anyone who has ever had a rooster knows they just start at dawn, and generally crow all day. They stop when the sun goes down, which is a blessing.

As I listened to my rooster, I thought of Jesus’ comments in the Gospel of John. John really likes the juxtaposition of light and darkness. In Chapter 3, Jesus says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” I think what I like about roosters is that they are heralds of the light.

There are many stories, from Chaucer to Wangerin, that characterize roosters as being so full of themselves that they actually think their crowing brings the sun up from beneath the earth. Based on some roosters I have known, I have no doubt of their own self-importance.

But, of course, no matter what the conceited rooster might think, it does NOT bring up the sun. What it DOES do is remind us that the sun is on the way; darkness will be dispelled, and light is coming. That’s why I like roosters; they are the John the Baptists of the animal world. They tell us the sun is on its way. I think that is also why they make such a good Christian symbol; they are heralds of the light, which we should be, on our best days.

You may not choose to have a rooster in your back yard, but since chickens are the most numerous domesticated animal on the planet, you may be able to hear one, even in the city or the suburbs, at the break of day. If you do, think of the coming of the light into the world. It comes to dispel the darkness, literally and figuratively. Behold, the light has come, and the darkness could not overcome it. Rejoice in the rising of the sun!

Burn, Baby, Burn

Some of you may have seen or heard the NPR item about the church in Florida that plans to burn Qu'rans on September 11. It is very sad. The NPR articles are available here: Fla. Minister: Sept. 11 Quran Burn Still Planned

The Church is a small church in Gainsville, FL, and they have received national and international attention. None of it good, I would say. (There were riots in Indonesia)

I thought about how to respond. I could shake my head and sigh, write a letter of protest that would probably be dismissed, or express my thoughts in as constructive a way as I could. That is what I have chosen. I made the following response on the church's "Ten Reasons To Burn A Koran (sic)" blog. Maybe someone will read it. I will also reprint it here for your consideration. God bless and help us all.


Burning the Quran
A response to http://www.doveworld.org/blog/ten-reasons-to-burn-a-koran

I was very saddened to hear of your church’s plan to burn the Qu’ran on Sept 11. Its not because I believe what it says, nor because I support Islam. I do not; I am a Christian, a pastor in Texas. The reason I am saddened is because by your actions and testimony, you deny the Christian gospel message of love and peace and add fuel to the fires of hatred. You have left the way of Christ, and followed the way of jihad, the holy war. You are becoming that which you profess to hate.

Jesus said, “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” (Luke 6:27) And “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44). Christ’s message is clear. It is the way of love.

I implore you not to follow the way of hate, which is not the way of Christ, but to follow instead the way of love, which he lived and taught.

In my community, the local mosque is sponsoring a prayer vigil, open to the community, on Sept 11 to bring people of all faiths together to pray for peace and for the families of those killed 9 years ago. That seems to me to be a much better, more Christ-like way to remember and mourn. How ironic that Christians are acting like jihadists and Muslims are acting like Christians. God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.

Life Imitates Kart

There is an ongoing debate about whether life imitates art or art imitates life. When something about a movie, novel or painting strikes you as odd, cruel, or crude, is it because life is odd, cruel, or crude and the artist is merely imitating what he or she sees, or when the artist pushes the envelope, do the rank and file follow along, and thus life imitates art? I am not really going to engage this debate, but it is a preface to another thought I had this week.

As many of you know, I celebrated a birthday this week, and my family got me my first video game. I always found it hard to break out that much cash for, what I perceived as a massive waste of time. Must be the Scotchman in me. But, evidently, my family thought I should get on the bandwagon, and so I am the proud new owner of a Wii. What Wii stands for, I have no idea, but it is a fun, wireless gaming distraction.

As part of my Wii “package” I received a copy of the game, Mario Kart. For the uninitiated, it is a whiz-bang rollercoaster ride where cartoon characters drive turbo powered go karts through a wide variety of crazy racetracks.

