Category Archives: Faith and Practice

Working in the Dark

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Shortly after we were married, my wife and I rented a small house in Sterling, KS.  It was a nice little home, perfect for a young couple with no kids and less money.

Out in the back of the house was a small stucco shed, built to look like it belonged to the house.  The previous renters, and maybe even the renters before them, had left their legacy in the shed, piles of junk that was so old and moth eaten that you couldn’t tell what it once had been. 

Now even then, when we didn’t have much in our home, we still didn’t have space for my “stuff.”  Granted, my stuff consisted almost entirely of Star Wars things – models, posters, books, etc… – things that, for some reason, wives really don’t treasure as much as husbands desperately clinging to their childhood.  So, my stuff went to my office, the cellar, and if I got it cleaned out, even the shed. 

I really looked forward to getting the shed cleared out.  Think of it, a man-cave – where I could put my things, and be a man… i.e. burp, fart, break things and make loud noises, quintessential man things.  I was ready to clear out the shed.

I chose a nice spring day to tackle the shed – a day I knew my wife would be gone so that she couldn’t interfere.  This was important man business, and I didn’t need a woman, no matter how wonderful she is, to tell me how I was doing this wrong.

I opened the door to the shed and began clearing out some of the big junk that had been left – a rusty Schwinn bike with no tires or pedals, an old chest of drawers minus the drawers.  You get the drift.  I made pretty good time, and in about an hour had the front room of the shed cleared out. 

Up until now, I hadn’t looked up – the trash was on the floor, not on the ceiling – why look up?  When I noticed, however, a broken light bulb on the floor, I realized that there might be a light fixture up above, then this would be the primo man shed.   I looked up, and sure enough, there was the fixture for a light, and right next to it, the biggest wasp nest I had ever seen.

I don’t like wasps.  I don’t know why they were created – I’m sure God needed to feed the birds something, then thought, hey, why don’t I give them a 5 inch syringe just to torment Ethan.  I could tell  you I’m allergic – but that’s just code for “Scary Bug!”

Immediately I head for the pantry in the house and grab my can of wasp spray, the kind that has the 20 foot spray to totally hose down the menacing beasties.  On my way back out, I grab the broom as well, thinking it would come in handy, just in case. 

It takes me a while, standing outside the shed, just trying to muster the courage to unleash my fury on the nest of winged death.  Finally, I’m ready.  With my broom in one hand, and the Raid in other, I approach, standing in the doorway.  Ready, Aim, Fire.  I pour out my righteous vengeance and all Godly wrath on this unsuspecting nest of demons, nearly emptying my can of Raid, crying out like a suburban William Wallace charging the fields of Stirling (I love Braveheart). 

That’s when the unexpected happened. In the din of my primal yell, I notice a soft and squishy blop – the sound of a wet sponge hitting a cold tile floor.  This was not the sound I expected from a wasps nest – in fact, I didn’t expect the nest to fall at all.  Curiosity – that thing that killed the cat – overtook me, and I had to step into the shed for a closer look.

There in the middle of the shed was the small mass of soggy something.  Again, there was very little light coming in the shed, so I could quite make out what this was.  I decided a little nudge from the broom wouldn’t be so bad – how may ways could I be wrong.

You see, it wasn’t a wasp’s nest after all.  Turns out, it was a bat. Yes, a bat.  Looking back now, I’m sure it was your common everyday run of the mill bat, about 5-6 inches wingspan – eating insects and generally a helpful creature for controlling the mosquito population.  However, at that moment, and for several weeks, if not years after that fateful day, the bat was a least a foot from wingtip to wingtip, with huge foaming fangs (aka the Killer Rabbit – Monty Python) – which, after having been doused with Raid, then poked with a broom, was certainly not all that happy.  The rabid monster flew at me – I know they’re blind, but since I was at that time screaming like a little girl – thus disqualifying myself for a man-cave – the bat knew precisely where to go.  It came at me, and I sprayed it with the Raid.  The bat went down again, but quickly came back at me.  I hosed it once more with the Raid, ducking behind a tree as it approached.  I watched the bat as it drunkenly fluttered off to safer ground, and I prayed that I would never see a bat again.

My wife came home a couple of hours later to find me passed out on the couch, covered up under a blanket, with The Empire Strikes Back playing on the TV (its my woobie).  She asked, cautiously, how the shed was coming, and I mumbled something about preferring to keep my stuff in the cellar, then rolled over and dozed off to “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.”

I  guess the point of the story – if there has to be one – it this:  Turn on the lights.  Why do we stumble through the house in the dark, smashing out little toes on the corner of the couch; is it just to save a few bucks on the electric bill.  It makes no sense, if you have the light, use it.

The Bible tells us the same thing, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (ESV I John 1:9).  God has given us the light of the world, His Son, Jesus Christ.  If we have been made alive in Jesus, then His light shines in us, and it lights our way.  We, then, are to walk in the light, not in the darkness of our former was.  We have been cleansed by His blood, washed and made new, let us therefore walk in the light.  Working in the dark is dumb, living in the dark, with out Jesus Christ in our lives is just plain dangerous.  His light shines for the world to see, let us walk in that light.

SDG

Anger Management

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In C. S. Lewis book, The Great Divorce, Lewis has a dream in which he finds himself on a bus ride from hell to heaven.  Along the way, he observes as various passengers on the bus either decide to turn back to hell becuase the transition is too much for them to bear, or they are transformed into those prepared to dwell in heaven forever.

