The Giving Tree

In the book, “Between Mothers and Sons: The Making of Vital and Loving Men,” author Evelyn S. Bassoff sheds a new perspective on a classic children’s book. She reinterprets the story of the “Giving Tree.” If you remember the “Giving Tree” is a children’s classic work telling the story of a relationship between a selfish boy who takes and takes and takes at the expense of the mother tree who gives and give until nothing else is left to give. Most of us read the story as an example of self-sacrifice. Rather than life-giving, Bassoff sees in the tree a mother who will not let her child grow. By indulging her son and truncating her own life, the mother-tree stunts both her son’s growth and her own. Bassoff reminds us of the mother’s responsibility to keep growing and to allow for the growth of the other.

Part of the wisdom process is finding a healthy balance between the parent as giver of life and the child as takers. In order to allow our children to grow to experience the fullnesss of life mothers will need to see themselves in the relationship. We are not so much preparing our children for a future as we are to guide them to live in the present. If we can be present with our children now and guide them through life experiences today they will be more prepared to face the future. Some parents are so consumed by the future that they forget to live in the present with their children. You can not teach a child Shakespeare when she is four-years old. But reading to her the adventures of Winnie the Pooh today will prepare her tomorrow.

God Exceeds Our Expectations

We live by the law of expectation. What is the law of expectation? It is getting out of life what we expect. We see what we expect to see. We feel what we expect to feel. We act the way we are expected to act. We achieve what we are expected to achieve. We set our own expectations. We never aim high because we never see ourselves having the ability to achieve. We refuse to set goals because we don’t expect to have enough focus to accomplish the goals. We remain isolated because we don’t expect relationships.

We live by the expectations of others. Maybe you had a parent who told you that you were worthless. Maybe your spouse threw stones of negativity constantly. Maybe you work for a boss whose expectations are low.

In the church we set expectations. We give people away out when they sin by saying things like, “No one is perfect.” Or my favorite, “We are all just sinners saved by grace.” We put the emphasis on sinner instead of grace. It’s like our sinning is stronger than the grace made available through the death of Jesus. We are more than “sinners saved by grace.” We are saints. We are redeemed children. We are brothers and sisters of King Jesus. We are prince and princesses in God’s kingdom. “Sinner saved by grace” is another way of saying I am a lazy, sloppy, careless Christian who doesn’t believe that Jesus has the power to save.

If God lives in us and God exceeds our expectations then we need to rise above expectations. A little girl turned to her mother after church and said, “Mommy, the preacher confuses me.” The mother asked, “Why?” The little girl said, “Well, he said that God is bigger than we are.” “Yes,” the mother replied. “He also said that God lives in us.” Again the mother replied, “Yes.” “Well,” said the little girl, “If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t we explode?” Good question. More Christians are exploding because they ate refried beans last night more than because the Spirit of the Living God lives in them.

Mirror: Part Two

Jesus died because he told the truth. If he would have kept his mouth shut or at least not been so honest he may have saved some skin. But no, he had to go get himself killed by being honest. When the soldiers came looking for him, he asked, “Who do you seek.” “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said, “I am him.” When the High Priest questioned Jesus about his teaching he was honest and told them if there is any wrong in what he has said then please let him know. When asked by Pilate if he was king of the Jews he didn’t deny it but instead said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “So you are a king,” Pilate asks. Jesus replies, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” Speaking the truth got Jesus killed.

Speaking the truth can be dangerous. But hearing the truth can be difficult. Jesus came to give us the truth about ourselves. He is the truth. As the truth, Jesus serves as the perfect mirror for which we see ourselves.

In the presence of his truth, our lies are exposed. In the presence of his courage, our cowardice is brought to light. In the presence of his passionate, fierce, sacrificial love for us, our own hardness of heart is revealed. In his presence we stand. In his presence we either fall down to worship him or do everything we can to extinguish his light.

I invite you to take time to be honest. Who are you really? Until we can honestly answer that question we will not be able to experience the full impact of redemption because we don’t fully understand what it is we need redeeming from. Most of us need saving from ourselves.