All of this is preface to my point, which is that there is much about Mario Kart that resembles the lessons and tactics of life. Whether life imitates Kart or the other way around, I will leave for someone else to determine.

A couple of examples: When you are going full speed, it is pretty easy for the inexperienced to hit a wall, or otherwise get off track. Much of life today is lived at full velocity, sometimes even with turbo boost. When you’re going that fast its hard to stay on course unless you really know what you’re doing. Once, I thought that small town life would be relaxed and lived at a slower pace, like Andy and Barney sitting on the porch in Mayberry after supper. I know very few people like that. Even some who have consciously tried to slow down still often move at breakneck speeds. At times life comes at you so fast you cannot react thoughtfully or purposefully, only with the knee-jerk of a reflex response. Perhaps that is why we see so many wrecks and fatalities along the highway of life. You just can’t keep up that pace forever, and eventually, you will only end up in the ditch.

Second, when you are flying down the path, it is very difficult to keep one eye on the road and one eye on the map. If you have ever played one of these games, there is usually a map in the upper corner that shows your route; where the turns and twists and hazards are, and where you are in relation to the other racers. This is very helpful information, but its hard to watch the map and the road at the same time.

All of us need a road map in life, to help us understand where we are going and how to get there. The Bible provides that kind of map, if we will only slow down long enough to read it. The problem is, most of us are going too fast to really see where we are going. To me, this underscores the concept the Bible calls Sabbath Rest. It is actually one of the Ten Commandments. Richard Foster considers it one of the disciplines of the Christian life. How curious that in these hectic days, it is a spiritual discipline to rest.

My advice, then, is to slow down. Don’t just stop and smell the roses, although that would be nice. But spend some time with God, go to church and join the faithful in worship, be renewed in body, mind and spirit. Read your Bible, your road map, to figure out where the heck you are going. And maybe even take some time out for Mario Kart. You might just learn something.

Nobody's Perfect

This morning as part of my devotions, I was reading Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, which I highly recommend if you are not familiar with it. If you don’t have a copy, you can find it here: (http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php) just make sure you look up Dec. 2 to get the right one.

Anyway, Chambers was talking about Christian Perfection and a couple of things he said captured my attention. First, he said we often confuse personal holiness with the evidence of God in our lives. We think we have gotten along the road to sanctification, or Christlikeness if we find that God is at work in our lives, or if we find evidence of God’s presence that surprises or even blesses us. But this is a misunderstanding of what God wants from us. God is not after a finished product or some ideal that can be put on display. What God wants from us is a relationship. God wants to love us and wants us to love him. Is that so hard? Unfortunately, sometimes it is.

The second thing he said that struck me was when he said, “If it was God’s will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn’t He bruise you?” I had to think about that one for a minute. Its true that we expect God to be good to us, that is, we think things should go our way. We want health, wealth (to a degree) and happiness. If we do not get these things, we suppose that somehow God is not being fair with us. After all, we did what he asked, (as well as we could) didn’t we? Shouldn’t we get the reward?

I had a similar conversation with a friend just a few days ago. He wondered why, if God is so good, there is all this pain and suffering in the world. Although, I think he really meant in his own life. This is the classic question of theodicy, perhaps best put by Rabbi Kushner in his classic book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” I was not too impressed with his treatment, since he basically says, “Well, God can’t stop all the evil in this world.” I tend to disagree.

I think the problem with theodicy is that the question stands on shaky ground; on the wrong ground. It makes the assumption that this world and this physical existence is the one that counts. If the Bible is to be believed, Christians of all people should understand that we have not arrived, but we are only on our way.

Years ago, when I was snow skiing, I dislocated my finger when I hit a tree. (Yeah, I know…) Anyway, my finger was literally sticking sideways at a 90-degree angle. It looked horrible. But it didn’t particularly hurt, at least not at the time. So the doctor came in and told me that he would have to put it back in place, and that it was going to hurt. How would it have been if said, “You know, doc, I’d really rather not. Its not so bad, and I would really rather not go through all that pain and suffering.” People would think I was nuts, and perhaps I would be.

