I Gave It Up for Lent

Okay, I admit it: I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about Lent. I’m a fairly non-liturgical Baptist. And even though I grew up in a Presbyterian church I don’t remember hearing much about Lent. I do know a little, however. I know it begins with Ash Wednesday, a day to reflect on our own mortality. You know, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” All of us are going to die. We should think about that and live a life and find the faith that prepares us for our eventual appointment with death. Lent then proceeds for 40 days (excluding Sundays) until Holy Saturday the day before Easter. Lent is a time to reflect on the sufferings of Jesus and all that He sacrificed for us. It’s somber time, a reflective time, a holy time. And somewhere along the way, this idea of giving up something for Lent was introduced to the church.

So every year I hear some of the things people are giving up for Lent. My experience with such things indicates that most of the giving up tends to be either dietary or media-based. People give up chocolate or sweets or Cokes or booze or fried food. Others give up certain television shows or going to the movies. A few determine to give up something like smoking or cussing or another bad habit that may or may not even be a sin. And it seems like the popular give-up this Lenten season is Facebook. I read some posts from my Facebook friends last Wednesday that said something to the effect of, “If you need to contact me, call or email because I’m giving up Facebook for Lent. I’ll be back on in 40 days.”

This whole thing has always intrigued me. It’s like a 40-day attempt to do something Jesus calls us to do 365 days a year. You remember when He said, “If anyone comes after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). I guess Lent is a way of trying to do the first of these three actions: self-denial. And if it is, it seems to me that folks ought to consider giving up something important enough that they don’t plan on taking it right back up again when the 40 days are past. Shouldn’t self-denial run a bit deeper than that?

Self-denial is one of the most difficult things Jesus calls us to do. It’s not natural. We learn from birth to exalt the self. A baby’s wet or hungry and what does she do? Does she say, “Oh mother, pardon my intrusion. How selfish of me! You get your sleep first, then I’ll get mine.” Is that what a baby does? Yeah, right. The baby’s going to scream her lungs out until somebody tends to her needs.

Or take a toddler. Suppose your toddler wants something. It doesn’t matter what it is—it could be anything—a little attention, some crackers and juice, his sister’s toy, or to get up from his nap too early—anything. And suppose you’re busy. Does the toddler say, “I’m sorry, mother. I didn’t know you were busy. Please take your time in tending to my wants. Finish your phone call. Wait till your program is over. Finish the chapter. I’m really in no hurry.” Is that what toddlers do? No way! They’ll fuss and whine until you either make them quit or give them what they want.

We tend to be self-centered by nature. It shows up in our lives from birth to death. We want what we want when we want it. Age and reality usually tempers our ability to get it, but it doesn’t stop many of us from trying. Look at credit card debt. Look at chronic overeating. Look at all the addictions. Look at the number of divorces caused by self-centeredness. Look at parents who neglect their kids to satisfy their own wants. Even adults have a hard time saying no to themselves. When Jesus calls us to deny self, He is asking us to go against the flow, to cut across the grain of human nature. So we resist.

And our culture doesn’t make it any easier. Put a drop of self-centeredness in the Petri dish of American culture and it will grow like a fungus. American culture does not treat us as persons but as consumers. Thus, ad after ad to whet our appetite for more, people counseling us to go get ours, and all the “I deserve it” and “I’m entitled” mantras that shout to us through a megaphone of selfishness. And as if that’s not enough, even many of today’s churches treat us as consumers too: “Come check out our programs tailored just for you. We're the home of only seven commandments—you choose. Home of the 3% tithe.” It’s tough to say no to oneself. Even the church isn’t always a lot of help. And yet Jesus calls us to do it: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself ….”

