Audience of One

Hold on to your hat, someone from Arkansas is about to quote Shakespeare, and no, I don't mean a Shakespeare fishing gear representative, the actual William Shakespeare: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

Willie, as we like to call him here in Arkansas, is quite right.  Our lives are played out in front of others.  People are always watching, gaining insight and forming an opinion from how we act and react to the scenes of life as they unfold.

We are not unaware of this fact.  Rather, we choose our words, our next steps, our reactions in view of who we believe our audience might be at the moment.  When we are young, we tend to act one way if our parents are in the audience another way if it our friends.  As adults, how we act around our co-workers and how we act around our boss is often vastly different.  What one would see of in at home getting ready for church and what they see when we arrive there can be world's apart. 

Is any of this sounding familiar?  Have I crossed the line from teaching to meddling?  I hope so.  I want you to take this personally, I want you to do more than just listen and nod, I want you to shake your head and think, "Yeah, been there done that and haven't quite got all the way past it."  That would be thee truth as we all wear the masks of the stage from time to time, depending on who is in the audience.

But here's a reality that is so much more important than who all might be in the audience - so much more important is Who is always in the audience.  There is One who is watching every moment, listening to every word, seeing every act and every reaction - the same One that pays attention to even the sparrows (cf. Lk 12:6), it is the One from which "nothing is hidden in all creation" (Heb 4:13): God!

Regardless of who might be watching at any particular moment in time, God is always watching, every moment in time.  Your audience may contain many or few, but it always has One.  What you say and do never goes unnoticed by God.  And, with all the many that watch your life, there is only One that ultimately matters and only One to whom you must give an answer: that same God.

While I think it important how we conduct ourselves before everyone as it impacts them and can have an impact on us, it is vitally and eternally important that we concern ourselves with our Audience of One who is always there, pulling for us, encouraging us, but one day must judge us.  He watches with the loving eyes of a Father, wanting the best for his child but also of the God of the Universe upon whom justice rests.  

I pray that all who read these words choose to focus on the Audience of One and not allow the many others to distract you.  And I pray that you will accept the grace of the One who makes up this Audience of One offered in Christ Jesus alone.  Jus' Say'n.

Noise

Elijah, the prophet, was told, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kgs 19:11-13).

A powerful wind, a rumbling earthquake an a consuming fire - each announcing itself with great noise but the Lord was not in them.  If the prophet had been a Texan, he would have said, "They were all hat and no cowboy!"  They all had the appearance of greatness but they did not signal the presence of the Lord.

Instead, a gentle whisper or a still small voice, coming with no grandeur, was filled with His presence.  It was not the big noise that came in announcing itself loudly, impossible to ignore, but in the small clear whisper that could have easily been missed had Elijah not been listening closely for the Lord's call.

Elijah was seeking clarity, he wanted to know it was God who was speaking to him not just more noise.  Similarly, we live in a world where there is a lot of know, blustering around us all the time, shouting its importance but lacking any real substance and certainly not the voice of God.  Salesmen and telemarketer crowd our email and tie up our phones.  Advertisers fill the airwaves of our televisions.  Bosses and co-workers fill up our in-boxes.  Everywhere we turn, there is a constant amount of noise vying for our attention.

But is it all worthy of our attention, is it anywhere near as important as it comes off being urgent?  Sure the computerized phone message announces excitedly, "You have won a cruise!"  And then, hook being set, the sale to reel you in begins.  Your Facebook is booked solid with one message after another but how many are really worth your time to read?  With all this noise, how often is there any there, there?  Noise is coming at you from all directions, but where is the voice of God?

We need clarity, we need to sort all the noises out, we need some quiet in order to contemplate.  We need to find a time and place where no one is pressing for our attention, where cell phones are not allowed, where email is unanswered, where advertisement are given no room, where we can finally hear the "gentle whisper of God."  We need a quiet time with Bible at hand as we begin a prayerful dialogue with God, listening to his gentle whisper.  Jus' Say'n.

Coming to The End of Me

We don't want to be seen as having bad intentions, evil thoughts or filled with any number of flaws.  We want to be seen as good and kind and capable at all times.  What we want is not to be seen as we are and to be viewed as we believe others expect us to be.

