All the...small things...

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There are things that we learn as we mature in our faith and things we should know right from the beginning of the journey.  For instance, we know that Jesus is the Christ from the beginning of our walk in Christianity, but later learn how the Gospel can fully change our heart so that even the jokes we laugh at will change.  However, there is a category of lessons that we should be taught right at the beginning of our faith so we do not have to experience the pain of learning the lessons later.  This is one of the reasons I advocate discipleship so actively because in the context of discipleship we can learn such lessons from those who have suffered through discipline and pain.  In learning these lessons, we can avoid the discipline and pain ourselves.

I have learned, time and time again, that there is no such thing as a small sin.  This lesson seems to be so cliché that most Christians gloss over it until they actually are forced to learn the lesson themselves.  It is usually taught by the conservative pastor who also thinks that drinking beer and dancing are intrinsically evil, so most emerging believers tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater and fail to heed the wisdom offered by saints who have endured a whole lot of pain.  The "no sin is small" lesson is typically learned suddenly and in devastation and pain.  Believers wake up one morning to find themselves in situations they never imagined they could be in, asking themselves, "How did I get here?"  Well, it is because they believed Satan when he said, "It's not that big of a deal."

Small sins.  White lies.  The little flirt here.  The extra cookie.  The extra five minutes on the lunch break.  The quick judgmental thought.  Watching the television show with one too many sex scenes.  The list goes on.  Satan enjoys lying to you, telling you that these things are not that big of a deal because the road to the big trap is filled with little "not that big of a deal" traps.  Each of these traps, when walked into in perfect succession can lead to the big traps of losing integrity, adultery, gluttony, greed, pride and lust.  Suddenly the little flirt evolves into a little text and a little text evolves into a little smile and a little smile evolves into a little joke and a little joke evolves into hanging out and that evolves into a romantic glance and the little romantic glance evolves into a romantic touch and bam!  Trap.  Or the extra piece of pizza because it's Friday evolves into the extra two pieces because it's Saturday evolves into the extra desert because it's Sunday which evolves into the extra two pieces of pizza with an extra desert on Monday because it's the beginning of the week which evolves into gained weight which over a period of time evolves into gluttony!  Trap.  Or five extra minutes on the lunch break evolves into leaving five minutes early which evolves into arriving five minutes late which evolves into taking stamps from work because "you work hard and you need it" which evolves into not clocking out when you take your lunch and bam!  Trap.  You're now a thief, possibly without a job.  And then each of these situations has a spiritual ramification, affecting our relationship with God and with those we love and/or serve.  It only takes an ember to start a fire.

Sometimes, small things do not evolve and they remain small.  That does not mean that the small things do not cause pain or hurt.  Sometimes, the snide comment can be small but it hurts a lot.  Or from the aforementioned examples, maybe just sending the text message is enough to cause strife or maybe taking the extra five minutes on the lunch break is enough to earn a write up from the boss.  While these things may not evolve like they possibly could, that does not make them insignificant.

Some of you may think that this is a bit extreme, that perhaps I am blowing things out of proportion.  If that is what you are thinking, then my prayer is that God is merciful with you when He allows you to learn the lesson that no sin is small.  No oversight is small.  There is one bigger mistake than failing to learn that no sin is too small: to think that it could never happen to you.  If you think that you are too careful and make stupid statements like "I would never do that" or "Rest assured, I wouldn't do that to you" or "That's not in my character," remember Satan heard that and will now do all he can to slaughter you.  He hates you just as much as he hates God.

If a woman came up to a married Christian man and said, "Hello, I'm a prostitute and would like to have sexual intercourse with you so I can give you a sexually transmitted disease for you to bring home to your wife," we would hope that man would say, "Um, no."  Yet if a young woman from church walked up to him and said, "I need some help around the house, maybe you could come over on Saturday," the answer may not be so obvious.  Satan isn't going to throw a fast ball directly down home plate, he's going to throw a sinker or a curve ball to deceive you.

I am learning this lesson in my own life and I have seen the effects of thinking something is not a big deal.  People get hurt.  They question your integrity.  It feels awful.  My prayer is that God restores all things and hearts.  Apologies help, but they do not heal.  Only the Holy Spirit does that.  And as awful as this sounds, I am thankful to God for teaching me this lesson through small things and preventing a big one from happening. True story.