I wonder if the key is not just learning to say no to self but yes to Christ. In Matthew 12 Jesus tells a story about a man who swept his life clean from one evil spirit. But because he didn’t fill the void with Christ, seven spirits worse than the first came back and moved right in. See what I mean: denying self is more than saying no to self, it’s saying yes to Christ. And if we can get that in perspective, it might make giving up something for Lent more meaningful than a 40-day change in one’s eating habits or Facebook usage. What if we picked on bigger things? What if we determined to say no to old grudges and yes to offering forgiveness to those who have hurt us? What if we say no to a certain level of media addiction and say yes to filling up that time reading God’s word or a good Christian book or a little time in prayer and reflection? What if we say no to a relationship that is moving us away from Christ and say yes to relationships that draw us toward Him? What if we said no to spending so much on ourselves and said yes to giving more to the things that are close to God’s heart: things like the church or charities that serve the poor and the wounded? No to self doesn’t mean all that much unless we say yes to Christ.

But then again, what do I know about Lent? I’m a Baptist for crying out loud. I’ll be the first to admit that Lent is a bit of foreign ground for me. But at the same time, I do know this: Jesus didn’t just say, “If anyone come after me, let him deny himself for forty days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday.” The full verse says, “If anyone come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” That looks like no to self and yes to Christ to me—a no and a yes that Jesus will give you the strength to accomplish as you lean into Him.

Oh, and one other thing: taking this path might help us make for some significant change that lasts a lot longer than forty measly days.

A Valentine Story

So, it’s Valentine’s Day—that holiday has never been at the top of my favorite holiday list. Labor and Memorial Day—good, relaxing, do-nothing, chill out days. Thanksgiving—good food, get to see the kids, Cowboys football, nice. Christmas—a lot like Thanksgiving without the Cowboys football, and you get to add seasonal music, presents, and a Christmas Eve service. But Valentine’s Day—a lot risk there, a lot of chances to mess things up. What if I don’t get Dayna the right present or what if Walmart sells out of flowers before I get there? There’s a lot on the line. Just never much liked Valentine’s Day.

It probably stems from my childhood. You remember those days in grammar school when you exchanged Valentines with your classmates. Your mom bought you a box of those little bitty Valentines to sign and give away. You took an old shoe box in art class, decorated it with construction paper and crayons, and cut a slit in the top so that the rest of the class could slip a Valentine in your box. I hated that day in art class. Did you know that one of the chief differences between monkeys and humans is that monkeys do not have opposable thumbs? Well, when it comes to art projects, I don’t have opposable thumbs either—never did—so my Valentine box looked like a monkey made it.

But hey, we all have our gifts, and I could pop my armpit better than anybody in my class. So what if I stunk at classic art projects; is there not a certain artistry to popping one’s pit in ways that could make all the classic sounds of flatulence? But I digress.

Anyway, in spite of my pathetic Valentine’s box, my fifth-grade Valentine’s Day held the potential to be a big day for me. And here’s why: Anne Wilcox. I was some kind of sweet on Anne Wilcox—this pretty little blue-eyed, blonde-haired cutie. When I first saw her, Cupid didn’t just shoot me with one arrow; he emptied the whole quiver right into my heart. You see, I’d recently moved to Branson from Arkansas; she’d just moved to Branson from Mississippi; we were the only two in class that had yet to learn that the Civil War was over and that the North had won. She was a fifth-grade southern belle. And you know what the Beach Boys were singing about southern girls: “And the southern girls with the way they kiss / they keep their boyfriends warm at night.” I was in love, smitten. She was Juliet to my Romeo, Cleopatra to my Antony, Bonnie to my Clyde. There was just one problem. According to fifth-grade etiquette in that day, I dare not tell her. At best I could tell only a couple of my people who would talk to a couple of her people and see if she liked me back. That process was still in the works. I had yet to receive word back from my spies. It was all quiet on the Southern front. So I was banking on Valentine’s Day to give me my answer.