We can say that Jesus is true. But it only shows by the type of person we become when confronted with this truth. Truth as followers of Jesus is not about reciting certain creeds or claiming certain set of beliefs. The answer to truthfulness is the life that it produces.

Mirror: Part One

Ever notice when you look in the mirror that you don’t really look you only observe. Your wife tells you that you may want to pull out that special clipper that gets rid of hair in places that you really don’t want to have hair hanging out of. So you check your nose. You make sure your sideburns are even.

Some women spend hours in front of a mirror but do they really look at themselves. They are simply observing certain things about their body and face and hair that they like or don’t like. With all the time we spend in front of the mirror how many of us really take the time to look at the person staring back at us.
One of the most difficult things we can do is to get an accurate picture of who we really are. We all have this idea of who want to become or even who we thing we are. We define ourselves by what we do, the titles we bear, or the wealth we carry. We stay busy living that we are afraid to discover that we really don’t have a life. We refuse to look in the mirror.

Then we are forced. It could be a tragedy that causes us to pause. It could be a health report that forces us to examine what is important. It can also be a person. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to “love our enemies.” Now most of the time when we think of enemies we think of people like Osama bin Laden or the person from the bank who calls looking for that past due payment. Could our enemy also be the person we have grown to love to hate? The one person who sees us for who we really are. The person that we can’t hide from or pretend to be something else. Our enemy may not be the person who lies, steals, and cheats from us but the person that is so honest with us that it frightens us. She is that person that you think is so wonderful and the next day she says something or does something that makes you think twice – not about her but about you. She is that person that reminds you of the difference between you and her and you.

Take a moment to think about the person that most represents Christ for you. Now what is really be asked is who is the person that has told you the truth about yourself so clearly that you wanted to kill him or her for it. Jesus died because he told the truth.

Desperate for Communication: Part Two

In Ephesians 4: 29 the Apostle Paul says, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouth, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
The reason that our spouse may not be hearing what we are saying is because we have spoke so much negativity that they have closed themselves off to our words. Most of our life we function by rewards. We work for a paycheck. We play by certain rules to get the benefits. We may live for rewards but we live by encouragement. The trick is we cannot encourage ourselves. Encouragement must come from others and if we are only getting shut down then we are more tempted to shut out.
In the book of Hebrews we are told to “encourage one another daily” (Hebrews 3: 13 NIV). How do we do this? Encouragement means that we focus on the strengths of the other person rather than their weaknesses. I want you to practice being encouraging this week. First, memorize Ephesians 4: 29. Let’s say it again, ““Let no evil talk come out of your mouth, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” Secondly, For the next week you can’t say anything negative about your spouse/friend/child, to your spouse/friend/child, or to anyone else about your spouse/friend/child. Thirdly, be intentional about saying something that you admire or appreciate about your spouse/friend/child every day.
Proverbs 16: 21 says, “Pleasant words are persuasive.” It is true. We are a lot more motivated with words of encouragement than we are with words of negativity. Every time you speak a word of encouragement to your spouse, friend or child you are in affect saying, “I believe in you.” Those words can change marriages and relationships.

Desperate for Communication: Part One

Men and women communicate differently. When a man says, “Can I help with dinner?” He really means, “Why isn’t it already on the table?” When a woman says, “Come help me with dinner.” She really means, “I want to tell you everything about my day.” When a man says, “Take a break honey, you’re working to hard.” He really means, “I can’t hear the game over the vacuum cleaner.” When a woman says, “Take a break honey, you’re working too hard.” A woman never says that because she is just glad to get him to do something around the house!

The reason communication can be so challenging is because our behavior is always a function of perception. We behave according to how things seem to us not necessarily what may be true to reality. This causes us to interpret words in a manner that they may not have intended. For example, when I reflect back over most of the arguments my wife and I have had they have developed over either me or her misinterpreted what was being said. Our communication circles around the perceptions we create. The good news is that our perception can be modified.

