Evangelical Alert: Toxic Zeal

You become a Christian and in your zeal, you suddenly think everyone else must also.

You ram it down the throat of anyone within speaking distance of you.

Then you calm down a bit and find a "better" way.

You leave tiny evangelical booklets at your restaurant table instead of tips.

Sure to inspire the hardworking waiter or waitress whose livelihood depends largely on tips made of...money.

Next you move into the discipline stage.

You hammer into your children and your circle of influence the absolutes of discipline that following God must engender. If one makes a mistake, one must pay by wearing a scarlet letter of public shame designed by you, not God.

God invites.

God generates.

God forgives and says start again.

His zeal is tender, kind, inviting, gentlemanly, creative, generous, thoughtful, generative, inspiring, leading, wise, forgiving, singular, personal, edifying.

Ours, when administered without those qualities, becomes toxic.

The idea of Jesus is more poisoned than promoted.

Why can't we see that?

Tenderized Opinions

When you fire your opinion from a cannon, someone is sure to get hurt. That hurt might even backfire onto you.

When your opinion has the gentle regard of Christ built into it, it has a chance to impart the healing and wisdom that belongs exclusively to Jesus.

Does your opinion condemn? Does it shoot first and care not for truth and real people and their lives?

Or does your opinion offer support for finding solution and heart and the best way, led only by the mercy and compassion of God?

To me, the most disturbing verses in the Bible disconnect us from God when our opinions exclude mercy:

In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can't get forgiveness from God, for instance, without forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God's part.

We act based on our opinions. When our view installs forgiveness, compassion, mercy, truth, solution, heart and the best way founded upon God's wisdom, we build rather than destroy.

We've heard of dog and horse whisperers. Maybe those with opinions tenderized by the seasoning of Christ whisper Jesus.

Are you a (loose) cannon or a Jesus whisperer?

Become a Power Plant

My neighbors recently installed a number of solar panels on their roof. Imagine their surprise when they were told they had to register with our state (NC) as a power plant.

I live next door to a power plant that doubles as a home.

There is no better image for ourselves.

Our journey on earth is to become a power plant for God that doubles as a person.

How?

Install one "solar panel" per day on your heart by reading or listening to the Bible. Those words will absorb themselves in such a way that God's power is released through them into you.

You read or listen thoughtfully--even 10 minutes a day--and your life will produce power over time that will carry you in new ways through the muck and mire of life.

The green light to become a power plant is in your decision to chisel those 10 minutes out of your day.

A hundred years from now, when you live elsewhere, I'm pretty sure you becoming a power plant will look like one of your smarter decisions.

Our Children: Targets for Cultural Narcissism

Sometimes I happen across an article that is so riveting, and I suspect so true, that it must be shared.
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If you have been taught to hate Fox News, then you may have to get someone to click on the link below, as your finger might refuse to follow through.

(Fox News is staffed by a number of believers and conservatives, who risk cultural disdain to bring both sides of discussions--liberal and conservative--to the viewing table. I guess there is a lot to hate about that--I just need someone to help me find it.)

Anyway...

Dr. Keith Ablow, psychiatrist and a Fox News contributor, writes compellingly of research that says our kids today are increasingly narcissistic. He points to new analysis of the American Freshman Study that has accumulated data over 47 years from 9 million young adults.

I hope you will give a thoughtful read to this.

If you parent at-home children, ask God to open your eyes to ways you can counter the cultural slide to narcissism and unrealistic views of the world and self.

Start even with yourself.

Healthy is hard to find. It requires sacrifice, suffering, hard work and service to others. This isn't just your role in life; the life you contrive for your children must contain these elements as well.

Pray for healthy. God's wisdom will set you on the path.

Our country is the sum of our parts (all of us and our children). How healthy are your parts?

Kick Out the Right Intruder

Does this sound familiar?

There's always a voice in the back of my head saying this other way is the way I should go. It hinders my peace and my joy.

Is that voice an intruder?

In Matthew 8, Jesus approaches two madmen, victims of demons, who had terrorized the area for a long time.

The demons know Jesus when they see Him:

You're the Son of God...if you kick us out of these men, let us live in the pigs.

Weird enough as it is, but the strangest part to me is what happens next.

The madmen are healed, the now demonized pigs stampede over a cliff and drown in the sea, and the people who hear about it come and...

kick out Jesus.

Wait, was He the intruder?

Why do we kick out the wrong intruder?

Is the voice in the back of your head bringing you peace or emotional disarray?

Ask Jesus to help you kick out the right intruder.

It's harder than it sounds. For some reason, we like the company of pigs.

What Happens When We Don't Insert Our Story?

Our enthusiasm for telling our story often squashes that of the other person.

You know how it goes. Your friend in conversation is telling you about this or that.

Your mind instantly views that subject in terms of your experience. Your story comes to mind and out of your mouth without completed listening.

Completed, or full, listening means staying silent and focused on the story you are hearing until the person is done.

Complete victory in this area would be commenting on his/her story with your next sentence.

What value that would put on that person! You would be saying, with your full listening, that he/she is important enough to be heard.

We all yearn to be heard.

Tell God your stories and watch His full listening. Ask Him to help you give that gift of listening to those with whom you are blessed to hear today.

Wonder if blessing comes more from listening than from telling...

Inside an Unwillingness to Believe--Day 3

For the one who is convinced God does not exist, or even the one for whom God is not enough in whom to post belief, a disturbing dilemma arises.

It boils down to your personal hope that you are right, all evidence to the contrary.

Ignoring the evidence never makes us right.

All of us are wrong in some area simply based on the belief that we hope we are right.

This is hope in ourselves and our thinking.

Is your thinking parking you in the camp of unbelief, or is it adopted thinking?

Critical question.

If, on the day of your earthly exit, you, in fact, face a God of creation, it will be your thinking you will need to defend, not that of another.

If the Bible is authentic, we see Adam adopting the thinking of Eve in eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That didn't turn out so well.

Adam ran smack into God. Consequences were his, as well as hers, even though he pointed back to Eve's thinking.

Best advice: separate yourself from the pack and look around. If evidence of belief and creation resounds, give yourself permission to quit hoping in yourself and consider God as an avenue of belief.

Then running smack into God one day will be a brighter occasion.