Interested in getting a head start on your firewood for next winter? I once heard of a unique way to drop a tree. It seems some villagers in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific have learned how to conquer the really big ones. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. (I’m not making this up. I read it in a book, so it must be true.) Just at dawn these woodsmen with special powers sneak up on a tree and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They do this every day for 30 days, and the tree dies and falls over. The theory is that yelling kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.
Felling by yelling. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Crazy enough to be true.
I’ll have to admit, though, I’ve never seen it happen. I’ve never yelled at a tree (and I wouldn’t tell you if I had). Not for thirty days. Not for one day. Furthermore, I’ve never seen anyone else yell at a tree. So I can’t say by experience that hollering works on trees.
But it does work on kids. I have seen that happen.
Works on spouses, too.
Some people yell at their cars or their washing machine, and it doesn’t seem to do much good. But I’ve seen it drop a few pastors. And I’ve seen it kill the spirit of a friend or two as well. [click to continue…]
I heard a funny story recently about a lady with certain-colored hair, who was in a desperate financial condition. The details are a little hazy, but here goes:
She knelt down beside her bed and prayed, “Oh God, please help me win the lottery. If I don’t win the lottery, they’re coming to cut my power off.” She didn’t win the lottery, and her power was cut off. She prayed again to win the lottery to avoid losing her car. She didn’t win the lottery, and her car was repossessed. A third time she prayed to win the lottery. This time, the bank foreclosed on her house. She prayed again, frustrated and angry. “If this is how you treat your children, I’ll never pray again.”
About that time, there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find a stranger. “I have a message from the Lord,” the stranger said. “Would you PLEASE buy a ticket”?
We serve a God who is capable of doing “far more abundantly above all we could ever ask or think” (Ephesians 3:30). But He insists that somehow we get involved in the process.
Two Candidates for a Miracle
This is illustrated in back-to-back stories in 2 Kings 3-4. Two different people summoned the prophet Elisha. The first was the king of Israel, whose army was dehydrated and facing sure defeat. The second was the widow of a prophet, who was facing the loss of her sons to slavery to pay off her creditor.
Elisha advised similar things. [click to continue…]
What gets you to mash on the gas? To run, not walk. What gets you to turn off the TV, marshal all your forces, or move to the front of the line – even if you, like me, are a procrastinator?
There, I admitted it. I’m one of those people who dances with deadlines and lives by the motto, “Only do today what you can’t put off until tomorrow.”
But that doesn’t mean I never hurry. (After all, even the hare hurried when he woke up from his nap and found out he was losing to a tortoise.)
Yesterday I got a kick in the quick. It wasn’t so much a Jesus-jab in my procrastinating rear end as it was a moment of conviction that really captured my attention. More on that in a minute. As a result of God’s little attention-getter, I did some thinking. I’d like you to do the same: What do you hurry to do?
My Hurry Points
I found five things that get me to “grab a gear.” [click to continue…]
Tense Truth: God gives you desires you can never satisfy and makes demands you can never fulfill. He then goes about bridging the gap, doing for you what you can never do for yourself. Your primary responsibility is to trust Him to be Himself – to rest in His faithfulness.
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Have you ever felt like God was somehow playing a joke on you? You hear people talking about being forgiven, and you feel guilty for, well, feeling guilty. You read the stories about miracle-working power, and wonder why you got left at the station. You learn more and are less happy; work harder, but feel weaker. You’ve learned to speak “Christianese” and go through the motions, but sometimes you just feel like a fraud.
What if I were to tell you that God has a glorious answer? Something more liberating than a self-improvement project or yet another string of self-disappointments?
David’s Truth Discovery
For nearly a year, David had played the role. The psalmist of Israel, the beloved king, had gone through the motions, mouthed the words, and tipped his hat to the man he once was. Very few knew people the real story: David was just a shell of the man he once had been. [click to continue…]
This just in – apparently the Bible Belt is still buckled. That according to a recent Gallup survey, as reported by World Net Daily. Americans are still largely religious, but some states have more than others. The Gallup telephone poll of 355,334 adults asked the question, “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” Nationwide, 65% said yes.
But in the Deep South, my ancestral home, the numbers are much higher. Mississippians and Alabamians lead the list, with 85% and 82%, respectively, answering yes to Mr. Gallup. You can find your state by the color-coded categories below. The darker the green, the higher the response. Some states have a very religious culture, while others are decidedly secular.
Wow. There you have it. And all this time I thought we were in a state of massive decline and increasing irrelevance. With nearly two-thirds of Americans turning the pages while we say “Amen,” I guess we can invest in those church bonds after all.
Sorry. Don’t mean to rain on the celebration, but I don’t think I’m buyin’. Not in the secular belts. Not in the Bible Belt, either. [click to continue…]
Awards season is in full swing. The Golden Globes, Grammys, and Emmys are history. The Oscars are approaching. That can only mean one thing:
Michael Minutoli is probably close by.
