Explosions

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FireworksThree days ago on the 1st, looking toward the 4th of July, Louisa and I were out walking Jack late at night. As we passed the turn toward the beach, a big explosion sounded, not like traditional fireworks, but hole-in-the-ground big. Like dynamite.

It took me back to the days when our 4 sons were young and still living at home. Like most boys, they loved motors, weapons, and fire. Closely linked with fire were fireworks, and over the years they lit more than their share. Thankfully they reached adulthood intact, but I do remember a time when they caused enough neighborhood commotion with their explosions to bring the police to our house.

Apparently not much has changed with today’s boys, and as Weezi and I walked on, a police car sped past us, headed toward the beach. No doubt as they arrived, several youngsters were rapidly on the run.

Police departments have always winked at fireworks being exploded on the 4th of July, even in states where they’re illegal. Here in Michigan the rule has been that they’re “ok” on July 3, 4, and 5, but “not ok” any other days, a nice mix of grace and law. Still, there have been those who can’t quite comply, i.e. explosions on the 1st of July and the police pursuit that resulted.

If any society is to function well, laws and penalties have to be part of it. In the Bible we see the same thing, God setting up parameters but leaving it up to us to stay within them.

The most difficult of his rules involve invisible parameters. For example, Scripture says, “Put love of God ahead of love for anything or anyone else.” We might live lives that look like that, but what’s happening on the inside? That part is a lot harder.

We think, “Well, I’m doing pretty good at the Christian life. Besides, nobody’s perfect.” That’s like setting off explosions on July 1st. Close, but not quite right. The upshot finds us outside of God’s parameters and possibly even on the run the way the beach exploders probably were. Breaking the rules is sometimes fun, but paying the consequences never is.

The good news is that God does heart checks. It matters whether or not we’re making an effort to comply with him or working to dodge his rules. He knows we can’t be perfect, but that doesn’t coax him to lower his high standards, and he hopes we’ll stretch toward them. Doing so requires his help, though, and when we ask him for it, he’s pleased to give it. It also brings us out from under the impossible pressure of trying to be perfect and puts us under God’s generous grace where he chooses to give it.

Salvation itself is the best example of this, a perfect God requiring perfection from us but willingly accepting Christ’s perfection instead of ours. This means we can run toward him and not away from him, even if we break the rules. Maybe especially then.

And that’s an explosion of grace that should bring us all running.

“All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:24)

Crawling Along

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Emerald at 8 monthsEight month old Emerald has accomplished a great deal in her short life, learning to recognize people, communicate in different ways, speak her first word (ma-ma), sit up, shake musical instruments, and eat solids. Since she’s checking off her milestones in the usual order, her next accomplishment will be crawling.

Already she does “the bridge,” a hands-and-knees crawling-lookalike, but so far it’s gone nowhere, though that’s not to say she doesn’t move. She’s perfected the belly-swivel and can do a 360 spin with excellence.

I remember when my firstborn was 8 months and was stuck in one spot just as Emerald is now. I figured he was frustrated and decided to teach him to crawl. Every day I worked with him on the carpet, moving his arms and legs in left-right crawling positions, showing him how.

Crawling!

As I continued tutoring him (which resembled a strange type of physical therapy), he’d often plop chin-first onto the rug, unable to coordinate his 4 limbs. Several weeks later, when he began to crawling for real, I beamed with pride at my young student, patting myself on the back for his success.

No one told me he would have crawled on his own, had I never worked with him. An experienced parent would have known that, and as my other 6 children came along and crawled by themselves, I learned it too. God is the One who programmed babies to crawl and later walk, wonderful gifts, but that doesn’t mean the process is easy for them. Each one has to develop persistence, working hard at it day after day, falling and failing again and again.

Our heavenly Parent does something similar with us. He saves our souls and then lets us work at becoming Christ-like. Unlike learning to crawl or walk, this isn’t a task that can be successfully checked off a list. It’s an effort that lasts a lifetime.

But just as God programs children to crawl and walk, he programs us with something, too. The 17th century philosopher Pascal called it “a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man” that can only be filled by Christ. And that’s what’s drawing us when we begin a relationship with Jesus. We find ourselves desiring to become more like him. But just as a baby struggles to crawl and walk, we must persist in our efforts to walk in righteousness. When we do, God is pleased.

Pre-crawling

As for Emerald and her non-crawling, we’ve found the solution: to encircle her with toys so that as she swivels, she always has something fun to do. One of these days, though, she’ll crawl right out of that circle…. because that’s what God programmed her to do.

“Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” (Philippians 2:12-13)

Hanging with Mary

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1947I’ve been blessed with a remarkable sister, though I didn’t fully appreciate her until she left home for college. Although Mary and I palled around as little kids and walked a similar path through childhood, by the time we hit our teens we realized how different we were. Walking the halls of New Trier High School, we often passed without even acknowledging each other. I had my friends, and she had hers. I had my room, and she had hers. I had my clothes, and she had hers.

1954

The real truth was I knew I could never live up to her reputation as “the good child,” but eventually her goodness worked in my favor. Proverbs says we should be careful who we hang with, because eventually we’ll become like them. Hanging out with Mary has tugged me “up” for nearly 7 decades.

After she left for college, I missed her more than I thought I would. We began writing letters to each other, a habit that lasted through “the mobile years” when we were attending college, getting married, moving frequently, and having babies. When our two families landed 4 miles apart for the long haul, face-time replaced letter-writing, and our 14 children were raised in a happy pack of sibling-like cousins.

2 + 2

Watching my sister up close in her roles as wife, mother, mentor, friend, worker, grandmother, and volunteer gives me an appreciation for her that began after high school and has grown ever since. I’ve accepted that I’ll never live up to her good reputation but because of that, I count her as one of my greatest blessings. And she isn’t just “my” sister, since she shares sister-like relationships with many others.

One thing all of us have gained by being close to Mary has been her pithy sayings, things like, “God doesn’t call the equipped; he equips the called.” She seems to have a nutshell-statement to fit every situation, each one linked with the wisdom of Scripture.

For example, tonight we shared a meal and then spent time organizing a 4th of July picnic. Moving from there into the rest of July and then into August, we met with frustration as we tried to put specifics on the calendar. One event bumped into another, and we couldn’t synchronize dates because of overlapping commitments, company coming and going, and travel schedules.

Finally Mary made one of her frequently-quoted, very useful statements: “Let’s let a little more time go by.” She (and now I) have said this so many times, it might be a fitting epitaph on our tombstones. It’s a way to lift immediate pressure and terminate whatever frustrating activity is going on at that moment. Then she added, “If we plan too much tonight, lots of it will unravel anyway, before we get there.”

At first glance, that sounds un-scriptural, but we talked it over, and sure enough, it’s in the Bible: “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries.” (Matthew 6:34)

Amen, and let’s have dessert.