Counseling sessions on snow sleighs

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I was shoveling snow the other day when two young boys walked past me.  The boys were talking to each other, each with a snow sleigh in his hand, walking towards their destination of winter fun and possible concussions.  One of the boys was speaking about his family.  He was talking about his mother, though I could not hear exactly what he was saying.  As they walked closer to the driveway, I could hear the boy say, "My grandmother is teaching my big brother how [to do something, I could not make it out], but she's not teaching me.  And that makes me upset, you know, because I feel like she favors him or something.  I told my mom, but I don't know."  The other boy, who received his master's in counseling from Sandbox University, replied with Rogerian simplicity and professionalism.  "Yeah," he said.  And then they drifted into conversations about transformers and robots, walking down the hill to make the most of their winter weekend.

Immediately, I stopped shoveling and flashed back to my childhood.  I remembered the days of walking around with my childhood best friend, Zack.  He was the emotionally normal one of the two of us, while I was lost in a world of self defeat and discouragement.  Zack earned his master's in counseling from Swingset College and he provided me with hours of counseling without billing my insurance.  Like those two boys, I had very similar conversations growing up, though Zack took a more directive approach and asked questions instead of just saying "yeah."  The serious issues of life, personal worth and value, family relationships, the definition of manhood, and methods to overcome trial were all learned in the course of winter weekends with sleighs in our hands.  Some of the lessons we learned aided us through the rest of childhood and adolescence.  We are both probably still trying to overcome some of the other lessons, realizing that childhood psychoanalysis has flaws of its own.

I remembered those days with fondness and sadness.  Zack did an excellent job listening to me.  Yet like that little boy, I wished that someone had fought for me.  I wished that someone had come to my rescue and said, "Yes, you are worth teaching.  You are worth loving.  You are a good kid and I am so proud of you."  And I wished that someone would back that up with action, not a pity Dunkin Donuts run so we could only criticize my gradual weight gain later.  I wanted to run up to the young boy and say, "I know what that feels like, buddy.  And I want you to know it might cause you some problems later on, but it's going to be okay.  You're a strong young man and you can overcome any obstacle that comes your way because you are enough.  Now tell me your name so I can pray for you."  Looking back, I probably should have done something like that, but fear of possible arrest for scaring the crap out of a little kid stopped me.

In my life, God intervened like I should have done.  He received me with open arms, with no strings attached, and fathered me.  He taught me how to do so many things: how to love, how to give, how to smile, how to have confidence and humility (still struggling there), how to endure through hard times to appreciate the lesson in the end, to find the joke in the pain and to know when to surrender or to keep fighting onward.  There are some lessons He hasn't taught me yet that I venture to learn: how to change the oil in a car, how to do anything to car that is more than putting gas in it, how to go fishing, how to put anything together that doesn't come with an instruction manual, and anything else that is mechanical.  I know that God will teach me such things in time as long as I put effort into learning the skill as well.

I encourage us to intervene in the life of a young person wherever and whenever we can.  So much of children and youth ministry is teaching them the right lessons.  So much of adult ministry is unlearning the lessons of our childhood so we can be fully functioning and emotionally healthy adults.  So we can make adult ministry easier in the future, I hope that we can find the time to intervene in the lives of those around us by teaching truth, justice and self worth to the younger generation.  I encourage us to start in our own homes and families, so we can transform the environment in which we all grow and develop.  My prayer and hope is that we stop underestimating our influence on others and take baby steps forward to impacting others.  Perhaps that means that we might have to spend more time with our own children.  Perhaps that means we need to repair relationships with our siblings or parents.  Perhaps that means that we can volunteer our time to ministries like Urban Impact in Greater Bridgeport, Connecticut or dedicating some time to a church's youth group.  Or perhaps that means we support those who are called to fathering the fatherless full time by babysitting the youth pastor's kids so he can take his wife out to dinner.  The possible "next steps" are only limited by your willingness, or lack there of, to serve.  Whatever we do, do it in the Name of Jesus.

My prayer is that this story somehow touches your heart and the Holy Spirit teaches you a lesson of your own.  Perhaps it will bring back memories that you have long since buried in your closet of pain and childhood suffering.  Maybe it will evoke gratefulness for your own version of Zack.  Perhaps it will spur you to action to better love the children in your life.  I don't know.  All I know is that this true story caused me to stop, reflect and thank God for being the one who fathered me when no one else would.  True story.


I do not usually do this, but I feel the need to give some "shout outs."

