Yikes!

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Margaret

Over the weekend I was shopping for groceries when a pesky bug began harassing me. While I was doing my best to wave it away, two young boys started whispering to each other and staring at me.

Suddenly the older one said, “Scuse me, ma’m. Scuse me! You have a giant spider in your hair!”

As I began batting at my head, the boys moved closer to their mother. Then the younger one yelled, “Now it’s on your face!”

Apparently the spider had been playing on my neck, head, and face for quite a few store aisles. I slapped at myself like a woman possessed, bending over, shaking my head and squealing, “Yikes!”

Finally the culprit fell to the floor, a giant daddy long legs. Though its body was only the size of a plump pea, his 8 long legs made him seem much bigger. The older boy ran toward me, and with two whacks of his shoe, the spider was dead.

“Wow! Thanks for defending me!” I said. He looked up as if expecting to see other spiders in my hair, and I appreciated the risk he’d taken in coming so close to creepy me. Then I looked down the aisle where something interesting was happening. The boys’ mother was busy ruffling her own hair, bending toward the floor as I had, apparently getting rid of her own spider.

“You too?” I said.

“I don’t know!” she said. “There better not be! I don’t want any of that!” She continued swatting her forehead, flicking the hair around her ears, shaking her head.

After thanking them, I pushed my cart to the next aisle and thought about one of life’s big mysteries: the power of suggestion. All of us are influenced by it every day. The woman saw the spider in my hair and abruptly thought she had one in hers, too.

When I was a school kid, a friend and I got a kick out of standing on a street corner looking up. Passers-by would stop next to us and look up too, a demonstration of how quickly the power of suggestion can influence us.

This same power is what’s behind every print ad, TV commercial, and computer pop-up. If advertisers suggest a certain product can solve my problem, or if it seems I’m the only one who doesn’t have this-or-that, I’ll probably bite.

The power of suggestion is also what’s behind every temptation that comes to us from the devil. He’s a pro at using suggestive powers to custom-make temptations for different people, hoping we won’t use our God-given power to fight back.

We’ve learned to resist the ploys of the advertising world, and we don’t buy everything we see. So we can learn to resist the devil, too. All it takes is practice appropriating the resistance-power God offers. The more we resist, though, the easier it gets.

“Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

Maintenance Chores

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Margaret

This week Louisa, our cosmetologist and hair stylist, kept her scissors snipping by giving haircuts to 6 family members. She’s good at what she does and has an endless string of clients because of it. The littler the customer, the more difficult the task, and she cut two preschoolers this week. Working with sharp blades on a moving target isn’t easy.

All of us spend a great deal of time on life-maintenance, just to stay even, and it’s not only haircuts. If we listed every daily stay-even chore we shouldn’t miss, the list would be arm’s length and would include everything from brushing teeth to changing diapers to walking dogs. Yet these things have to be done. If we fall behind, the consequences pile up much longer than an arm’s length, and we pay a high price for neglecting what would have been manageable on a daily basis.

The opposite is true, too. If we tend to something every day, with time our goals can be met. For example, Nate was a big reader but felt compelled to spend most of his reading time on professional work and 4-5 daily newspapers. But just before bed each night, he’d open what I called “pleasure reading,” books so thick we used to use them as booster chairs for young children. By reading several pages at a time, day in and day out, he completed hundreds of challenging books.

The simple truth of tending to our lives bit by bit, day by day, applies to our spiritual lives, too. If we’ve always wanted to read through the Bible but the project seems too daunting even to begin, we never will. But if we read even one page a day, in time we’ll finish.

In another example, if we crave conversation with God but don’t carve out time to pray, we’ll be sacrificing an important supernatural dialogue. If our relationship with the Lord is the “some day” kind, by the end of our lives we will have forfeited something precious and life-shaping.

Once in a while the relentless nature of daily tasks seems overwhelming, because they never end. I’m sure when Louisa packs her hair-cutting equipment at the end of a busy work week, there are times when she thinks, “I just can’t get away from it.”

But interestingly, God rewards our patient persistence to do the right thing. He likes that character quality, and when we work at it, he lets us get better and better at whatever we’re trying to do, especially if it’s in the spiritual realm. And best of all, he lets us know that we’re pleasing him.

When Louisa willingly gives one haircut after another, approaching each new cut with eager interest, the people she works on are drawn into her good cheer. And I believe God is nodding his approval, too.

“Patient persistence pierces through indifference.” (Proverbs 25:15a)

1st Place on the 4th

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Margaret

Nate and I raised 4 boys, which taught us a great deal about explosives. As far as they were concerned, any activity that began with fire was something good. Before they entered kindergarten they all knew how to strike a match without burning their fingers, and I remember getting into trouble with a neighbor mom when Klaus taught her 3 year old how to do it, too.

So here we are on the 4^th of July. Booms, blasts, and bangs abound as happy celebrations mark Independence Day. Explosions are the American way of commemorating our country’s birthday, especially when the pyrotechnics spell out, “Let freedom ring!”

The spectacular displays in the night sky are reminiscent of these famous words: “The rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

We have a unique history during which wars were fought to secure the freedom of individuals, and those of us blessed to be born/raised here, really appreciate this gift. The fact that so many from other nations want to live in the USA is a testimony to the value of personal freedom.

Google got in the spirit of this day, too, posting a home page with this logo:

Their statement, “This land was made for you and me,” is a line from a song written by Woodie Guthrie in 1940, and the reason he wrote it might surprise you. It was his critical response to the hymn, “God Bless America,” which is a prayer. He was tired of hearing that one and said it was unrealistic and complacent. Originally he titled his replacement song, “God Bless America for Me.”

This morning when I saw Google’s quote, I looked up the song’s history, learning that the real reason Mr. Guthrie didn’t like “God Bless America” was his disinterest in God. If we don’t like someone, we don’t particularly want their blessing.

Why would God ever want to bless America anyway? The only realistic answer is that our founders craved his favor and were willing to establish the country on scriptural principles to win it. I’m fairly sure asking God to bless America “for me” is a step away from that.

But Woody Guthrie needn’t have worried. Our national anthem is neither “God Bless America” nor “This land is your land.” It’s “The Star Spangled Banner,” which isn’t even considered a hymn. But despite usually singing just the first verse, if we read all the words, it turns out to be a hymn after all:

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”