It was zero hour. Kids went around the room dropping their Valentine’s into the slots on the other kids’ boxes. And then it was time to open the Valentines. I tore the lid off my box, shuffling through those Valentine envelopes with the speed and dexterity of a 100-word-a-minute typist, looking for the one that said “Anne.” What? Huh? None of them said “Anne.” Then it dawned on me: all of them said “John.” Duh! What was I thinking? Fifth-graders don’t put return addresses on classroom Valentines, you moron. But I shook it off and got my head back in the game. I took the first Valentine from the box, then the next, and the next, picking up speed like a racehorse on the home stretch, searching, searching, searching, for the Valentine from Anne. And then, pay-dirt! I pulled just enough of that Valentine from the envelope to see Anne’s name. So I just stopped right there to enjoy the moment. I held it to my nose to see if she had laced the envelope with perfume. She had not. I retrieved the Valentine from the envelope, careful not to tear it. Wow! It was a great Valentine, a cut out of some flop-eared dog, as I recall, and a message that was sheer poetry—so simple, yet so profound and so personal I’m a little embarrassed to share it even after all these years. You want to hear what it said? “Happy Valentine's Day!” There was only one conclusion to draw: she loves me! She really loves me!

I dared not make eye contact with her in that tender moment, however. But I had to tell someone. So I leaned over to one of my spies, “Look at the Valentine Anne gave me.” He took it from me, looked at it. I was desperate for a second opinion, to see if he saw in it what I saw in it. “What do you think?” I said.

And he said, “I think she gave me the same one.” Wah, wah, wah, wahhhhh. That wasn’t glass my classmates heard breaking in that moment; it was my heart. There would be no Anne for me.

Okay, I admit it: the crush was real; I made up the story. It would be a few more years before I would find my true Valentine, and I’m still holding on to her today. Her name is Dayna and for almost 35 years her last name has been McCallum. And when I give her a valentine, I don’t give the same one to anyone else.

So let me go on record and say, “Thank you, God, for my valentine, Dayna—just one more indication that you treat me better than I deserve. Help me to treat her heart the way you treat ours—with love, understanding, respect, patience, and grace. And no matter how many years you give us together, may I love her even more at the end than I did at the beginning. Amen.”

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

This Is the Day

I don’t know how many times I’ve read it, said it, or sung it, but I still have problems getting its truth from my head to my heart, from my worries to my faith, from tomorrow to today. It’s Psalm 118:24 — “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” In our “get-on-to-the-next-thing” culture that is dominated more by the watch than the calendar, more by “next” than “now,” this truth is hard to practice.

For some reason God wants us to pay attention to today. It’s okay to look back, and it's okay to look forward but not if it costs us today. That’s too high a price to pay. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” The psalmist is not the only one to shine the spotlight on “today.” Didn’t Jesus teach us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”? Didn’t the apostle Paul tell the Ephesians and us to “redeem the time,” that is, make the most of every opportunity we have? And that always begins with today.

Though I’m better at doing this now than I was in my younger years, it’s still a struggle for me. That’s why every now and then I pull a little story from my files to remind me to claim the day. The story, parable, or whatever you want to call it was written by Robert Hastings a number of years ago. It’s called The Station.

Tucked away in our subconscious minds is a vision—an idyllic vision in which we see ourselves on a long journey that spans an entire continent. We’re traveling by train and, from our windows, we drink in the passing scenes of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at crossings, of cattle grazing in distant pastures, of smoke pouring from power plants, of row upon row of cotton and corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our conscious minds is our final destination—for on a certain hour and on a given day, our train will pull into the station with bells ringing, flags waving, and bands playing. And once that day comes, so many wonderful dreams will come true, and all the jagged pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. So restlessly, we pace the aisles and count the miles, peering ahead, cursing the minutes for loitering, waiting, waiting, waiting for the station …

“Yes, when we reach the station, that will be it,” we cry. “When we’re eighteen! When we buy that new Mercedes Benz! When we put the last kid through college! When we earn that promotion! When we pay off the mortgage! When we retire!” Yes, from that day on … we will all live happily ever after.

Sooner or later, however, we must realize that there is no station, no one place to arrive once and for all. The joy is in the journey.

The station is an illusion—it constantly outdistances us. Yesterday’s a memory; tomorrow’s a dream. Yesterday’s a fading sunset; tomorrow’s a faint sunrise. So, shut the door on yesterday and throw the key away, for only today is there light enough to live and love. It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it’s regrets over yesterday and fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are the twin thieves who would rob us of that golden treasure we call today, this tiny strip of light between two nights.