During one such encounter, Lewis watches as a woman passes by, grumbling and babbling about nothing consequential, while her angel companion cannot get a word in edgewise.  He writes,

“The shrill monotonous whine died away as the speaker, still accompanied by the bright patience at her side, moved out of sight.

‘What troubles ye, son?’ asked my Teacher.

‘I am troubled, Sir,’ said I, ‘because that unhappy creature doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of soul that ought to be even in danger of damnation.  She isn’t wicked: she’s only a silly, garrulous old woman who has got into the habbit of grumbling, and one feels that a little kindness, and rest, and change would put her all right.’

‘That is what she once was.  That is maybe what she still is.  If so, she certainly will be cured.  But the whole question is whether she is now a grumbler.’

‘I should have thought there was no doubth about that!’

‘Aye, but ye misunderstand me.  The questions is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble.  If there is a real woman – even the least trace of one – still there inside the grumbling, it can be brought to life again.  If there’s one wee spark under all those ashes, we’ll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear.  But if there’s nothing but ashes we’ll not go on blowing them in our eyes forever.  They must be swept up.’

‘But how can there be a grumble without a grumbler?’

‘The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing.  But ye’ll have had expereinces… it begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticising it.  And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it.  Ye can repent and come out of it again.  But there may come a day when you can do that no longer.  Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.’

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.  (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1946)

I am always surprised to find how writers like Lewis, Brennan Manning, Blackaby, or Chambers seem to be writing specifically about me.  Perhaps Lewis struggled with grumbling and anger the way I do, that is how he could write with such wisdom.

I would not describe myself as an angry person.  I don’t yell and scream at people, I am usually considered pretty easy going. 

But I know myself.  I know the rage that festers and fumes within, needing only the slightest catalyst to set it off.  Maybe its the lady at the grocery store with 25 items in the express lane, or the one who parks his truck in the middle of the school parking lot, gets out of the truck, and casually walks his children to the door, meanwhile blocking the ten people behind him from dropping off their children and getting to the office on time.

I find myself fuming over the littlest of things.  It began as a grumbling mood, but I am afriad I have embraced it.  I pray I have not reached that day when I can no longer repent of it.  Then there will be no meleft to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.

God warns us against rage and anger.  In Genesis 4, Cain is angry with the world because God has accepted his brother’s sacrifice and not his own.  Gen 4:5-6 reads, “So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.  Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at your door.  It’s desire is for you, but you must rule over it.'”

Wow – do I know that feeling.  Sin is crouching at the door, waiting to jump out and consume me.  God says I must rule over it, I must conquer this beast.  But its so difficult.  Part of me likes the rage, maybe I’m holding out for that moment when I get so mad I’ll start turning green, rip through my clothes and become the incredible Hulk (yeah, I read too many comics as a kid).

But getting angry at least gives me the feeling of having power.  I can fume and fuss and cut someone down and feel really good about myself – but that feeling is temporary at best.  I’ve held on to this anger for so long, now I don’t even know what I’m angry about, and the satisfying feeling that comes with the eruption is less and less each time.

I need a change of heart, a change of perspective.  I need God to soften my heart.  I need a little time under Jonah’s shade tree.

You see, I think Jonah had the same anger issues that I am dealing with.  Jonah was a prophet of the Lord God, and the Lord called Jonah to go and preach to the city of Nineveh.  As the story goes, Jonah refused to go and preach to his enemies, so he went the opposite direction, hiring a ship to take him to Tarshish.  While at sea, a terrible storm raged, and Jonah confessed his sin and was thrown overboard, only to be swallowed by a whale.  After three days, Jonah was thrown back out on the shore, and God told him again to go to Nineveh. 

This time Jonah went, and he preached God’s message – a threat of impending doom if the people of the city did not repent of their evil ways.  Sure enough, the people repented, and God relented of the disaster.

Now, you would think that Jonah would be happy that over 120,000 people had responded to his message, but instead he was displeased, and angry with God.  He told God that he would rather die that see the Ninevites repent.  And God said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

So Jonah went out to a hill overlooking Nineveh, and he sat there, waiting to see what would happen.  As he waited, God planted a shade tree for Jonah, and this made Jonah really happy.  The next day, God put a worm in the tree so that when the sun came out, the tree withered and died.  Again, Jonah grumbled against God, “I would rather die…”  And God said again, “Do you do well to be angry?  You complain about a tree that you did not plant.  Should I not be concerned for Nineveh, for the 120,000 souls that are there?”

What Jonah needed was a change in perspective.  He was concerned with his reputation as a prophet, he didn’t want to be associated with these despised Ninevites. He was more concerned with his comfort and his reputation than with the souls that needed saving.

I need a change in perspective.  My anger comes from that deceptive and pervasive sin of pride.  I have put my needs, my comfort, my advancement, myself, above the needs of everyone else.  I only get upset because I don’t feel like I get the respect, the response I deserve.  God is saying to me again, “Do you do well to be angry?”  It is foolishness to hold on to this rage.  Prov. 14:29 teaches, “Whoever slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”  What a fool I’ve been.

I know the answer is “No.”  I pray that God will help me to rule over it.  This can only be done through the power of Holy Spirit – I can only conquer my fits of rage as the Spirit of God develops in me “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:21-22).  While I hold on to my anger I cannot hold on to Christ.  When I take up my ax, I cannot also take up my cross.  As long as the greenie-meanie lives I cannot say, “I have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”