Children ...

To experience how it is that God can love you, simply look to how you feel about your own children. Imagine with me for a minute that your two-year-old toddler comes to you, smiling, with arms outstretched desperate to feel the warmth of your embrace. Now imagine with me, that your smiling two-year-old is covered in feces and smells like something south of a chemical factory. Yuk! But this is still your child. He needs to be cleaned, and He may not even know how badly He needs to be cleaned, but you do. You want only to love your child. You want only what is best for your child. You know more than your child knows. You have seen more, fallen more, been dirty yourself more, in short you know if your child will trust you, His life will be better than if he does not. Welcome to the lessons of parenthood.

We parade around content in the accumulated knowledge of human wisdom, and to God, we look like adorable two-year-olds speaking in baby talk, making almost no sense at all. Cute, but wise? We think we know facts, and truth, and philosophy, but we know very little. What is common between us and God is our ability and need to love and be loved. God would have us learn this from the raising of our own children. He would have us see that as precious as they are to us, so are we to Him. He would have us see our foolishness with Him, in their foolishness with us. A parent’s ‘curse’ - may you have children just like you are … was designed to illustrate our relationship with God to us first hand. How often we go blind to the lessons.

Children need much. The younger they are, the more they need. But with that need, the younger they are, the more they are taken care of by the parents, and less by themselves. So it is with us and God. The more we realize our needs, and realize that only God can meet them, the more we trust Him to do so. And the more God takes care of us, the more we can rely on Him to do so, without fear, regret, or remorse. We do not torture our children for their ignorance. We try to educate them. We do not stop loving our children when they misbehave. We try to correct them in love, so as to help them avoid the pain we would have them avoid. Children are an object lesson in salvation itself.

The analogy does break down in one area; we are more like Peter Pan in that compared to God, we never seem to grow up. We are perpetually stuck in the 3 year old phase. We do not like this idea of ourselves. We rebel against the concept that our best knowledge and accumulated truths only amount to the comparative wisdom of a toddler, but there you are. Our problem is that our imaginations make us think we control aspects of our lives, when in fact we control nothing. We think we can earn our living, when in fact we are dependent on God for the job and the income in the first place. We think we can be a better person, when in fact, our ideas of better person continue to allow us to achieve personal gain at the expense of others. Control exists only in our imagination and in the hands of God. We remain in desperate need. We remain toddlers.

It is said to “spare the rod” is to spoil the child. I would add “if you can’t reach it, don’t spank it”. The younger the child is, the more they seem to understand misbehavior has physical consequences. Spanking seems to lose all effect at age 30 (at least all disciplinary effect). But what lesson in discipline would we rather our children learn? Perhaps better to show them that REAL harm does not always come right away from what we do, but the longer it is delayed, the larger the impact it has on our lives and the lives of those we love. I am not convinced that spanking is required to maintain authority with a child. But I am convinced that maintaining authority is important. It is more important the younger they are.

As our children mature we must mature along with them. We must learn to allow them more and more freedom, freedom to fail as well as succeed. If we shelter them from all failure, we do them a disservice. So it is with our God. It is hard to sit back and let a child experience firsthand, what we know to be inevitable consequences of their decisions. So it is with our God and us. It is particularly difficult to see them experience pain first hand, when we know it could be avoided. But it must be so in order for them to learn. We do our jobs as parents well, if we teach them the values behind the rules. We honor our children if we teach them to think for themselves as God would have us do. We give our children a gift if we teach them to question authority, as God does with us. For our Lord is not afraid of questions. He is able to answer them all. For He is perfect love. Questioning authority only poses a threat to those who do not really have it, or perhaps should not really have it.

We wish our children to be thinkers, and leaders, not followers and sheep. It is good to be a thinker, but only if we realize our relative position to Christ. It is good to be a leader, but only if we humble ourselves before Christ and realize our own unworthiness. We must teach our children the balance between self-examination or humility and using the talents God has richly given us. We are safe to employ His gifts, and His talents, especially when we acknowledge they come from Him. It is vanity to direct attention away from His gifts, and on to self. It is arrogance to assume that our accomplishments belong to us alone. It is pride to believe we rule ourselves and our worlds. And vanity, arrogance, pride, are all internal sins of distraction designed to keep us from submitting our wills to Christ.