“Relish the moment,” is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, swim more rivers, climb more mountains, kiss more babies, count more stars. Laugh more and cry less. Go barefoot oftener. Eat more ice cream. Ride more merry-go-rounds. Watch more sunsets. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

Yes it will. So in the meantime enjoy, survive, endure, and/or relish the moments day by day. There’s God’s wisdom in that. But don’t miss this important distinction. It is not, “Live for today”—as if there were no tomorrow. It is simply: “Live today.” As someone once put it so well, “The past is history; the future is mystery; today is a gift—that’s why we call it the present.”

Do yourself a favor and open that present today.

I Love the Church

During the month of January I’ve been preaching a series of sermons called Loving Well. In the second of those sermons, I preached on loving the church well. The church is not in good report with many in our day, even many who claim to follow Jesus. “I love Jesus,” some say, “but I can’t stand the church.” If, as the New Testament teaches, the church is both the body and bride of Christ, how a person can love Jesus and refuse to be part of the church. Can an arm say to the body, “I don’t need you; I’ll go it on my own”? And that arm would go on its own to its death. Would a wife say to her husband just before they’re married, “Okay, here’s the deal: I want to marry you, but I want to live my own life. I want to be free to date around and only come home when I feel like it.” Ridiculous! And yet some Christians say such things to the church.

I know the church has problems. It’s far from perfect and never will be this side of heaven. But I can’t help it—I love the church. And I stated so in my sermon on loving the church well. I had enough folks comment on it that I thought I’d post that testimony in my blog. Here it is:

______________

And can I just go on record this morning by saying that I love the church—the church in general and this church in particular. The church has always been a part of my life. I can’t remember when I was not connected to the church—worship, Sunday School, Bible School, pot-luck suppers, choir, youth group, college group, camps and retreats. As a kid I didn’t always find it interesting and I haven’t always loved every minute I’ve been involved, but I always knew I was loved, I knew I belonged there among that particular group of people at that particular time.

I love the church. It was the church that introduced me to the exploits of these larger than life characters named Abraham and Moses and David and Elijah and Peter and Paul. They told me that somehow they were in my family tree. It was the church that taught me that I was part of something larger than myself and my town and my country; I was a citizen in the kingdom of God that stretches around the whole wide world and from here to eternity.

I love the church. That’s where I first saw a cross and learned about a Savior who loved me and died for me and rose from the dead for me too. That’s the one place I could be assured that even if I hadn’t given God much thought on Monday through Saturday, my attention would be brought back to Him on Sunday with words as simple as “Let’s pray … open your Bible … hear the Word of the Lord.”

I love the church. It was the church that gave me my song and taught me to sing it:

• Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / that saved a wretch like me
• Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty / God in three persons, blessed Trinity
• A mighty fortress is our God / a bulwark never failing
• Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nations / Son of God and Son of Man
• All the way my Savior leads me / what have I to ask beside / Can I doubt his tender mercy who through life has been my guide?
• We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord / And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
• Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
• At the cross, at the cross / where I first saw the light
• Up from the grave he arose / with a mighty triumph o'er his foes
• When we all get to heaven / what a day of rejoicing that will be

How many times have the songs I learned from the church gave voice to my praise, words to my sorrow, hope to my fear, faith to my doubts, and carried me when I was weak!

I love the church. The church has helped me see the world—and not to see it with the eyes of a tourist, but with the eyes of God: eyes of compassion and love, eyes of concern for the lost and the poor and the people on the edges. And the church has helped me do my part in sharing God's love with the nations.

I love the church. When my family fell apart, the church was there. When I went off to college, the church was there. When my kids were born, the church was there. When there’s been sickness or surgery, the church was there. When my parents died, the church was there. In good times and bad, in times of rejoicing and times of grief, the church has been there for me. Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything and a season for everything under the sun, and the church has been there for me in every time and every season.