What we try to do is keep up a facade, wearing one of several masks in which to meet the particular person or group before us.  What we want is to put on a face like a politician but somehow get around having the reputation of politicians, who are believed to be lying pretty much anytime their mouths are open.  Used car salesmen are thought to be more open and transparent than politicians.

The truth is that we are not totally happy with the way we are and cannot imagine that others would be very happy if they really knew us - the real, unabridged, bald-faced us.  Right?  I am certain I am right but just as certain that it is so wrong.  It is wrong to think that our facade is necessary or that our facade is really effective in the long run.

To begin with, people don't really expect others to be perfect.  They may even welcome the knowledge that you are struggling with some of the very things they have in their own lives.  Just having flaws doesn't make you unworthy of love, it just makes you human lie the ones you love.

Of course, if you have done something to break the trust of another, your self-revealing will be hurtful and they may have great difficulty getting past it and trusting you again.  But you will never be able to fully accept another's love or trust so long as you hide the truth and don't allow the sin to become a thing of the past instead of an ongoing part of your present.

The foundation of our deception is as old as mankind: Self-pride.  We struggle with getting to the end of me and accepting a new beginning in Christ, a new life in which we are not the focus, that how we come off is not what is at stake, that self-presentation is not the picture others need to see in us.

We need to come to the end of me so that we can be buried in Him (Rom 6:4) being covered with the glory of Christ (Gal 3:27) and present to the world around us an authentic self that is being perfected in the Spirit while being challenged by self.  Others need to see our sinful, broken self being made whole and holy by the power of God, not a pretend-to-be prefect, self-reliant poser.

When we stop living to impress others with a fracture-less self and start living to express to others the Savior who heals our brokenness, then we can be free of the tyranny of pride as we humbly come to the end of me and to the life offered by the Messiah.  Jus' Say'n.

Hello, Goodbye

I was a little fuzzy when I got the call from my wife that grandchild number six had just made his entrance into the world, welcomed with tears of joy, grins from ear to ear and the sending out of glad tidings.

Much earlier in the day, I got a simple but profoundly sad text from my brother that his youngest child, my niece, had just left this world, sent on her way with tears of anguish, downcast faces and the sending out of sad tidings.

Rejoicing in Texas, mourning in Missouri.  From mountain top shouts to valley low laments.  What does one do with those extremes?  The simple answer? "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn" (Rom 12:15).  Simple?  Yes.  Easy?  No.

It is never easy to enter a house of mourning, to share in their sorrow.  And to enter a house rejoicing and share in the jubilation when you are feeling the weight of another's sorrow is also a challenge. Saying hello and saying goodbye in one breath is breath-taking.

But this is life.  Joy and sorrow, gain and loss, life and death.  While we may find it difficult to navigate at times, it is the world in which we live - for now.  The good news is that this world is a passing through, a journey, which one day will be forever behind us.  It's sorrows never to be repeated and it's joy forever to be eclipsed.  And while our joy will turn to mourning time and again in this world while we are passing through, mourning will pass away replaced by joy alone in Heaven.

In my guided reading plan this morning, the first passage I read was this: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matt).  So, I will rejoice with my wife and say hello to a new grandson and I will mourn with my brother as we say goodbye to his daughter.  In all of life I will turn to the Lord whether rejoicing in gratitude or lamenting in sorrow.  Jus' Say'n.

Broken But Not Tossed

Sociologist Brene Brown, commenting on vulnerability in a TED talk said, "We are 'those people.'...we are the others.  Most of us are one paycheck, one divorce, one drug-addicted kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one sexual assault, one drinking binge, one night of unprotected sex, or one affair away from being 'those people' - the ones we don't trust, the ones we pity...the ones bad things happen to...."

We are those people.  We are the broken ones.  Or the ones about to be broken.  Or, or just maybe, we are the ones who are about to be mended.  The ones who have accepted the fact of their brokenness, refuse to hide or deny it and turn to the One Source where wholeness can be found - Christ alone!

God is not surprised by our brokenness, he foresaw the unfortunate path mankind would take and set in motion a plan of redemption, a way of reclaiming and restoring.  Like a potter with a flawed or broken piece of pottery, who chooses to reshape his creation instead of tossing it to the side, God stands ready to reshape and restore instead of reject.  Listen to the words of Jeremiah the prophet:

"I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: 'O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?' declares the Lord. 'Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand'" (18:3-6).