In terms of leadership we look first to our fathers. This is natural and there is no harm in it. But leadership carries with it many additional burdens and responsibilities. As fathers we must demonstrate what it means to lead while striving always to please our partners. We must learn how to demonstrate justice tempered by mercy. We must learn to demonstrate forgiveness, not just within our family circle, but outside of it, when things do not go our way. We must consistently demonstrate courtesy to all regardless of age, gender, race, religion, or political views. And we must be the primary example of how to humble ourselves before God and submit our wills to Him. This lesson will have the longest and most lasting impact upon the lives of our children.

When seeking our place in the world, we look first to our mothers for a sense of belonging. This is natural and there is no harm in it. In homes where there is no father to play his own role, mothers must do their best to take on the additional mantle of leadership. But while they try to teach lessons they may not be well suited for, they should not neglect the areas they are strongest suited for. In order for us to be brave enough to go out and face the world, we begin by having confidence that our mom’s will always have a place for us under their wings. We are nurtured, comforted, and find healing in the protection of a mother’s arms. We can bathe in the deep care and concern a mother has for her young. Her daily practical lessons on the care and maintenance of a family unit should not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

Adults who enter a home without a blood based relationship with the children now a part of their family unit, should do so with great deference to the existing parent, and their “style” of parenthood. But marriages where both parties submit their wills before Christ, will grow, alter, or morph over time into what He designs. This means as time passes the relationship between the children and their step-parents will grow and deepen. In these cases respect and authority must be earned by a consistent demonstration of love and service. It is not enough to speak the words, it must be demonstrated by the behavior and actions of the new parent. Love seeks out its own. Love responds to love. When love is shown in a home, it will gain respect and authority.

As children become adults their need of parents is greatly reduced, but their need of friendship and counselors on which they can rely for advice will not ever diminish. Parents can best fill a role of consiglieri for their children as they know them better than anyone else is likely to until they find marriage for themselves. We must respect the entrance of our children into the responsibility of adulthood, without abandoning them to their own devices. Though grown our worries for them transition from their physical needs and status, to their spiritual needs and status. We wonder if they walk with the Lord, or are distracted away from Him. We pray to the only God who can save them , to do so with them as He has and is with us. This has always been our greatest prayer, to save us, but to save those we love as well. We can have faith in our God’s ability and desire to grant that prayer.

When our children become parents themselves they will look to their past and imitate what they have experienced firsthand. This will be the test of success for our efforts with them. Grandchildren are yet another blessing as is the ability to have an older generation directly impact the newest one. A new parent can benefit from the experience of a grandparent, and can sometimes simply benefit from any kind of outside help. Grandparents are known for “spoiling” their grandchildren. I wonder if this comes from the wisdom of age that places a higher value on love than we did in our youth. It seems the older we become, the more we realize what is truly important, and what is fleeting. Grandparents recognize the supreme treasure of youth and love in the form of their trusting as yet untainted grandchildren. Soon enough the world will tempt them, exhaust them, and attempt to destroy their spirit. But for a while, a Grandparent can hold them, teach them, tell them stories, and enrich the culture of an entire family in so doing.

For those parents with small children who have no living Grandparents, it is worth adopting another set or two. Find an older couple in your church who may have less contact than they would like with their own families, or a couple confined to a nursing home, and visit them. Let them interact with your children. Involve them in your life and let your lives be enriched in the process. Older members of our families, whether by blood or by choice, add a dimension to our development that cannot be substituted in any other way. They add a richness to our lives. They add depth to our understanding. The wisdom that comes with age is wisdom we all need.

