Sunday, November 21, 2021

Crown

 . . . but as for him, his crown will shine. 

 - From Psalm 132

We begin to focus more now, and the coming King. It is certain that we will have a king!

And isn't that really at the heart of all of human history? Human kings are horrible. Sure, occasionally, every couple hundred years or so, a kingdom might get lucky and have a good king. A lot of humans, maybe a majority of them, are willing to put up with ten lousy, evil kings; as long as the eleventh is a good one. 

The people protesting against the American system today, the empowered sliver of our society that has managed to attain dominance in Washington, in reality, wants a king. They want a single powerful person to gather all power to him or herself. They hope that this king wipes out the "mean" people in our communities . . . or anybody that may remind them of someone rich, or favored, or popular, when they were little. Perhaps they were bullied once. They never got over it and want retribution to this day. 

And so, a King! Yes! A King could do this for them! And once the people they don't like are out of the way, they plan to get back to talking about things like freedom and human dignity. 

We just . . . really want a king. 

Jesus is a Good One. He's eternally good. He's the got the power to fix things, and the humility to do it wisely and fairly. And he loves us all evenly. 

We enter Thanksgiving week. And we do so, with the King on our mind. 

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Favor

Let your servant find favor in your sight.

 - From I Samuel 1

Let's look at an attitude that God favors. This phrase: "Let your servant find favor in your sight," is rather frequently employed in the Old Testament. It's a very humble disposition. First: when you say this, you're making others more important than yourself; Second: you have made it your goal to make the other person happy. 

Your wish is that the other person approves of you. You want their happiness before your own. 

What if politicians in 2021 thought like that? What if married people did? What if news channels did? 

But wait . . . isn't that a little enabling? Aren't we opening the door to being used by a narcissist?

Maybe so . . . but I really don't believe narcissists are so common for this to be a problem. We do want healthy, functional relationships. We certainly don't want to enable wrong behavior. But at the same time . . . I think that it's unquestionable, that humility itself is too rare. We've puffed ourselves up so much, as a culture; that we don't see anything good in humility, at all. 

Is it possible that . . . in our overwhelming move to let every single individual do whatever they want,  even if it's to commit violent and destructive crime, we're actually dealing with forces we don't understand?

What if our responsibility as citizens, really, is to care (at least a little) what others think of us? What if the practical rollout of the biblical principle of seeking the favor of others, meant that we really should make adjustments, so that others could be comfortable?

We may be erecting a generation that is so self-focused, that we're missing the profound need for humans, to feel (once in a while) that other people really do care what we think . . . and that the need to be liked is a hard-wired need that we do not understand. 

A little more humility, please. 


Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Devour

They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers . . . 

 - From Mark 12

Our generation is vying to be the most notorious, in history, in identifying, weeding out, and punishing heretics. 

First: I think that I would avoid even the word "heretic," or "heresy" in our times. It's too easily used, in debate. 

Second: I'd put "hypocrisy" in the same category. Just don't. The words "heresy" and "hypocrisy" even sound similar, and they both sound ugly. They are not uplifting words. 

Third: You'd think that the more educated people would be the least likely to toss these words around casually. But the opposite seems to be the case. 

These are not times for ugly-sounding words. But now . . . lest the reader think I'm entering into a "warmth-for-everybody" theme here, I'm not. 

These educated, and highly-credentialed people, that love these words, are the same that enjoy the best seats in the house. They make sure you address them with their lofty professional title, usually "Doctor." (A side comment - an Engineering PhD of many of our acquaintance, said that you can tell how non-technical the doctorate is, by how much they insist you call them "Doctor.")

They don't mix it up, at all, with mechanics, farmers, hunters, beer-drinkers, patriots, proud Americans - - - the modern equivalent of fishermen in the time of Christ. They can't see it, but they are the very descendants of the Scribes and Pharisees. Look at their profession: Scribes. Writers. Journalists. Historians. They write the narrative and they record the history. We (blindly) trust them to tell the truth. 

What is this: They devour widows' houses? I think that we could unpack that statement for some time. But the implication is that the Man and Woman of God; the spiritual servant-leader, the person of any worth whatsoever, should be mostly concerned about their elders. I heard Dennis Prager assert, last night,  assert that one of the most important things we need to do, right now, is to restore the respect of children for their parents. Their first loyalty should be to mom and dad, and family. If that is in place, then free republics may thrive. 

And maybe this is why the care of our elders is so consistently stressed, from the "In the beginning," to "Come, Lord Jesus."