The words we use will dictate the health and quality of our relationships. Words are powerful. In the story of Job we have a man who has lost everything – his children, his home, and his health. He has three friends who come and try to convince Job that it is his fault that he is in this horrible state. Finally Job has enough of this negative bashing, he says, “"How long are you going to keep battering away at me, pounding me with these harangues? Time after time after time you jump all over me. Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this? Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track, what business is that of yours? Why do you insist on putting me down, using my troubles as a stick to beat me” (Job 19:ff The Message)? The writer of Proverbs says, “Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit—you choose” (Proverbs 18:21, The Message). We have a choice. Will we use words to give life or kill? When it comes to your most intimate relationships with spouse, children, and friends how careful are you with your words?

Intimacy: Part Three

How do we develop intimacy in marriage? First, talk about your weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to share with your partner what frightens you. Be honest. Don’t coward behind a false strength. Second, offer your strength. Be willing to fight for the other person. Be willing to sacrifice. Stand up. Three, view marriage as an adventure. Marriage ought to be a daring adventure or it is nothing. It should be an adventure in growth and in change, in breaking out of the familiar and into the excitement of doing new things together, and discovering new life.

A lot of men view marriage like a hunting trip – after the wedding the adventure is over. The deer has been mounted. A lot of women view marriage like fishing. The fish caught out of the large pool has been transplanted into the fish bowl.

I tell couples when they come in for pre-marital counseling that they are given the responsibility for one simple thing in marriage. Marriage is an adventure of helping the other person be all that God intends for them to be. What if we all had that vision of marriage? Our roles is to partner with God in bringing the people in my life into a relationship with God and to serve Him the way that He intended. Repeat this with me: I will offer my strength to the person I love. I will offer my strength to the person I love. How will you do that? Take a moment and write out the ways you will begin to offer your strength to the person you love? Do it together and both of you can experience an intimacy in marriage that you did not know existed.
Intimacy is a journey. It will be a destination you will never reach. It puts the adventure into marriage and relationships. So go ahead start the journey. Offer your strength. Be adventurous. That is God’s way for relationships.

Intimacy: Part Two

Intimacy is not something that can be easily defined. Early in life we are sold on this myth of perfect relationships. We are given an image of marriage as a fairy tale or friendships that never have conflict. Intimacy is the bridge that links passion and commitment. Every relationship has three components of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion generally is highest early in a relationship. All couples have to do is think back to the honeymoon stage. Early on marriages have a lot of passion. The honeymoon stage is a very intense period in any relationship. Some of our most passionate love is experienced during this period. Also some of our most passionate conflicts are experienced. The reason all this passion is flying is because we tend to unconsciously select a partner for how he or she makes us feel. We choose someone to fill the emotional gap left over from childhood. In time, this unconscious demand leaves both partners angry, empty, and fearful. Passion eventually dies without commitment and in order to link passion to commitment one must have intimacy in marriage. Passion and commitment can both exist and should exist in marriage. When we add intimacy to a relationship we can experience passionate commitment. What person does not want to experience passionate commitment? A commitment that lifts the relationship on a level that no one knew existed. It is this type of commitment that is described in the Song of Solomon.

The song belongs to a tradition of love poetry found in other places in the Near East. It represents an ideal of love. It shows a relationship charged with erotic energy. Love in the Song of Solomon is seen as a communion of souls. For the two lovers, love becomes a mode of perception. When the two lovers look at each other they see a world of their own making. It is a Song describing a man and woman in unashamed intimacy. The Song moves from the experience of intense longing to that of blissful enjoyment, and then to longing once more. The woman seeks her absent love and finds him, only to lose him and seek him again. The lovers are separated from each other, joined in an ecstatic embrace, and then apart once again. The Song moves between presence and absence, possession and loss, exhilaration and dejection. Everything about this love is mutual. Both man and woman move from one emotion to the other.

The woman says to her lover, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, in a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned” (Song of Solomon 8: 6 – 7).

A young warrior, a beautiful princess when making love, together they confront death. Love is as strong as death. Could it be possible that the love between two people is a defiant act against death? Love is a challenge to death. In Hebrew the phrase “a raging flame” can also be understood as “a flame of Yahweh himself.” Passion and intimacy is God’s idea. Intimacy starts with God.

Intimacy is about strength. Intimacy is the offer our strength to the person we love. To offer our strength to the person we are passionate about means that we are willing to go to battle for her. It means that she is ready to stand up for her man. To offer a friend our strength is to reassure them we are with them when they struggle. Offering our strength to another person is risky. We take the risk of self-disclosure. It is allowing our partner to know our fears and our dreams and our weaknesses. In order to know your strength and have it to offer we must be aware of our weaknesses. Revealing our weaknesses is a humbling experience and one that many men are not willing to take.

Men we cannot have the princess without the cost. Ladies, you cannot have the warrior with the cost. Men, we cannot have the joys of the beauty without willing to fight. Ladies, you cannot know the joy of companionship without a fight. A lot of people today want love without the risk, want passion without commitment, want intimacy without demonstrating strength. What they get is a one night stand of weak, shallow, and disconnectedness and we are not talking about college students on Spring Break but marriage couples who have been together for twenty-five years.

Intimacy: Part One

Once upon a time there lived in the Midwest a girl. Her father, who owned a large wheat field, had died when she was just seven. Leaving the wheat field to her three older brothers, her mother, and her. The brothers filled their days with alcohol and criticism of their sister. She never let them see her cry.

She might be a wheat farmer, but she is a princess at heart. She is young with a youth that seems eternal. Her flowing hair, her deep eyes, her luscious lips, her sculpted figure – she makes the rose blush for shame. The sun is pale compared to her light. Her heart is golden. Her love is true as an arrow.

One evening she was floating through the wheat field and she noticed a young, handsome, warrior of a man standing at the end of the field. The power in his eyes has her oblivious to the darkness that is falling around her.

They speak. Her mother calls for her to come home. She leaves. He asks to see her again. She smiles. Another day. Same place. They connect.

The wheat field becomes a battle ground for her heart. Her brothers try to kill her passion with words that wound. Her warrior fights back with a raw courage to set her free. Much blood is shed on both sides. The battle is intense. The warrior is wounded. His princess throws her self on him and passionately says, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.”

Her brothers coward back slouched in defeat. The princess and her courageous warrior create a bed out of the wheat and give passion a new meaning.

Fast forward ten years and the princess drives a taxi disguised as a mini-van, a warrior with a bear gut whose courageous stand has been replaced by a slouched, beer gut flopped in a recliner with the sword replaced by a remote control. She know longer feels like a princess, no like connects, no longer feels the passion found in the wheat field, or the commitment of a man that will fight for her heart that was once upon a time now she never lets them see her cry.

He Loves Me. . He Loves Me Not: Anger

I have noticed that usually when I get angry it is when I don’t get what I want. When something is not turning out the way I would like or when I am not being treated the way I like, I express anger. When I have to wait longer than I think is appropriate at the doctor’s office or have to stand in line at Wal-Mart when the majority of the cashier lines are not even open. Most of my anger stems from me not getting my way.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus links anger with murder. Now many of us may think we would never go that far but the reality is that anger robs us of good and becomes a weight that holds us down in the past. An example of this is the Alabama man who went on a shooting spree killing ten people including his mother, grandmother, uncle, two cousins, and five others including an 18-month old girl. He did this because he held a grudge. The same day, a 17 year-old in Germany went on a shooting spree in his school killing 15. Two years ago, a man dressed as Santa Claus shot nine guests at a Christmas party. On April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the site of the deadliest rampage in modern U.S. history when a student gunman killed 32 people and himself. Proverbs 14: 17 says, “A quick-tempered person does foolish things.”

We live in the “age of rage.” Statistically, it is becoming less and less likely that you will be killed on the roads by a drunk driver, but the likelihood that you will be killed by an angry driver is increasing. There may be no greater societal need in our world today than for us to learn how to manage anger.

Paul says, “Don’t let the sun go down while your still angry.” When we don’t deal with our anger, it becomes like a leaky barrel of hazardous waste sunk in our soul, slowly killing us as it poisons our relationships with other people. Studies have shown that the risk of heart attacks associated with anger is comparable to that of smoking and high cholesterol. The side effects of not dealing with anger has lasting results on our spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. We should not let the sun go down while we are still angry.