Protecting children is a universal desire. To be effective at it, is to begin with knowing your children, knowing their routines, patterns, interests, and behaviors. Sudden or dramatic changes in patterns you are familiar with generally indicate issues that must be discovered and addressed. An “A” student whose grades suddenly tank may be wrestling with a number of issues. It could be a new girl/boy-friend. It could be something more sinister like chemical stimulants. It could be even worse as they struggle with being victimized by a predatory adult. Not all changes in patterns of behaviors originate for negative reasons, but some do. Thus all must be investigated if protecting them remains the goal. Children rarely bring issues like these to their parent’s attention unprompted. It takes active observation, and a degree of prodding to help them open up to the truth. A sympathetic ear, and non-threatening environment will aid greatly in the process. Because of the level of evil in our world, predators have learned to conceal themselves in our nation, in our churches, and even in our families. Our best defense against predators, or paranoia, is to remain submitted to God, and alert to changes we see in our kids.

Finally, children pose an interesting question to us all – when can a person truly “know” God? What I “know” of Him now is far more than what I “knew” at 20 years of age. But this does not negate my “knowledge” at 20. The same is true even when I was only five years old. It appears that “knowing” God is more of a process than a destination. We will never be done learning about God, learning about how to Love, or appreciating our salvation from evil. Given this, do not belittle or decry, the relationship little children exhibit towards God. If they choose to participate in church traditions, let them. If they wish to be baptized at any age, let them. As Christ said … “suffer the little children to come unto me.” He did not discriminate against them for their “age”. He welcomes them all at any age. And He went further to remind us that we all look like children from His perspective, and we all really need Him. Let us not lose this important lesson as long as we live.

Tall Pointy Hats ...

Have you ever wondered where the tradition of headwear came from?  After all covering our heads in the cold seems like a good idea, but when practicality is no longer the goal, it seems being ornate takes over.  You used to be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys in a western by the color of their hats – good guys wore white, bad guys wore black.  But color has long since lost any value in this regard; John Travolta made wearing black cowboy hats a fad after the movie Urban Cowboy; and as I recall the KKK prefers wearing white sheets on their heads.  So color does not mean anything anymore. 

In times of wars past, a helmet protected the head, and generally identified which side you were fighting for.  Not anymore; these days it looks more like those in a uniform and those who are not.  Berets were worn at one time by elite fighting forces, we even named one of them “Green Berets” but I am not certain the name has remained in effect, it seems to have been subsumed by the terms “Special Forces” or “Rangers” today.  In any case headgear seems to have always had a role in military activities.

I guess the most identifiable place where “hats” make the biggest difference is related to royalty.  Crowns and tiara’s are where the big money lies.  The more ornate the crown of course, the more valuable.  Crowns were meant to be rare, generally only the King ever wore a crown.  Peasants would not dream of such a thing.  But peasants were meant to take pride in the audacity and beauty of the crowns belonging to King and country where they were from.  Adding jewels, adding artistic carvings, constructing them of complex design – all of these considerations go in to the making of a crown that is “fit for a king”.  But then, who wears crowns anymore?  Most are now found on display in Museums.

You could argue that due to the invention of democracy, people think differently about crowns now.  No one would dare to wear a crown anymore, either for fear of it getting stolen, or for ridicule in implying they were somehow superior to their peers.  As I stated above, it is not as though practicality is the goal of headwear anymore.  But there is one trait in ornate headwear that seems to have survived the ages; it seems the taller the hat, the more regal, or more important must be its wearer.   Look at the head-dress of American Indian tribes, the chief has many many feathers, the braves have a few depending on age, and skill.  The crowns of the Pharoah’s of Eqypt were tall for the Royal couple, much less so for any other positions.  Even the grand dragon of the KKK has a more ornate Sheet than his co-conspirators.  And one last place I can think of off-hand, within the Catholic church, the Pope alone wears the most ornate of head-gear left on the planet.  Do you ever wonder why this trait has endured?

