Categories
Relationships

Cold-Hearted Smiles

“I realized why these mountain people were shy with strangers. They had never learned the citified arts of hiding feelings or of smiling when the heart was cold. Friendship was dangerous to them because they had built up no protection against it. Once they let you in it must be into the deep places of the heart.”

Isn’t it sad that we have become so “citified” that this describes us to a “T”? We know how to put up a facade. We can hide our feelings so that people believe us when we tell them we are “fine.” We have the ability to smile at those toward whom we really have a cold, icy heart. We have built up walls and barriers so that we have protection against our hearts being hurt by others. That is why we seldom let them into our lives. And we men are more guarded than women.

barbed wire strands with blue sky and clouds in the background

Our hearts long for a deep connection with others. Some of us might deny this, in that we don’t like the idea of “longing” for anything, but in reality, we have simply trained the idea of needing deep connections out of us. We tell ourselves we are self-sufficient and do not need anyone or anything. But if we will are honest, we know that we all want friends with whom we don’t have to put up a false front.

So we have this heart’s cry for depth, but we instead settle for casual superficiality. We’ve learned how to do it so well, which means our deep need for close connections goes unmet.

If we would be willing to take the chance to reach out to someone for friendship with transparency, we might just find that it is there for the taking. Knowing that there exists the possibility of being hurt makes it hard to take that step of faith, but the potential rewards make the risk worth it. We all need at least one friend with whom you can fully be yourself, no longer having to keep up your guard, having them accept you “warts & all,” willing to listen to you laugh on a good day and complain on a miserable one.

“I came to know a quality of friendship which bears little resemblance to the casualness of our relationships back home. The mountain type of friendship was a tie of substance between people with a sort of [brave faithfulness] about it. It had to do with a time in the past when there was no more final bond than a man’s pledged word; when every connection of blood and family was firm and strong, forged in the past, stretching into the future.”

I want relationships with substance and depth. We all do. So what will it take? Us risking the possibility of someone stepping on us and breaking our trust. But finding that true friend will be worth it. Are you ready to open up and let someone into the deep places of your life? Probably not – at least not yet. But consider taking that first step – begin being more transparent with a few of your closest friends and see how your relationships begin changing. The ones that respond with similar transparency will give you a clue as to who is ready to be a deep friend to you.

(Quotes from the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall)

Categories
Christian Living

Fill ‘Er Up

What have I set my heart on in an attempt to fill it up?gas pump representing the idea of how we want to be filled up with success
Our society and culture tell us that if we set our hearts on success, fame, pleasure, and influence, then we will have enough and will find joy, happiness, & fulfillment. But what if someone who had acquired all these things told you that it was all a lie? That these things still won’t be enough to fill you up?

Famous British author Malcolm Muggeridge stated:
“I may, I suppose, regard myself as a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets. That’s fame; I can fairly easily earn enough money to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue Service. That’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame [I] may partake of friendly diversions. That’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time. That’s fulfillment. Yet, I say to you, and I beg you to believe me, multiply these tiny triumphs by millions, add them all up together, and they are nothing, less than nothing. Indeed, a positive impediment measured against one drop of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.”

The truth is that all of the enthrallment and novelty that I can find in these things is not enough. Because “somewhere and sometime, human enthrallment finds its limit, as does human capacity. God alone is the perpetual novelty—providing wonder, truth, love, and security” (Ravi Zacharias).

So add up all the success that the world offers and it is of no comparison to knowing Christ. Paul found that same thing to be true and said all that he had gained he now counted as worthless garbage in comparison to knowing Christ.

So what should I do? Perhaps, I should try to follow the example of Ezra – “the good hand of his God was upon him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” If I set my heart on God and practice and teach His Word to others, then I will fulfillment in life.

Because, “when man lives apart from God, chaos is the norm. When man lives with God, as revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the hungers of the mind and heart find their fulfillment” (Ravi Z).

Set your heart on God and you will find in Him the wonder of perpetual novelty.

“Christ is a substitute for everything, but nothing is a substitute for Christ.” (H.A. Ironside)

Categories
Relationships

Upwardly Mobile

As Americans, we are in a society that prides itself on climbing the ladder of success. We find ourselves striving to stay upwardly mobile – gaining more position, more status, more salary, and with all of it… more stress. And though we endure the stress, we tell ourselves that this must be the “good life.” We also might look down on others for not being the go-getters that we are (even though they sure seem less stressed).
ladder with blue sky and clouds behind representing our upwardly mobile desires
Those who aren’t striving to climb the ladder like us sometimes get labeled as lazy – like the mountain people of Appalachia in the book Christy:   “The highlanders were often accused of being lazy and shiftless. As I got to know them better, my conclusion was: relaxed, yes; shiftless, a few of them; greedy, scarcely ever. …”It’s today. I must be livin’.” summed up their philosophy well—a philosophy that aggressive people would spurn.

“Yet which is right? Human life is short. Each of us has limited number of years. So are we going to go through those so few years with little time for our family and friends, and unseeing eyes for the beauties around us concentrating on accumulating money and things when we have to leave them all behind anyway?