He Loves Me He Loves Me Not: Fear Part Two

Every one of us can name our fears. We know what scares us. I am afraid of disappointing people, of letting others down. Some of us are afraid of getting sick. Some of us are haunted by being alone. Some of us have nightmares of finding out the truth so we live a lie. We are afraid of death. We are afraid of living. From a religious perspective we are afraid of displeasing God. We are afraid of failure. We are afraid of being made a fool. We are afraid of losing all we have worked so hard to get. We are afraid we have not done enough. Afraid of being found out that I am not who I really say I am.
One time I went to a church to preach. I had never been there so no one knew me. I walked around talking to the folks introducing myself only by my first name. I sat down beside this one woman. Introduced myself and we talked. She poured out her life story. She talked about how sorry her husband was, how rebellious her children were, and how boring she found her job. Later in the evening, the minister introduced me and the woman felt embarrassed that she had just told her miserable existence to the preacher. Here she was a leader in the church thinking she is telling this to some visitor and it turns out to be the guest preacher. When you are the “guest preacher” or “preacher” in general it changes the dynamics. Because this person represents God we cannot be real. We must put on a front, be something that we are really not, we must act as though I have it together and that nothing in life scares me. When we do this and we all do, it reveals more about our understanding of God than most of us realize. We believe that God cannot handle the real me. We are afraid of what God may think. The underlining truth about fear is that fear is the belief that God is unable or unwilling. When we fear something or someone we are stating that God is unable to handle the situation or the person. We cannot love what we fear. As long as fear remains in our lives we will never love life or others the way God intended.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: Fear

Most of us go through life plucking petals from daisies. With every situation we ask ourselves does God love me or have I done something to disapprove of his love. We don’t do it intentionally because we have been taught that God’s love is infinite and never changing but yet we cannot help to react this way because we find this is how life works. We have discovered what pleases people and we either do it so we can be loved or we do not do it so we can get the attention we may be lacking. We grew up knowing what pleased our parents and if we wanted to go to a friend’s house on the weekend we did what pleased our parents. We know what pleases the boss and to get a pay check we do it. We get a reaction from our parents as a child that we didn’t expect and we say, “Do they love me?” We get a reaction from our spouse and we ask the same thing. We go through life playing this game: He loves me. He loves me not.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve have sinned by disobeying God’s command. When God seeks them out for their daily walk we find them hiding. The bible gives the reason for their hiding – they are afraid. And we have been afraid ever since. Afraid of God and of life.

I grew up on a dirt road and you know what people do on dirt roads? They dump their unwanted pets on dirt roads. We would always come across an abandoned cat or dog. We took in a few dogs. Remember me saying, “We cannot love what we fear.” Well that was the relationship I had with cats. I didn’t fully trust a cat so, well you know. A dog though, especially a puppy, I would feel sorry for. Have you ever tried to win the trust of an abandoned puppy? A puppy that was malnourished, abused, and abandoned. You get down eye level with it. So it can see you. The puppy tries to decide whether I’m safe or not. She makes a few steps forward, then thinks better and turns her head away as if to break the spell about to overcome her. On those occasions I would love to rush in, scoop her off her feet and convince her how safe she is, but if I so much as lean forward , she runs off further into the darkness. This little puppy has no idea what awaits her if she can overcome her fear.

In John 14: 2- 3, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” When we read this passage we normally think of what? Heaven. But Jesus is still talking about his first coming – his death on the cross; and his second coming back – the resurrection. The cross stands as the event that opens the door for us to dwell in God’s love. Like David, Jesus is saying, “we can live constantly in God’s presence.” To be in the place that Jesus speaks of is not necessarily a place, heaven is a place we will one day experience, but it is a reality. It is a life without fear, a life of trust.

The puppy just outside my reach has no idea what awaits her is she can overcome her fear. All the food, love, nurture, and assurance of life that she needs I can offer if she can just turn her focus from her fear. The same holds true for us. We can fear less and trust more by focusing on God’s love for us – a love that is unchanging.