I have a theory about it.  I believe the premise was derived from Heaven itself.  I imagine that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has a crown fit for His position in the Universe.  I can imagine it is taller and more elaborate than any the world could ever imagine.  I imagine that He sits at the right hand of His Father, who sits on the Throne at the highest pinnacle, or highest point within the city of Heaven itself.  A brilliant shining beacon of light that emanates to the entire Universe.  So if the most important guy gets the tallest most important hat, then it stands to reason that our God probably has the tallest, nicest one ever conceived.

My guess is that in an effort to foster vanity and inequality in our perceptions of our fellow man, Satan polluted the idea of crowns and introduced them into our various cultures with as much negative baggage as possible.  Examine the contrast for a second; God our Father, despite whatever head-gear He prefers, is willing to give us any good thing at a moment’s notice – He spends His time trying to think of things to do FOR His creation, not what He can get FROM it.  Yet when an earthly king puts on his elaborate crown, he very rarely puts it aside to do the work of a servant.  More often, he gets caught up in the perceptions of superiority that accompany a crown, and does only the work he believes is worthy of him or his position.  When we put on a crown, we become the object of service, not the instrument or the tool of it.

Yet the Old Testament of the Bible outlines very clearly the idea that NO man is superior to another in any way shape or form.  Abraham, Joseph, Daniel, Elijah, and many others refused to bow themselves down in the presence of earthly kings or warlords.  It was not the humility they were supposed to lose, but even the remote idea of worshipping anything other than God.  To bow ONLY before God, was to show the proper respect to the proper source that alone deserved it.  Bowing down before idols was considered a major affront to our Creator God.  Sticks, stones, sculptures and our fellow man were not to warrant the same respect as that given to our Lord in Heaven.  Many times Biblical patriarchs refused to bow themselves down to powerful earthly Kings, and risked their very lives in this seeming act of defiance.  Not so with us.

When you consider the Bible’s view that indeed ALL men are created equal, and are equally flawed, it seems the teaching of bowing in submission only to God to be another reinforcement of the gospel itself.  In order to be saved, we must humble ourselves only to God, accept only His gift, and submit our will ONLY to Him.  It is God alone who can change us; not our pastor, or our parents, or our therapists.  It is God alone who can redefine the creation of a man.  It is in God alone we can be born again through the miracle of His redemptive power.

This should be a liberating concept particularly to our pastors and spiritual leaders.  Those who take up the work of the Lord to spread His word, and His gospel, should be freed by not carrying the burden of undo respect or homage by their brothers in Christ.  Pastors are NOT our role models, Christ alone can fulfill this calling.  Pastors are NOT expected to be perfect anymore than the man in my mirror is.  If I seek perfection, I should look to Christ, not to those who try to teach me.  This is a liberating idea that maintains the equality of our humanity, no matter what role He chooses for us in fulfilling His good purposes and work.  All the glory, all the honor, all the respect, can go to Christ – we can save the humility for each other.

As I thought about this, the concept of the pointy hat began to eat at me.  Not only is the papal headwear ornate, taller than almost any other hat on planet earth, it is inscribed with the latin words – Vicarious Filii Dei – meaning ‘replacement for the Son of God’.  Catholic tradition is built on the idea that the Apostle Peter was named the first Pope of the church.  That Christ’s statement regarding building His church “upon a rock” was meant to mean Peter.  Subsequent interpretations of this same scripture have alternate meanings, in that Peter was referred to as a Stone compared to Christ alone referred to as “the Rock” upon which the church would be built.  This has been a point of contention between Catholics and Protestants for years.

But looking past which side of the interpretation you subscribe to, there is a much larger issue at hand.  Where in the Bible anywhere does it recommend that any church leader should put on a tall, ornate, pointy hat?  You see what happens to men in politics when they wear a crown, happens to men in religion as well.  The idea of being servant of all, is replaced by becoming the object of all service.  Men bow before the Pope, kiss a ring he wears on his hands.  Men humble themselves before the Pope and the entire world covers him extensively in their news media.  Why?  ALL men are created equal, and are equally flawed.  It occurs to me, the Pope must suffer much by carrying the undo burden of men bowing to his frailty.  Yet I have never heard of a Pope asking believers to show homage only to Christ.  Should not the greatest teacher of all direct all to the source of love, and true source of worship?  Isn’t that what the original Christ did?