“I began to wonder, if the mountain values were not more civilized than civilization’s. At least I found the absence of greed and pushiness as refreshing as a long cool drink of sparkling mountain spring water.”

I have found this true in my own life as I have traveled to other countries in the past few years. At first I found it difficult to sit around and visit for so long when there was so much work to be done. Coming from a “Ready, Fire, Aim” society, it was difficult to sit still. But by the time my first week was complete, I was experiencing that same feeling of being refreshed just by seeing how relaxed they were and willing to enjoy one another. It also made me wonder if our civilized, upwardly mobile way was really as good as we say it is.

We are so busy scaling the ladder that we often do so to the neglect of our family. We work hard to accumulate so much stuff that we can’t take with us. The only real treasures that I will take with me when I die are my relationships. Maybe some of the values that have disappeared from our culture are less civilized that those of our great-grandparents or those of cultures that we do not consider as sophisticated as our own.

I pray that I will learn contentment in Christ and in my relationships, and that I will not allow society to push me toward being upwardly mobile just ‘cause everyone else says that is what the good life is all about.

Have you found an effective way to fight against the culture’s pressure to focus on the ladder? How do you fight to focus more on building relationships?

Categories
Worship

Bored in Church

Church is boring. At least that’s what a lot of people think.

the word "bored" written over and over again repeticiously

Have you ever been bored in church? (If you are thinking “Yes, it was while you were preaching,” then just keep those nasty comments to yourself!). Certainly we have all had moments when we were bored in church and found ourselves counting the number of lights in the sanctuary or daydreaming or making a “to do” list or snoring in our sermon-induced sleep. Plenty of people probably have wanted to say something along these next lines but just weren’t willing to be this honest:

Parent: “Well, how did you like Sunday School?”
Child: “I didn’t like it a bit. It was horrid. …Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired before he got through if I hadn’t been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the Lake… so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things.”
P: “You shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. You should have listened to Mr. Bell.”
C: “But he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to God and he didn’t seem to be very much interested in it, either. I think he thought God was too far off to make it worthwhile.”

Ha! Out of the mouths of babes! I’ve had those same feelings before, too! But also I wonder how often do my prayers seem contrived and disinterested like Mr. Bell’s? I want a powerful prayer life that is focused on a relationship with God, rather than just using Him as an impersonal wishlist provider.

The child ends with – “I said a little prayer myself, though. There was a long row of white birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through them, ‘way, ‘way down, deep into the water. …It gave me a thrill and I just said, ‘Thank you for it, God,’ two or three times.”

God, may my prayers be like that – may they flow out of me as naturally as I breathe this air, and may it all be due to me seeing how You are working around me! Help me to never be disinterested in you or feel that you are too far away to be worthwhile.

(Quoted dialogue written about 100 years ago in the book “Anne of Green Gables.” Guess church has had the potential for being boring for a very long time.)

Categories
Relationships

The Breach

breach (defined): a tear, rupture, gap, or rift.

a serious crack, or breach, in a concrete wallEver had a breach in a relationship?
Ever had a friendship that was torn or ruptured?

In almost every long-lasting, human relationship there will come a time when we find ourselves at odds with the other person, and we will encounter a breach. The question is what will we do, once the breach has occurred? Too often I don’t want to be the one to reconcile the relationship, especially if they were the ones who started the breach. (And of course, in our eyes, they always are the ones most at fault – it couldn’t have been my fault, right?)

“No Christian ever has a right to sever any relationship with anybody out of anger…or even injustice.”

Two missionaries to the Appalachian mountain people, Alice and David, are having a discussion about a breach. So often I find myself with the attitude of David instead of the attitude of Alice.

“Miss Alice’s voice was mild. “I’m not passing any judgment on the rightness or wrongness of any part of it. All I want to point out is that there’s now a breach between Ozias and you, so it’s up to you to take the first step towards righting it.”
“Why me? He’s the one who was wrong.”
“David, I’ve been back here in the Cove a little longer than you. One of the worst evils around here is nursing grudges, sometimes for years. Retaliating evil for evil is considered a virtue, the mark of strong character. Here with this Ozias situation, you’ve got a ready-made chance to demonstrate a better way: the strength of forgiveness.”
“I fail to see how my forgiving Ozias for being a lazy bum would demonstrate anything to him and the other men except weakness?
“David, no Christian ever has a right to sever any relationship with anybody out of anger, [wounded pride], or even injustice, no matter how much he disapproves of someone’s actions. It’s our place to demonstrate reconciliation – not judgment or revenge or retaliation. That’s God’s business, not ours.”

Alice is right. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Yet, our own hurt pride and anger over the injustice done to us keeps us from demonstrating the strength of forgiveness. We are glad we have received forgiveness from God after continuously offending Him, but we are slow to give it to others. Why are we who are Christians so slow to repair the breach even if we didn’t cause it?

Her voice grew softer. “Beware the chasms in thy life, David. Sooner or later [you might] fall down in the chasm thyself.”

Are there any breached relationships that you need to start repairing?
For those who have repaired a breach, any advice on how you started?

(Quotes from the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall)