Axioms…from my perspective

i’ve decided to dedicate thursdays to giving some of my personal life axioms…truth that, from my perspective, is self-evident. sometimes practical. sometimes philosophical. sometimes whimsical. but truth, no less.

“worry and anger are choices”

we love blaming others.  “you made me do it”.  “you really piss me off.”  “you make me mad.” you’ve heard it before.  you’ve said it before.  we all have.  the problem is that it’s not accurate.

no one can make us mad.  no one can make us get angry.  no one can make us worry.  these are decisions we make.  and the sooner we admit it, the sooner we can get healthy.

i’m not saying we shouldn’t get angry or there are not things that cause us to feel stress or worry or anxiety or frustration or fear or whatever.  surely there are.  but what i am saying is those are never the only choices we have.  there are always…always…other possible responses.

instead of anger, we could respond with patience, understanding, forgiveness, tolerance, humor, justice, love, mercy, compassion, indifference, prayer…or a variety of other possibilities or combination of responses.  anger is just usually the easiest, cheapest and quickest.

there are times that anger is justified.  maybe even warranted and possibly necessary.  i’m just saying it’s still a choice.  we choose anger.  we never have to get angry.

the same is true for worry.  no matter what the situation, i still don’t have to worry.  it is a choice.  instead of worry, i could choose patience, trust, faith, hope, peace, joy, understanding, wonder, fear, perseverance…or combinations of any and all of them.  worry is never the only option.  like anger, it is usually the easiest, cheapest and quickest option when we are faced with uncertainty.  we never have to worry.

there you have it.

one more thing.  what would you say if i told you that, according to my understanding of scripture, worry is always sin and our anger is almost always sin??

Psalm 85

from this morning’s bible reading:

“i am listening carefully to all the lord is saying…for he speaks peace to his people, his saints, if they will only stop their sinning.  surely his salvation is near to those who reverence him: our land will be filled with his glory.”  psalm 85:8-9 (tlb)

experiencing the peace of god is directly related to our sin.  it’s a fact we can ignore, but we can’t avoid.  we want to live in the grace of god, but we don’t want to give up our freedom to sin.  this is a problem.

we applaud ourselves for not having the “big sins” in our lives.  i don’t murder.  i don’t steal.  i’m not like those lying politicians.  i don’t make and sell meth.  i’m not in a gang.  i’m not going to jail…yet, we silently allow the “quieter sins” to lurk in our lives.

sins like greed and subtle prejudice and sexual lust (the private kind) and pride and judgment and laziness and overeating and not listening and not caring and not sharing and all of those other similar little indiscretions that take up residence with us.

those sins are like cancer.  not easily recognized or defined in their infancy, but fester and grow deep inside of us nonetheless.  we just sit back and ignore the damage they are doing…oblivious to the slow, methodical erosion of our souls.  we are blind to the destruction of the sacred.  we learn to justify their presence and even comfortable with their unholy friendship…until they explode into the full-blown destruction of our relationships to others and to god.

be careful.  be very, very careful.  sin is a manipulative enemy.  may god speak peace to us today.

A balanced church – seven

i love st. augustine grass.  thick blades.  dark green.  healthy.  strong.  tall.  for those of you that were with me a few years ago, you got to hear my weekly update on my quest to resurrect the lawn in my front yard.  due to pure stupidity, i killed my beautiful st. augustine carpet.  apparently, socal landscaping practice doesn’t work so well in the great state.  go figure…

after three years of patient shepherding of my little st. augustine flock, it was back to health.  fat (phat?). lush.  growing.  the pride of temple drive.  then came spring.  then summer.  now…a fungus.

it’s taken my lawn hostage.  brown patches.  frog eyes (what the landscaping experts call them…they’re really ugly).  dead grass.  irregular growth.  the beauty of my front yard is now reduced to wasteland.  a toxic catastrophe of epic proportion.  sadness.  frustration.  depression.  all that hard work for nothing…

i really hope you share my pain.  or else be bold enough to laugh in my face and tell me to get my priorities straight.

here’s the lesson, tho…  i’ve been talking this past week, or so, about what makes a healthy, balanced church.  one major component is fellowship.  good, strong, healthy, bold, honest, loyal, committed relationships.  people who stick with you no matter what.  you can count on them.  they’ve got your back and won’t vanish when things get tough.  friendship full of laughter, tears, conflict, resolution, fun, understanding and forgiveness.  

but nothing will kill fellowship quicker than fungus…er, sin.  you work diligently, yet sometimes it creeps in.  the sin might be small.  completely unnoticed to everyone…but you.  so you ignore it.  but sin corrupts. it works its way into relationships and begins to slowly infect.  you disregard it  but it does its work.  you overlook it.  but it passes on its infection to everything it touches.  it will kill.  

the answer?  for st. augustine, its heavy doses of powerful fungicide, patient work to purge the lawn of dead grass and the remnants of the infection, protecting the healthy grass from any remaining fungus, and the slow process of letting the grass grow back to health.

i’m not sure its much different for the church.

An ugly life lesson

there was a horrible accident at the intersection just outside my office this afternoon.  i heard the crash and ran out to see a young man lying motionless on the street beside his mangled motorcycle.  in the chaos, i vaguely recognized the squeal of tires peeling away from the scene of the accident.  an eyewitness later confirmed it was the car that hit the kid.  

i hope he’s ok.  he looked really bad, as the paramedics loaded him in the van and took off for the hospital.  i’m going to try to follow up later tonight.  by the way, he was not at fault.  

i have feelings on a number of levels.  it’s been less than sixty days since i did the funeral for brandon’s dad.  i know people love to ride.  i know i do.  but the margin for error on a bike seems to be getting smaller and smaller to me.  i think it’s going to be harder for me the next time…

as soon as the police arrived and got the accident under control, i hopped in my jeep and drove around the corner to city hall to give my rant to the city engineer in charge of traffic.  this is not the first time i have ranted down there.  this is not the first accident i have witnessed at my beloved corner of mill and college.  this has to rank as one of the most dangerous intersections i have ever been around.  it makes it even worse that i can hear the sound of screeching brakes and near misses all day long when i’m in my office studying.  unfortunately, the city says this intersection does not rank high enough on it’s dangerous intersection list and won’t be receiving any attention until it pulls a higher ranking.  whaaaat?  

finally, i had a really weird feeling as i drove back from city hall in time to see the tow truck pulling away from the scene.  i looked at the intersection and there was no sign that anything had ever happened.  cleaned up.  swept away.  back to normal.  but i know…

it’s kind of like sin.  it happens, but we quickly try to clean up the mess and act like it never happened.  but it did.  god knows.  and so do you…