Assumptions

"Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in."
Alan Alda

The Importance of the Big Picture

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
Sun Tzu (400 BC–330 BC)

The Process Supersedes the Result

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)

Like a Child

The other day I was invited to share at another church in town. Tamy worked the night before so she was unable to go with me, but she laid out a specific outfit for the kids to wear because she worried I would take the kids out in public in dirty clothes. Such is my wife's faith in my fashion sense...

As we were getting ready to go, I noticed Zane wasn't wearing the shorts and shirt that I had dressed him in (the ones Tamy had laid out).

I asked, "Zane, how come you aren't wearing the clothes I dressed you in?"

"I'm wearing pants, because you're wearing pants, Papa!" he exclaimed.

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St Paul tells us to "watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents."

We are designed to take our cues from God, just the way my son takes his cues from me...

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As St James says, true wisdom for life comes from somewhere else. It is not something we just muster up ourselves, or find on our own; we must learn it. Wisdom must be received!

Do we have ears to hear and eyes to see? Like a child with his father, are our arms wide to receive?

Sense and Sensibility

I just watched this with my wife...

My children and I had purchased it (along with Ever After and some smelly candles) for Mother's Day.

After we finished the movie, I turned to my wife and facetiously said, "we can never let our daughter watch this until well after she is married!"

As we were getting ready for bed we talked about our daughter and her romantic sensibilities. She is incurable. She has already had her first brush with heartbreak.

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In the movie is a character, John Willoughby, who romances one of the leading characters named Marianne. He is romantic, dashing, and handsome. His passion and wit are exactly what she is hoping for, and her passion burns bright alongside his. It is then revealed that he has an illegitimate child from another woman, and has set aside his feelings for Marianne for the money he will receive if he marries another woman.

Marriane is crushed.

But she then discovers another, a man who has been there all along, who loves her deeply and constantly. The heartbreak of her first romance allows her to reflect on her own foolishness in judgment, and to see more clearly those attributes in a man that are truly worthy of love and admiration.

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After talking through the movie with my wife, I realized that this is the perfect movie to show my daughter, (perhaps in another few years!) to open the door to deeper reflection.

I pray that my daughter can learn enough from watching the fictional Willoughby action, such that she will never fall into the hands of a flesh and blood Willoughby...

The Receding Tide

The previous quote is a wonderful and humorous image...

(It's a quote I stole from Dave Ramsey)

I think it also captures a reality for us: whenever trouble of any sort hits us, it tells us a lot more about ourselves than we often care to admit. For example, when confronted with an opportunity to be dishonest or undisciplined, our choices reveal the character we have. We can easily say, "I normally don't act this way, but a situation came up where I knew I wouldn't get caught, and so I gave in to temptation." The reality, however, is that we are the type of people who give in to temptation in that situation.

Another example is the current US economic reality: so many people were "caught" by the crisis. "If only the economy wouldn't have tanked, I could still afford this mortgage." The reality is, it was an unwise decision in the first place, and people just got caught!

Nobody looks naked when the tide is up...

Character is who you are when nobody is watching. Character is wearing your swimming trunks, even though nobody can tell if you are or aren't...

Scripture

A real and great temptation with scripture is to apply it to other people...

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Remember, there are two kinds of wisdom:

James 3:13-18

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The trick is not really about knowing scripture, but about living in harmony with the God scripture points to...

Stem Cells are Indeed an Ethical Dilemma!

"It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

This is pure political spin, or else flat out ignorance.

All decisions are ethical!

And we must hold an account for the decisions we make, including decisions about what types of scientific research we pursue. I assume that no one is advocating the use of (for example) comatose patients, or the terminally ill for research, why? Because we understand that scientific knowledge is not an end in itself! There are limits to the value of knowledge, and one of those limits are the ethical lines surrounding the acquisition of that knowledge!

"Science thrives when there is an open and collaborative exchange, not when there are artificial barriers, silos, constructed by the government."

I'll be honest, I have no idea where I stand on human-embryonic stem cell research, but am I the only one who sees these words dripping easily from the lips of Nazi doctors who experimented on Jews, Gypsies and others?

I can understand the position of those who are for the research, but for them to go so far as to imply that people who are against it are against scientific inquiry is silly; to ignore (or even mock) the ethical ambiguity surrounding the issue is a sign of true folly.

Wisdom

To that question, the whole Bible offers one massive and obvious answer: Wisdom. That beautiful and haunting poem from the book of Job issues a call to rediscover the wisdom we need in the middle of the times we live in. I chose that reading long before the present crisis, but re-reading it now it leaps out at us that, in the previous chapter, Job denounces those who think they can make their financial systems last for ever: ‘though they heap up silver like dust, though they build their houses like nests, they may go to bed with wealth but they will do so no more; terrors overtake them like a flood; in the night a whirlwind carries them off.’ I remember being told as a boy that the Bible was as up to date as tomorrow morning’s newspaper, and there you have it in Job 27: a vivid and accurate picture of our world. And it is in that context – our context – that the poet asks, in chapter 28: Where then shall wisdom be found? You can dig for gold, you can trawl the sea for pearls, you can buy coral and crystal and jewels with money; but you can’t get wisdom that way. Indeed, we might want to add, if you spend all your time thinking about gold and pearls and crystal and money you can guarantee that you will not find wisdom.

NT Wright

Quote

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a
man is wise by his questions.”

What did you say?

The one who knows much says little

A man of knowledge uses words with restraint

He that hath knowledge spareth his words

A truly wise person uses few words

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge

- Proverbs 17:27a

Adorned Clay Pots

The apostle Paul, patron saint of type-A personalities, stumped me this morning.

Perplexed!

The man who lived a life that brought the gospel to western asia, eastern europe, and beyond; prolific church planter; author of scripture; overseer of the Church; apostle; perplexed! (v 8 NIV)

The Message translates that single word into, "we're not sure what to do." (Check the title link)

How can this be?

This is the man we look to as the model for how to lead the church. As someone who will soon be on the mission field, I am constantly exhorted to look at the life of Paul as an example; Paul had it all figured out, Paul lived an intensely purposeful life, Paul knew what he was doing. Follow Paul!

Perhaps this is the problem?

Paul himself only asked people to follow him in so far that he "followed Christ." (1 Corinthian 11:1)

I must confess. I would not describe myself as perplexed. I have come to believe (in large part) that I have figured it out. I am quite confident in my own understanding of the implications of the gospel. I am quite confident in my perspective on the church. I belive that I know what the Church in America should be doing and isn't, shouldn't be doing and is, as well as what I will be doing when we hit the ground in September.

I am not so arrogant as to think of myself other than a "clay pot," yet perhaps I fancy myself a clay pot with "adornments?" This is a far cry from the place that I once was in my walk.

I wonder what to make of this...

There was a time when I walked with much humility, however, I also carried with me a strong sense of guilt. Would that make my humility a false humilty? I don't know. I do know that when God removed that sense of guilt, speaking words of love and grace to me, my humilty seemed to go with it. Perhaps I do not fully understand myself or God? (That is surely the truth!) I would think that an experience of God's grace would lead to greater humility...


How are we to juxtapose the truths that we have learned, with the truth that we are simply whisps of fog (James 4:14), certainly precious in God's eyes, and yet lacking in even the beginning's of wisdom and knowledge.

I must truly state that I have gained some knowledge and wisdom. Yet I must also recognize that I am childish at best, and evil at worst. Wisdom and knowledge in my head is like a tool in the hand of a child, or diamonds adorning a clay pot...