Impressive Frisbee Scars and Unnecessary Distractions

Suggested Reading: Mark 4:1-9, 13-20

The largest scar on my body sits on my right elbow and I got it in a frisbee accident. I was in junior high and several of my friends had come over and we were playing frisbee in the street in front of my house. We had been throwing it back and forth for quite a while and I was probably being cocky about being able to catch anything my friends could throw at me. So one of my friends really launched it. The frisbee zipped over my head and I took off after it. My focus was intense, so intense that I didn't notice the curb that I tripped over until a split-second after snagging the frisbee from the air. The curb had been there all along and it was my street which I had lived on for a dozen years at that point, but I was so focused on the frisbee that I simply didn't see it. Somehow, I managed to hold onto the frisbee as I skidded across the sidewalk, scraping off a section of skin the size of a U.S. quarter. The scab was so big that I was constantly catching it on something and, eventually, it turned into quite an impressive scar.

As Jesus continued explaining why people don't experience results from the Word of God in their lives through the parable of the Sower and the Soil, he described a third type of person/soil, saying, "Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce a crop" (Mark 4:7, HCSB). He then explained that that kind of person "like seed sown among thorns, hears the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful" (Mark 4:18-19, HCSB). If Jesus were explaining it today, I believe he might rephrase this explanation, "These people hear the word and accept it but their lives are so filled with the distractions of daily activities and the pursuit of pleasure and comfort that they have no room left for the Word of God to grow within them."

I firmly believe that one of the biggest problems in our churches today is not that people don't believe the Gospel message is important or urgent but that we are so distracted with work and school and sports and television and books and games that there is simply no room left for the word of God to grow. We fill up our time with so many hobbies, and activities, and creature comforts that we simply don't have any time to hear the Spirit when he speaks to us or to meditate on the scriptures so that they can soak into our souls and fill us up with Godly insight. After all, how many times do we simply think, I would do that if I had a little more time, without thinking about the fact that many of the things we do are not necessary. They may be good. They may be helpful. They might take the stress off or help us forget our worries for a few minutes. But they aren't necessary, at least, not as necessary as leaving room for the Word of God to grow in our lives.

What things are distracting you from God's voice as it speaks into your life? What things have you used to fill up your time until there is no time left for God to speak to you and stretch you, until you are too busy to spend time meditating on God's word? What weeds will you have to remove from your own life so that there is room for God to do what God wants to do in you? What time-killing activities do you need to give up? What television shows or entertainment programs do you need to move down on your priority list so that God's Word shaping your life can move up.

Junior High Pranksters and Suffering Heroes

Suggested Reading: Genesis 39:7-23

When I was in junior high, our theater teacher invited the cast of the most recent play over to his house for a cast party. Several of us were standing around in the front yard talking when a couple of guys decided it would be fun if they moved the teacher's car down the street. I warned them not to, told them it was stupid and, even once they had the door open and were pushing it down the block, I was urging them to put it back before something unexpected happened. Sure enough, a few moments later they realized that the steering wheel was locked, the car was picking up speed. And the open door was heading right for a massive brick mailbox. All the pranksters panicked.

I ran for the car, reached it right before it hit the mail box, stuck a foot in and pressed the break, and got pinned between the door and the brick mailbox. I managed to save the door but it did get a little bent. But even though I had argued against moving the car and had managed to keep the door from being completely popped off when the pranksters themselves panicked, the following week I got a bill in the mail for damages to the car. It didn't seem right. I could have walked away when the pranksters began, instead of trying to talk them out of it. I could have gone to the back yard when the car started picking up speed instead of saving it. In either case I would have avoided the bill in the mail. But for doing what seemed to a junior high kid to be the right thing I ended up getting lumped in with the bad guys.

Joseph knew even more about that than I did. When Potiphar's wife propositioned him, Joseph did the right thing. When she let all the servants have the day off so she could seduce Joseph in secret, Joseph ran away so fast that he left his cloak in the grasping hands of the temptress. She put Joseph’s garment beside her until his master came home. Then she told him the same story: “The Hebrew slave you brought to us came to make a fool of me, but when I screamed for help, he left his garment with me and ran outside.” (Genesis 39:16-18, HCSB). As a result, Joseph ended up in prison, forgotten for years. The frustrating thing for Joseph must have been knowing that if he had become her lover she probably would have protected him instead of turning on him.  But Joseph did the right thing and he suffered for it.

We live in a fallen, sinful world where it doesn't always pay to do the right thing, at least at the time. Doing the right thing means that we will sometimes be taken advantage of, be fought against with nasty, vicious attacks, and suffer when we could easily have walked away and remained unscathed. We must be under no illusions that doing the right thing will make our lives easier or safer. If we only choose to do the right thing because it will make our lives easier, our integrity will falter when life gets tough. We must be committed to doing the right thing whether it is safe or not, whether we prosper or suffer for it. Our motivation for doing the right thing is pleasing God, maintaining our relationship with God, and demonstrating we are children of God. Any motivation based on how things work out for us will eventually cause us to walk away from our integrity when we should be standing firm.

Goading Jesus Into a Middle School Fight

Suggested Reading: Matthew 4:1-11

In junior high, I had a run in with a student who was much larger than me. I was in the cafeteria before school with a friend who was trying to mess with me by marking on my book covers. I marked on his in return only to discover that the books in front of my friend were not his at all. They belonged to a much larger individual who was not happy with me...and I had unknowingly marked on his Malcolm X doodle.  He wanted me to fight him then and there but I refused, insisting that I had thought the book was my friend's and that I intended no disrespect. When the bell rang, this student followed me down the hall, hitting me in the back of the head every few feet. Later, at lunch, he cornered me and pushed me off the two-foot cement wall I had been sitting on. I "ninja rolled" back into a standing position and sat down as if nothing had ever happened. He was trying to goad me into a fight, attempting to embarrass me and make me angry, and I refused to play his way. I refused to allow him to dictate my actions. Two days later, when I was asked about a rumor that I was a second degree black belt (I wasn't), I simply responded, "That's why I don't have to fight."

I am not the only one who has ever been the object of manipulation, who was goaded by someone wanting a specific response. In Matthew chapter 4, we read the account of the temptations of Jesus. A common theme running through the Devil's first two temptations was an attempt to goad Jesus into doing something. In the first temptation, the devil said,  “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” in the second temptation, he said,  “If you are the Son of God, jump off [this cliff]." (Matthew 4:3,6, NLT). In both instances, the devil tried to goad Jesus by getting him to prove himself, but that tactic only works on the insecure, on people who are uncertain of themselves and their gifts. If you are secure in who you are, those kinds of attacks cannot work.

That junior high student was unable to goad me into fighting because I knew who I was and refused to be manipulated. Jesus refused as well, knowing that the enemy's manipulation had no real power and that he had no need to prove himself. This should be our standard mode of operation. We have no need to prove ourselves, we must only be concerned with obeying the Father.

Rest secure in who you are as a child of the Father. Don't let anyone goad you into sin.