I love the church. That’s not to say that the church hasn’t broken my heart along the way, that the church has never let me down, or that the church has always lived up to my expectations. But that’s okay: I don’t love a perfect church and never have. I don’t love the church as I wish her to be; I love the church as she is—with her warts and her wrinkles, with her saints and her sinners, with her allies and her critics. I love the church when she’s swung and missed and when she’s knocked it out of the park, when she’s soared like an eagle and when she’s limped like a cripple. Someone once likened the church to Noah's ark: if it weren’t for the storm without, you could never stand the smell within. But in spite of the fact that the church stinks it up from time to time, I love the church.

I love the church because the church has always love me and because Christ has loved me through His church. Christ has always loved me enough to challenge me and forgive me and encourage me and stick with me no matter what. And Christ does just that through His church. I love the church.

_____________

Do you love the church? If not, let me encourage you to give her a first try or another try if she somehow hurt you in the past. Like it or not, Jesus dwells in the midst of His church. I encourage you to meet Him there.

1 Man Against the Machine

On this 2012 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I want to tell the story I first heard just a few months ago of one man against the machine. I’m not talking about Martin Luther King, Jr.; I’m talking about a man King inspired. His name is Darrell Brown from the little town of Horatio in southwest Arkansas. Darrell is a black man, and in the fall of 1965 he headed up Highway 71 to Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas. There were only a few black students on campus in those days, and there were zero black students in the university’s athletic programs. (I’m not picking on the University here. You know how I love my alma mater. But what was true of Arkansas at the time was true of the entire Southwest Conference, Southeast Conference, and Atlantic Coast Conference. Blacks were not welcome in those athletic programs. That was the reality of that era of our history.) And Brown, who had heard Martin Luther King encourage black folks in the south to do their part, decided that his part would be to break the racial barrier in the Razorback football program—to be one man against the machine.

Having attended a poor black-only school near Horatio, Brown had never played organized football in school. But he had the body for it: 5’11” and 190 pounds—which was pretty good size for college football players in that era. So when it was time for walk-ons to report, Brown showed up to get his uniform. The equipment manager didn’t know what to do when Brown stood before him, so he told Brown to come back the next day. Brown did and got a uniform. But that’s about all he got. He got no playbook and he got no respect. And other than getting an earful of racial slurs, he was given the silent treatment by the team. A couple of assistant coaches showed minor support, but the head coach never met Brown or said one word to him.

On the first day of practice, the coach sent Brown back to return a kickoff, and it didn’t dawn on Brown until the ball was in the air that he had no blockers. It was less like football and more like the playground game called kill the man with ball. And that’s what the eleven did. “They were good at gang-tackling,” said Brown. This happened over and over. Brown felt like he was essentially a tackling dummy on the team. It was obvious that his coaches and teammates were trying to wear him out and run him off. But Brown followed the encouragement of his hero, Martin Luther King, Jr., and hung in there, taking a beating nearly every day. In those days, freshman were ineligible to play for the varsity, and in spite of having no playbook, Brown did play a few plays in the freshman games—which is pretty amazing in its own right.

He endured the season and though no one told him when the reporting day was for the next season, Brown showed up. Aside from finding a friend or two, Brown was treated the same in season two that he had been in season one. During practice in season two, Brown sustained serious hand and knee injuries for which he was offered no attention from the trainers or medical staff. He had to limp off the field by himself and drag himself to the student infirmary to receive care. That was that for Brown’s football playing days at the University of Arkansas. But it was his injuries, not his guts or a lack of determination, that kept him from returning to the field. Brown’s attempt to be a one-man integration movement for southern college football was over.