You are broken, I am broken - maybe not as broken as the guy or gal next door, maybe not as broken as we were at one time, maybe not as broken as we're going to be but we are broken.  We don't need to hide it or deny it, we need embrace it and own up to it - not to accept its reign but to allow our restoration.  Almighty God is the Potter who does not desire to toss away the marred clay but wants to make it new.

Unlike the clay, however, we have a choice: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matt 11:28).  He calls to us in our brokenness, extending the free offer to reshape and restore us, allowing us to rest or be removed from the burden of our brokenness.  But we choose.  You choose.  What is your choice?  Jus' Ask'n.

The Death of Me

Have you ever heard and exasperated parent sigh to an over-adventurous child, "You'll be the death of me yet" as she drags that rambunctious little tyke back from yet another attempt to climb, jump or jet one place or another?  Have you ever been under so much stress at work that you thought to yourself, "This job is killing me"?  Have you ever wondered, with all the wrecks on the road, chemicals in our food, toxins in our air and radical Islamic nut jobs breathing death to everyone, just how long can you survive anyway?

Have you ever faced or are you facing something that causes you to muse, "This could be the death of me"?  It not a very settling thought, is it?  Even if you do not fear death in particular, the prospect of it can rattle us a bit.  As cowboy laureate Will Rogers once quipped, "It's not that I'm afraid to die, it's just that I've been alive as long as I can remember and I don't like change."

Death is the ultimate and irreversible change in this life, and it tends to be faced with trepidation if not downright fear.  To even begin to think of a world without "me" is difficult.  It's hard to imagine everything going on without me.  My hopes, my dreams, my goals -- these things seem so invaluable that they just can't simply come to an end.

And yet, that is precisely what the call of Jesus demands of us, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matt 16:24).  And lest we think that calling is anything less than the death of me, listen closely to the words of the Spirit through the apostle Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me..." (Gal 2:20).

Part of counting the cost of being a follower of Jesus Christ is that it will be "the death of me."  I cannot continue pursuing my hope, my dreams, my goals unless they are aligned with and support His.  It is no longer my life, a life that was "...buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Rom 6:4).

While I struggle with the old me trying to come back like a personal Zombie Apocalypse, my hope, my dream, my goal today is that my faith results in the total and complete death of me and the full, overwhelming indwelling of Christ's Spirit.  Jus' Say'n.

Doing Good

I remember one of my instructors in Harding University's preacher training program back in the day who said, "When everything goes wrong, do something right."  I don't remember anything else he said that day or even what class we we taking at the moment.  But I remember the impact it had on me and the life choice I made that day to make that a daily effort.

I wish I could say I've always lived up to that standard, that I've always made the choice to do right regardless of how wrong things were going or someone else had been.  Truthfully I have chosen to jump in the muck at times instead of staying on solid ground, where I could do some good.  But I can say it has been my idea, my desire, the thing I want to do and most often have chosen.

Why my flesh has been weak at times, this principle has been a polar star for my life that I believe is not only good sense, it is good - period!  It is not just the wisdom of an elder teacher of young would-be preachers, it is the wisdom of God delivered through one: "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Gal 6:10).

Did you notice the "therefore?"  Did you wonder what the "therefore" is there for?  It is a concluding remark following warnings to bear each other's burdens, even when it's due to their bad choices; to not be deceived into thinking it doesn't matter or won't count; to continue doing good, even when all seems so bad; to continue doing good that a harvest of your good actions may be realized in a world that has so much bad.

The Lord doesn't say to do good when all the conditions are right, to do good when everyone else is acting according to script, when you feel up to doing good.  The Lord say to do good as you have opportunity and that opportunity only increases when things and people are going bad.

So, if you're wondering what kingdom good you can do, what purpose God has for you, what you can accomplish in this world a this moment with what you have,  here it is: Look around where you are and take note of what is going on, who is doing what and then do something right.  Return blasting with blessing, freely give when others falsely take, offer hugs instead of hate, genuinely smile at grumpy sneers, do good whenever and whoever and however you can.

While we should favor fellow followers of Jesus, our choice should not end there, only begin.  Choosing good should be the default setting of our lives.  Choosing good should be the major we major on when others major pains or minor distractions.  Don't wait around for some singular good thing to do, just do good every single day, every single opportunity.  Jus' Say'n.