January 30, 2018

Be Careful With Your Tongue

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. – Proverbs 18:21

She was in tears. My sweet friend was crushed by the words another person had flung at her. It didn’t matter that the accusations were lies. It didn’t matter that she walked away rather than escalate a ridiculous and hurtful situation. It was days past and she was hurt to the core.

Words have a way of doing that. They are flung out in anger without a thought to the damage they cause. Those words can never be retrieved. They can never be forgotten.

Oh, I know. We forgive. We do that more for ourselves than for the other person. We forgive so we can move on without the baggage of yesterday. But the scars remain. They change the very foundation of who we are. If we let them.

We reminded my dear friend that she is lovely and kind. We told her again that she is a child of the King. She is treasured and loved. We hugged her and prayed over her. We – this group of friends who cherish her – sought to replace the hurtful words with truth.

I don’t know what caused the family rift. Neither does my friend. She’s tried repeatedly to heal it but some people just need to feed their ugliness with lies. They strike out at someone else, blaming others for a mess they caused. But lies don’t ever become truth, no matter how many times they are repeated.

Our pastor talked about what a sore loser Satan is. The demon constantly seeks to attack us at our core. He wants you to believe lies, to believe that God has abandoned you, to believe that maybe it really is all your fault.

Take a deep breath. Pull out your Bible.  Get down on your knees. Surround yourself with people who love you and love Jesus too. Fill your heart with truth.

We can allow the tongue, the words, of others to destroy us. Or we can allow the tongues of others to build us up.

The reverse is true as well. How often do you measure your words before they are spoken? How often do you hold your tongue rather than lash out in anger? How often do you choose to take your complaints to God first, before you’ve hashed it all out with others?

We are just so casual with our opinions. We are so quick to judge. We expect to say whatever we want without consequences. But there are consequences. Some words forever damage or destroy relationships we may one day wish we’d kept.

I don’t know what the future holds for my friend. This spiteful person is someone she has to deal with for now. She is strong. She is amazing. I know that she will continue to hold her own tongue and trust God to sort it all.

He does that, you know. God works all situations to our good and His glory if we’ll just trust Him to handle it.

January 25, 2018

Where Is Jesus?

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. – Proverbs 18:2

As I write this, our government has shut down. Not really, of course. It’s just that Congress is having yet another fuss and nobody is getting paid. Except for Congress. They always get paid.

Everyone has an opinion. Few people have even tried to understand the issues. It’s not a Republican or Democrat issue. It’s not an “us” vs. “them” type of issue. It’s a people issue. It’s also an economic issue. But, for Congress and the White House, it’s a power issue. And that is the root of the problem.

Battle lines have been drawn. Hateful words and finger pointing make all the news reports. Except no one really seems to care about the people who will suffer. There are those who won’t be paid. And there are those who might be deported from the only country they have ever known.

Where is Jesus in all this? Does He live in the hearts of those who would exile those who don’t have proper documentation? Is He evident in the lives of those who place politics above the financial security of government workers, including our military?

The truth is Jesus isn’t present at all. He isn’t present in the lives of those who spew hatred on Facebook. He isn’t evident in the hearts of those who think with their pocketbooks rather than their faith.

I don’t have any answers. That might surprise you. I know that Jesus wouldn’t deport people who grew up in this country because of the mistakes of their parents. He would grant them grace and a pardon. And I know Jesus would pay people the fair wages they had earned.

And I believe above all else that Jesus would tear apart the members of Congress for their political ploys. He wouldn’t care which political party they belonged to. I would love to see our Savior marching in, throwing aside desks and demanding that the members rule in love, with integrity and compassion.

Those things left long ago. Now it’s all about political agendas and power. Why should Congress solve the budget issues? Really, it doesn’t impact them. They don’t pay into Social Security. They have their own health care system. They have a cushy retirement with very few years on the job. They have no incentives to fix the issues facing the rest of us.

We the people are so split that we can’t rise up to change Congress. We the people are so busy fighting each other that we can’t collectively remind Congress that it works for us, not the other way around.

I don’t know how this is all going to end. It’s just so sad. 

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Cherish True Friendship

"A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." -- Proverbs 18:24

What is a friend? Who is a friend? Many of us know a great many people. We know people at church and at work. We know neighbors and old classmates. We know people at the supermarket and our favorite restaurant. We know a lot of people.

Some of these people we call friends. "My friend from work," we say. Or "I got together with a bunch of my church friends," we tell our neighbor. They are friends of one sort, I suppose. We see them frequently. We have things in common. We laugh and talk and share. Or at least we do until something changes. We move to another church or job or neighborhood. Our interests carry us in a different direction. And those "friends" are just baggage that got left behind.

Sounds cruel, doesn't it? I don't mean it to be. It's just that sometimes I think we use the world friend a little loosely. We refer to people we know as friends whether we truly think of them in that way or not. Then something happens and it kind of sorts everything out for us.

If a person is truly a friend, a different job won't change that. Getting together might be a little more challenging but it still will happen. Same with a different church or neighborhood. Friends make time for each other. Acquaintances just drift apart. They may still like each other but they don't spend time together.

The same is true for wealth and poverty. In Provers 19:4, Solomon tells us, "Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man's friend deserts him." Yeah, you want to see "friends" come out of the woodwork? Have a windfall of cash. People will emerge from everywhere to see if they can get a piece of your good fortune. On the other side, want to see "friends" depart quickly? Experience a job loss or other economic disaster. Most won't even know your name, much less your phone number.

Friends are people who are there no matter what. You know that. There are some people you would drop everything for, give any amount to help, would stand by in good and bad times. Those people are friends. It doesn't make the others less enjoyable. They're fun to be around and have around. The trouble comes when we confuse the two. We spend so much time with the shallow folks who inhabit our lives, that we don't nurture the people who are close to our hearts.

Friends are awesome people to have around. Cherish them. Make time for them. Hold them close and be the best friend you can be to them. They are precious gifts from God. Don't ever, ever take them for granted.