Brown didn’t give up on his studies, however. He graduated from the University and also completed law school. He served as a lawyer until his retirement a few years ago. After the treatment Brown received during his days at the University, he held a grudge for a very long time. During football season he couldn’t even root for his home state team and alma mater. But that has mellowed over the years, in part because his daughter received a track scholarship and his son attended law school there. Brown witnessed the changes across the years at the University that created widening opportunities for blacks. And something else factored into his change of heart: “You know where the Bible says, ‘Love your enemy” or ‘Pray for your enemy’?” Brown says. “It took me a long time to understand what that meant. You don’t have to love them. You do have to appreciate God’s creation. And you can pray their ways can change because you impacted them. So my hatred took a back seat to that.” Brown began to forgive and he started reconnecting with the University once again. In fact, this past October, Darrell Brown was honored in the center of Razorback Stadium (the scene of so much previous abuse) during halftime of the Auburn game when he was named the University of Arkansas Football Trailblazer.

In 1970, Jon Richardson from Little Rock was the first black Razorback recruit in the school’s history. I remember that very well, and that’s a distinction that belongs only to Richardson. But Darrell Brown was the first black man to wear the uniform.

And on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I want you to hear his story and give thanks for the opportunities created and progress made for blacks and other minorities in our society. And I also want to remind you that those opportunities and progress sadly came at the great cost of heroic pioneers like the famous Martin Luther King, Jr. and a young man you’ve never heard of named Darrell Brown from tiny Horatio, Arkansas, who dared to be one man against the machine.

If you want to read much more about Brown’s story, you can find it her in a story by Dan Wetzel on Yahoo Sports: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-wetzel_brown_arkansas_football_trailblazer100711

Another Good-bye … For Now

Can I just go on record and say it: I hate cancer. Hate it, hate it, hate it! I hate what it does to my friends. I hate what it did to my parents. I hate what it may one day do me. Can God use cancer to do good things, deeper things, spiritual things in people’s lives? Yes. I’ve seen God do that more times than I can count, and I’m grateful for God’s redeeming grace. But I still hate cancer.

Maybe I feel so strongly right now because yesterday I buried another friend. His name is Ralph and he died of colon cancer. And oddly enough I buried him on what would have been my dad’s 98th birthday had he not died of colon cancer himself at age 73. Did I mention that I hate cancer?

It’s been more than a year since Ralph got his diagnosis and the doctor told him he had maybe a couple of months to live. Death got the word and set up camp outside Ralph’s door. And it didn’t take long for Death to realize he should have packed a bigger suitcase. Ralph blew past those first two months and kept on going—not “going” as in laying around in a bed waiting to die, but “going” as in on with his life—family and work and having fun. Treatments knocked him down, but he always got back up.

I was on my way to see my daughter’s family in Texas the first of July when I got a call from Ralph. “The doctor told me my liver is failing and I’ll be lucky to live the rest of the week,” he said. Well, he made it through that week and about fourteen more on top of that. It wasn’t easy. He was sick a lot, had to be in the hospital off and on for one procedure or another. But he didn’t give up and he didn’t give in.

I’ve walked through the land of cancer with a lot people over more than thirty years of ministry, and some of them were real fighters. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone fight cancer with the courage, faith, and ferocity of Ralph Brewer. On his last doctor’s visit, the doctor said, “Ralph, we can’t give you anymore treatments. We all agree it will make things worse instead of better. It’s like trying to knock down a concrete wall with a baseball bat.” Ralph looked at the doctor and said, “You’d be surprised what I can knock down with a baseball bat.” And they gave him one more treatment. Ralph was one tough fighter. The colorful evangelist Billy Sunday once said this about sin: “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I have a foot. I’ll fight it as long as I have a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I have a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.” That’s the way Ralph fought cancer. And when Ralph breathed his last on Saturday morning, I don’t know who was more exhausted: Ralph or his cancer.

There was a big crowd at the funeral. Ralph had lots of friends. One of the things I loved most about Ralph is that Ralph was Ralph—and he was that all the time. He didn’t try to be somebody else. He didn’t try to be one person in front of this group, and somebody else in front of that group. He was just Ralph—unvarnished, honest, funny, a good insurance man, hard-working, hard-playing, hard-headed, a devoted friend, a devoted dad, authentic, 100% Ralph. And Ralph was a Christian too. He wasn’t the greatest Christian that ever lived. But he loved Jesus. He leaned on Jesus’ mercy and grace for his sins—of which he was deeply aware—and he grew closer and closer to Jesus in the past year (which as his pastor was a real joy to watch.) When I think of Ralph an old Bruce Carroll song comes to mind:

I am wise, I am a fool,
A servant with a yearn to rule,
Good intentions and selfish schemes
A saint who soars on broken wings.