The goal is wholeness, whether fixing a finger or a soul. When God comes to us and says, “This is going to hurt,” why are we so reluctant to think he knows what is best? Do we suppose that God would send Jesus to the cross if it were not absolutely necessary? And do we think that God would allow any kind of pain and suffering into our lives, or the lives of our loved ones if it were not absolutely necessary? I don’t think so. So the next time something painful, or even horrible comes your way, you can say, “I don’t know what this is all about, God, but I trust you that it will come out OK, if not in this life, then in the real life which is to come.”

On Going Home

Last week, my family and I went back to a place we had lived over 20 years ago. It was supposed to be a kind of home coming, but we soon realized that the old adage is quite true, you can never go home again. Almost everything was different; there were only a handful of people we knew, the house we lived in looked different, and we hardly recognized any of the streets, and had to rely on a map to get to places that were once so familiar.

The Chinese have a saying that you can never step into the same river twice. The implication is that anytime you try, the water that swirls around your ankles has moved on. It may look the same, but its not the same river. That is how we felt when we went back “home.” So many things had changed. They had moved on, like water in a river.

All of this got me to thinking about our “home” as Christians, as people of God. Our home, our citizenship, our place of origin is not in this world. The longer I live in this world, the more I understand this simple truth. As Paul says in Philippians 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter says much the same thing in 1 Peter 2:10, 11.

Perhaps that is why we have such a sense that something is wrong with the world as we see it and know it. It is not what it could be; what it should be. We were meant for something else, and so was the world we live in. We know it down deep in our souls, in that part of us that yearns for something better, something more.

I have often thought that I would like to have the Pat Terry song, Home Where I Belong, sung at my funeral. Its not that I often think morbid thoughts, but rather that that particular song captures best how I feel about life here and hereafter. If you have never heard it, both B. J. Thomas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQgx98jmZQ) and Mark Lowry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP6QG_pJuSM) do a respectable job of it, but I like the 70’s Pat Terry Group version best.

No, you can never go home again, but you can go home, truly home, once and for all. God bless.

Lord Jesus, Take my Hand

For some odd reason, that phrase "Lord Jesus, take my hand" popped into my head during my prayers this morning. I have no idea why. But I have been thinking about the phrase and what it could mean for my own devotions and building up in faith. Here are a few of those thoughts:

To pray that phrase as a prayer, "Lord Jesus, take my hand", is to ask Jesus to do what we so often do with small children: take their hands. Maybe it reflects the child-like attitude we are to have towards God. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:15)

This made me think about what happens when we take a child's hand, what it means and why we do it. So, if we ask Jesus, "Lord Jesus, take my hand," what is it we are asking of him? I'm sure there are more, but here are at least three things:

1) We are asking him to guide us. When we take a child's hand, it is often to lead that little one through a crowd or to navigate a difficult path. When we ask Jesus to take our hand, we are asking for guidance through the difficult and rough places in life, and there are certainly plenty of those.

2) We are asking him to protect us. To take a person's hand is to keep them near. If you are holding hands, one can never stray far from the other. To hold the hand of a child is to protect them from danger, to prevent disaster like falling off a high place or wandering into a busy street. There are many dangerous places and situations in life. Some we can see and some we cannot, but God can see them all, and to ask Jesus to take our hand is to ask for protection from those dangers, both visible and invisible.

3) Finally, to take a hand is an expression of love. Lovers often hold hands for none of the above reasons, but only to feel the warmth and presence of the beloved. To touch the flesh, to feel the skin of another person is to closer to them, it is to create or extend an intimacy which we do not have with all people. That flesh-to-flesh connection is reserved for those with whom we feel closest.

There is no real point to all this - hence the title, "Random Thoughts," but I think that to envision or to imagine ourselves as so intimately connected to Christ that we can hold hands is a good thing. We can all use a greater degree of guidance, protection, and love, so perhaps a prayer such as, "Lord Jesus take my hand." will suffice.