Throughout the life of Christ on earth He wore no kingly robes.  He wore no crown, except one made of thorns to mock Him at His death.  He who should have been King of all, was in fact, servant of all.  Christ served us.  He served the poor in person, with kindness, with healing, with truth taught in gentle humility and love.  He did not command throngs to serve Him, but instead served them all Himself.  Our example, was the Son of Man, the true leader of our faith, of our religion, who dressed modestly, who acted incessantly, and who loved as no other ever could or will.  He wore no pointy hat in our world.  He showed us what to aspire to.  I wonder if there will ever be a Pope of the Catholic faith, who foregoes the pomp and circumstance, who casts down the hat in humility, and directs all those who follow him to follow Christ.  I wonder if other Christians, and leaders of the faith in other churches, will ever cast aside their wealth, put aside their fame, and direct others to follow only Christ.  The danger in our leaders is their belief that they in fact lead, when the truth is that only Christ can lead.  We are ALL only His humble servants …

Comples Design ...

Ever tried to look for a villain that was just pure ‘evil’?  I’m a big fan of the ABC Television series titled “Lost”.  The central hero character is named Jack, his nemesis seems to be named Ben.  Jack is a surgeon who likes to help fix people.  Ben appears to be a self-centered ego-maniac who will do anything to “win”.  And one of Ben’s more famous lines in the show is … “we’re the good guys”.

Now it is fairly common for a good villain to state they are anything but.  Hitler fancied himself the “savior of Germany”, not the monster we all know him as.  The sad thing about Hitler’s assertion is that there are a number of facts that would support it.  After World War One Germany was crushed, and the world wanted punishment for the damage it went through fighting the first war.  Hitler’s popularity was in part, because he offered hope to the German people they could rise again – he rebuilt manufacturing, restored pride in a rebuilt massive military, and ended double-digit inflation by quickly winning smaller conquests that re-enriched the country.  Nationalizing Jewish wealth put a dent the in the deficit, and the German people had a reason to follow him (at least before he revealed his truly darker nature).

On the show “Lost”, you could debate whether Ben is truly a good guy.  He has done some seemingly bad things, but he seems to select only the bad people to do them to.  He makes a distinction between innocents and the more guilty folks of his world.  When Satan came to Christ to tempt Him, he did not come as himself.  Satan came as an Angel of light.  He offered advice and counsel designed to have the Creator step outside of the will of God, or simply use some the inherent power of God within Himself to solve an immediate problem.  Satan is truly the definition of pure evil at this point.  He has degraded himself from being the fourth highest entity in the universe, to a picture of the anti-God.  All the good that embodies God has its counterpart, its opposite, defined in the being of Satan.

But humans are a very different story.  Mortality puts a term limit on our choices.  Aging forces us to look at situations from an ever changing view point.  And the objective standard of Good and Evil (our Bibles), reveal our nature, our intentions, and our motives – within the actions we do and the ones we omit.  Each human has the immense capability to become the world’s next “savior of Germany” or the “monster” that followed.  We could learn to inspire hope in ourselves and in others; or we can default into non-sensible prejudice and hatred, blaming a few for the deeds of the many.  Hitler rebuilt a thing, then destroyed not only the thing he built, but everything else he touched.  Millions died because he made the choices he did.

Some ask if it was genetic.  Some wonder if in his childhood he was beaten or so injured he simply could not recover and took out his frustrations on those he blamed for his suffering.  Some wonder if perhaps he was possessed.  It is an interesting question.  After all pure-evil would benefit the most from the totality of Hitler’s actions and life.  If not possessed then at least a close ally in the war on God.  To kill as many of God’s creations as possible is the goal of the real underworld.  In this Hitler was a willing pawn.  What he did not kill in war, he murdered in camps.  And morality was Germany’s first casualty of war.  Has it been our first casualty as well, in our own war on terror?