I am shadow, I am light
I am wrong and I am right,
Sometimes shining oh so bright,
Sometimes fading into night.
Lord, you walk with me through shadow and light.

That was pretty much Ralph, and the Lord did walk with Ralph through shadow and through light.

But now the shadows are all gone. Don’t think for a minute that cancer won that battle. Yesterday, Ralph’s cancer was buried in the ground for good—it’s done, it’s over, it can’t do him anymore harm. And what about Ralph? Well, you remember what Jesus said to Martha as they stood next to Lazarus’ grave? “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead yet shall he live. He that lives and believes in me will never die.” Ralph lived and believed in the Lord, and that means that Ralph is alive and well with the Lord today. It may not look like it on the surface, and it doesn’t much feel like it right now in our hearts, but Ralph won that battle with cancer, and he’s taking his victory lap in heaven even now. You know, heaven—that place where cancer can never find its way in.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that I hate cancer. Because of cancer a father had to say goodbye to his son, kids had to say goodbye to their dad, and I and many others had to say goodbye to yet another friend. So go to hell where you belong, Cancer. You might have got your pound of flesh, but Ralph got a ton of life—eternal life. And because God wants to spend eternity with His children, cancer loses, God’s children win, and our good-byes are just for now.

If Only It Was That Easy

According to an AP story from December 28, 2009, scores of New Yorkers and tourists seeking a fresh start for the new year gathered in Times Square to put their bad memories through the shredder at the third annual Good Riddance Day. Participants lined up near the booth where discount theater tickets are sold and pitched their bad memories into an industrial-sized shredder. According the Karen Matthews, people shredded about everything you could imagine: the box score to a losing football game which knocked the New York Giants out of the playoffs, the memory of a counselor on a school field trip who was later featured on America’s Most Wanted, bills, correspondence, memories of ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, and much, much more. But not to worry. If someone brought something which could not be shredded—say a computer or a tin of fattening snacks—a dumpster and a sledgehammer were available them.

People come from near and far for this annual event. The turnout says something about the hunger people have to rid themselves of past mistakes, sins, bad memories, broken hearts, and hurtful relationships. Just smash ‘em with a sledgehammer or put ‘em through a shredder. There! All gone!

If only it was this easy. But it’s not. While there’s much symbolic value in Good Riddance Day, and while it surely feels good for a while, the hurt, the scars, the tough consequences, don’t go away with the swing of a hammer or the push of a button. They linger. They gnaw. They suck the life out of you and steal your joy.

It’s not just what we get rid of that matters; it’s what we embrace in their place that matters more. Jesus told a story about a man that had a demon living in his heart. What a torment that demon was to this poor man! By good fortune, however, the man was able finally to sweep that demons clean—to run it off, to shoo it away, to send it scampering away from his heart. He sure felt better … for a season. But because the man didn’t replace that demon with anything else, the demon came back home to the man’s heart, brought along some friends, and the man was worse in the end than he was in the beginning. See what I mean? It’s not just what we get rid of that matters, it’s what we embrace in their place that matters more.

Could I encourage you on the threshold of a new year to embrace Jesus? He loves you. He forgives you. And He can set up residence in your heart that makes it possible to get rid of your heart-junk once and for all. It’s a process. Jesus does His work over time, but He can fill the void left by the sins, mistakes, and bad decisions that have haunted you for so long. When those demons try to come home, let Jesus answer the door. They won’t stick around for very long.

Getting rid of the junk that weighs you down is never as easy as it seems, but Jesus is the long-term cure. No one does true forgiveness and new beginning better than Jesus. Receive Him. Embrace Him. Trust Him. And this new year could be the best one you’ve ever enjoyed.