• Zack - for being a great childhood best friend.  Zack, I recall our memories together regularly and though we do not speak often, please know that I remember our time together with fondness and thankfulness.
• Mike - Zack's dad, for taking me under his wings and loving me selflessly, for providing me with endless hours of advice and ridiculously corny jokes that I still laugh at here and there.
• Sue - Zack's mom, for always welcoming me in her home and for teaching me that you are supposed to use a knife to put things on your fork, not your finger.
• Lauren - for her driveway, the setting of my story; and for listening to me process and helping me through the intricacies of my past by asking the right questions.
• Mom - for her hard work and labor, for her endless love and compassion, for raising a man who seeks after the heart of God.

I love all of you for your role in my true stories.

Grace is a victim of abuse

thesoapboxtruth.blogspot.com

I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord form now on."

"Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them."
Revelation 14:13, New International Version.

When reading the Scriptures this morning,  this verse really stuck out to me.  When verses seriously gain my attention, I know that God is speaking to my heart about something.  When I wrote this verse in my journal, I then wrote "blog" next to it so I would know that the remainder of my thoughts about this verse would be found online and not in my actual journal.  In fact, blogging is merely an extension of my journaling that I am comfortable sharing with others.

The above verse indicates that our deeds will have eternal fruit.  I think this concept has lost its significance to many Christians, including me, throughout the Church.  Streamlining throughout American Christianity is the notion that we can act now and ask questions later, that we can ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission from God.  Because we know that God's mercy and love endures forever, we often feel a false sense of comfort that we feel grants us permission to walk and often cross the line of selfish and sinful behaviors.  Though we are commanded by the Scriptures not to abuse God's grace (Romans 6:1, 15), we do this more often than not.

I am guilty of abusing God's grace.  I know that everything I do I ought to do in the strength of the Lord and in obedience to His commands.  I know that I should be more careful to love others and be less selfish.  I also know that I should not have a flippant attitude towards sin.  I know that sometimes I'll buy something that I know I shouldn't or I'll let a swear word slip on purpose because I know that God's mercy is available to me.  And though I've written that the Scriptures say not to do this, I do it.  Because I lose my eternal perspective of my earthly conduct, I abuse God's grace knowingly.  And abusing God's grace is evil and sinful and it injures my relationship with God and therefore my relationships with others.

How does this injure my relationship with others?  If we claim to be believers and followers of Jesus, we believe that we ought to revere God with the utmost respect and love.  If we abuse God and His mercy, how much more will we abuse the grace of those we love?  If I believe that I can disobey the commands of the Almighty God of the universe because I have reached a level of comfort that permits me to take Christ for granted, how much more will I take others for granted?  Then again, I suppose the opposite could occur.  Unlike Christ, we recognize that the grace and the mercy of others only allows us so much slack, so perhaps we will give the minimum requirement to others to prevent a relational crisis.  Knowing that God's grace is limitless, it becomes easier to neglect Him.  If we approach God and others in this way, we care more about the thoughts of others than we do God.

How would we live if we believed that God's mercy indeed did have an end?  Would we regard Him with more reverence and obedience?  How would we regard others?  Would we be more careful to express love and devotion to our God and to our spouses, significant others, friends, and family?

For instance, I take my mother's mercy and love for granted just like I take my God's.  I know that my mother will always love me, even as a grown man.  She will always want what is best for me.  If I fail to help her with a task or neglect doing her a favor she has asked me to do, it might cause some temporary pain or emotional discomfort, but this will quickly resolve itself because my mother loves me.  This attitude is evil, wrong and downright offensive.  Yet it pervades the American Christian church, even in the most orthodox of settings.  Who do you take for granted?  Whose grace and love do you abuse?  Who do you assume will always be there for you?

I write this to encourage believers to forsake mediocrity in relationships with God and others.  I write this to remind others that our actions are of value and significance in heaven as they are here on earth.  The notion that is better to ask for forgiveness later than to ask for permission does not work with God.  We cannot live our lives carelessly, assuming that we can do what we like when we like without considering Biblical standards of conduct and the truth that these deeds will follow us into eternity.  While sin will not be counted against followers of the Lamb, the fruit of our works will endure.

Regard each person as more important than you and regard God as He ought to be regarded: as the King of existence itself, as the Lord of our lives and the Master of all.  If we abuse the grace of God we will surely abuse the grace of others as well.  The more we study the scriptures and the more we learn about God, we see that right relationship with God allows us to live in right relationship with others.  And if we continue to abuse God's grace, taking advantage of it and using it for our own pleasure, we will see its effect on our earthly peace, our eternal rewards, and our personal relationships.  True story.