Most people do not want to accept that within them lies the potential to become the world’s next Hitler.  But for a quick moment, close your eyes and bring to mind your most favorite or most often thought about fantasy?  What is it you “wish” could happen?  If you could control everything what would you do?  Would there be limits to the power you would seek, if the only limits were self-imposed?  Where would your seemingly innocent fantasies end up if they were unrestrained by circumstances, finances, external laws or views of morality.  Hitler ran amuck, because he could.  He was the central power base.  His charisma, influence, and history of early accomplishments made him formidable.  He was hard to oppose and live.

But as hard as it might be to accept the idea that within each of us lies the potential for great calamity, the opposite is also true.  What if instead of coming to power and prominence, Hitler chose to spend his life as a humble painter?  What if he had lived within the restraints that bind most of us?  The ripple effects are tremendous aren’t they? 

First of all, there may not have ever been a second world war (though Japan and Italy may still have gone ahead with it).  Even so 6 million Jews would still have been alive, as well as 6 million Gypsies, and 20 million Russians.  No European allied casualties of any kind.  This means the American war machine might never have really been started.  No nukes; no women working in factories to replace the men who went to war; no black army air force pilots from Tuskegee; no CIA (a derivative of a WW2 based intelligence product); possibly the continuation of the depression.  At a minimum the societal impacts would have been the slowing down of the women’s equality movement as well as the black civil rights movements.  It is mind boggling to imagine what our world and our nation might look like had we never gone to war in WW2 with Germany (at the least).

So what makes people become who they are?  If in each of us lays Hitler or Mother Teresa, which is the one we choose to become?  The honest answer is I don’t really know for sure.  I am amazed at the potential myself.  I am amazed that where it comes to humans, they are ALWAYS a mix of both good and evil.  While good or evil may present itself as dominant during our lives, the effects are not guaranteed to last, either way.  The Old Testament has many stories of Kings of Israel who were faithful in their youth, and fully corrupt at their deaths and vice versa.  People can change over time for better or worse.  So in either case the dominance of evil or good is a struggle.  It is weird to me that killers can love; nasty, vulgar, disgusting women can be caring, doting, mothers; and all of this within the same person, the same identity.  How we swing the emotional and moral pendulum back and forth so far in so short a period of time is a wonder.

But I believe that our heredity inclines us to evil as our natural state of being.  And I believe that evil is an all consuming entity that leaves nothing out, and corrupts fully.  This is the condition that God set about to undo on our behalf.  This is a state of being He never intended for us to suffer from.  Evil may be natural to us, but it is foreign to the universe as a whole.  Evil, being contained to this world alone, will be short lived by infinity’s standards.  However our disease of evil was not something we were meant to endure and thus a plan was devised to save us.  Salvation is about ending the evil in our lives, our hearts, our minds, and our hands.  Salvation is about restoring purity in our lives, and bringing us back into harmony with the purity of our God.  Salvation is not eternal life, or golden streets, or flying at the speed of thought.  That is simply the natural state of being we were intended to live as.

We were intended to live without restrictions as our natural state was intended to live as good not evil.  Free to love, free to serve, free to learn, free from bondage to self and self-interests, free from everything evil – that is what Salvation is all about.  Immortality can only support those who choose this purity, by accepting the gift God has offered us.  Our perfection of character is the work we pursue now with absolute glee, not reluctance.  Learning to surrender to God, to accept His plan, to embrace His will, and to return His love – these are the pursuits of the saved.  Salvation brings with it an ever increasing distance from evil.  Salvation brings with it Hope, where all human strength has long abandoned hope.  Salvation is not from the conditions of this life that we find ourselves submerged within, but it frees us from the state of being we are naturally inclined to pursue.  We can learn to live in purity wherever we are, wherever we find ourselves, in whatever conditions the world sends our way.  This is the GIFT of Salvation God has set about to bring to each of us.  All we have to do is accept.  It’s just that easy.

While the soul and the character may have been created with an immensely complex design, the answer to every question has been made infinitely simple – Do we want what God offers or not …