Michael Minutoli is a party crasher, and without a doubt one of the best. For more than 15 years, this man has boldly gone where few of us would dare, and he never had a ticket. You could find him at movie premiers, awards programs, concerts, and backstage parties. Have tux, will travel.
He moves with such congruence, he blends right in. And he has the pictures to prove it – more than a thousand of them. You can find disposable camera prints of Michael with his arm around the likes of Harrison Ford, Katie Couric, Britney Spears, Paul McCartney, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, President Bill Clinton, Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery, Madonna, and Bruce Willis. Just to name a few.
And boy, does he have stories to tell. [click to continue…]
Spiritual gifts are in the news lately. Figured out what yours is/are yet? It’s a fascinating study, provided we approach it with the right attitude.
The Internet Monk suggests that the Holy Spirit gives different people different gifts in different situations – challenging the assumption that we somehow receive a gift load when we are saved and carry that with us throughout a lifetime.
Tim Challies also wrote last month about discovering your giftings.
The Barna Research Group just did a survey on spiritual gifts and discovered some interesting stuff. Since they’ve been doing this for a while, they reported some fascinating trends among Americans claiming to be born again:
- Evidently the Holy Spirit is recognizing a greater need for encouragement over the last several years (can’t imagine why!). The percentage that claims to have the gift of encouragement has tripled – growing steadily from 2% in 1995 to 6% today.
- Also, apparently the Spirit has decided that Americans have enough understanding of the gospel (or maybe that some of the mega churches have all that sown up). Since 1995, the proportion of born again adults claiming the gift of evangelism dropped from 4% to 1%.
- On the other hand, Lucy, churches may have some ‘splainin’ to do. Evangelicals who have no idea what their gift is rose from 8% in 2000 to 13% today.
One of the questions about spiritual gifts that comes up occasionally is whether the gifts mentioned in Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans are exclusive. That is, are those sixteen or seventeen spiritual gifts the only ones the Holy Spirit gives? Were those lists – all of which are different – meant to be just examples, or are they the only possibilities?
That sure came up on the Barna survey! More than one-fifth (21%) of survey respondents claimed to have spiritual gifts that aren’t mentioned in the Bible. These include:
- a sense of humor
- singing
- health
- life
- happiness
- patience
- a job
- a house
- compromise
- premonition
- creativity
- clairvoyance.
So I gotta tell you, my wheels are turning. While it may be risky to step outside the framework of the Bible, the possibility of other spiritual gifts brings up some interesting ideas. If other spiritual gifts really do manifest themselves in the Body, then I think I may have discovered some. And I’m sure building a wish list for others. So with apologies to the Apostle Paul, here are ten possible charismata he just didn’t mention: [click to continue…]
Somewhere in a sea of uniformity, a yellow tulip stands alone.
Exquisite… but doubtless convinced that “different” means “ugly.”
Ask this amber wonder for any wish – it will openly yearn to be “normal.”
Never again to be viewed as a mistake, or a freak.
And yet, wish granted, all that remains is a sea of red.
Beautiful… but hardly remarkable.
To dress as no other is the honor of the bride.
To sing as no other is the glory of the nightingale.
To live, give, and love as no other is the beauty of a heart freed by grace.
Bringing Hope to the Land of Nod (Part 3)
1. Reconnect the spiritual with the interpersonal.
2. Expose anger for what it is, and provide a model for forgiveness.
3. Respond to Victimhood by Redefining Responsibility
4. Reopen doors of trust and acceptance.
Every vibrant relationship is a dance with trust. As the relationship deepens, so does the trust. As the trust grows, the relationship deepens even more.
That said, it’s easy to see why the citizens of Nod have an itty bitty trust issue. “Fool me once,” and all that.
Do people trust you? The challenge we face in being instruments of healing is that trust, once broken, is incredibly difficult to restore. Yet without it, hearts remain crippled and closed off.
Our goal for the citizens of Nod is to lead them to do more than survive. We believe God wants them to thrive. [click to continue…]
News Flash! This just in… In a shocking reversal of public opinion, somebody thinks something’s wrong with the church.
Here’s a blast from the past from an old B.C. Cartoon. Picture the anthill, and the Dad ant poking his head out the top. His teenaged son is coming back from the movies.
Dad: “How was the disaster movie, son?”
Son: “A disaster.”
Son: “Why do they make so many disaster movies, Dad?”
Dad: “So when Armageddon comes, we can all go back to sleep and say we’ve seen it already.”
I can see a 2009 update:
Dad: “How was the disaster movie, son?”
Son: “A disaster.”
Son: “I thought we’d see a bunch of explosions, death and mayhem.”
Dad: “Let me guess – you saw the Ted Haggard documentary instead.”
Pick your spot – inside the church or outside. Mainline, sideline, or no-line. House churches and megachurches. Political and “news” organizations. Cultural elitists and preachers. Gay rights advocates and Fred Phelps. Everybody seems to converge on one common opinion:
The church sucks. [click to continue…]