Changing the Future

September 20, 2017September 20, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 3 Comments

Our past meets our future in this place we call the present.

The words, I wrote a few years ago. They still rattle me every time I re-read them.

Well? Why wouldn’t they? The concept is enough to mess with anyone’s brain. Momentarily, at least.

We like to keep things in boxes. Neat. Logical. With labels to identify the contents.

Some of us are more interested in keeping things in boxes than others. I freely admit it.

“Go to the store with me, will you?”

The Lovely Lady stood at the door, notebook in hand and ready to buy groceries for the week. I, wise husband that I’ve become in nearly forty years of practice, quickly agreed. Cheerfully.

There is a hierarchy at the grocery store. It’s not complicated. She puts things in the cart and marks them off her list.

I push the cart. That’s it—just push the cart.

Oh, wait. There is one other thing I do.

I sort the items in the cart.

Don’t make that face! You’re rolling your eyes too, aren’t you?

That’s just what she does when I start sorting. Well—it’s what she used to do when I started. She’s come to expect it now.

If there were boxes in the cart, I’d use them. There aren’t, so imaginary quadrants must suffice.

Fresh veggies go at the back of the cart, heaviest on the bottom (potatoes will smash bananas). The Lovely Lady wants to keep me around (for sorting things, I suppose) as long as possible, so there are more fresh veggies than anything else.

From there, logic rules. Canned goods go in one section, boxed in another. All the refrigerated items stay together. It keeps them colder; I’m sure it does.

Fragile items, such as chips (not nearly as many of these as there should be) and eggs, go in the flip down compartment that once served to corral our children.

It’s a good system. I like it.

The problem comes when we get to the checkout counter. I am careful—fanatical, some might say—about keeping the items in the same quadrants as they progress to the checker. What would they think of me if I sent the milk down the conveyor belt beside the flour?

And, now we come to it. The fly in the ointment, so to speak. The bee in my bonnet, if you will.

The checker, somehow oblivious—utterly—to my care and prudence, callously snatches each item from the belt, swiping it past the scanner and tosses it, willy-nilly, into the empty, waiting cart beside her station.

Boxes are jumbled at angles with cans. Potatoes smother celery and toilet paper. The milk, heavy enough to be placed on the bottom of the cart instead of tossed, is at the front of the conveyance while the meat is at the back, both warming much too fast for my overloaded sense of order.

Maybe we should move on. Shall we?

Our past meets our future in this place we call the present.

Past meets future in this place called the present. Share on X

I’m not obsessive-compulsive about everything in life. Still, I have, for many years, considered what I would like to see when I look back over my life on that last day. To that end, I have attempted to keep a semblance of order in how I have lived.

What was it Mr. Shakespeare said? What’s past is prologue was the phrase, I believe. The meaning is clear.

What we have done in the past leads us, without fail, into the future. The nano-second of the present, a mere blink of the eye, will forever affect what is to come.

My trip through the grocery is the past. Plans, all laid carefully, were executed flawlessly.

All it took was just seconds—an instant in which I lost control—and the present had altered the future catastrophically.

Hmmm. I think perhaps—for this example anyway—one could call that hyperbole.

Regardless, the point is clear enough, is it not?

There’s an old maxim, not quite in line with Scripture, but still it comes to mind. It says the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I think, if the road to hell is paved with them, the road to heaven is, at least, littered with them.

We know what the road to heaven is paved with; it’s paved with the grace of our loving Savior.

It is specifically because of His great love for us that I want to be able to look back and know I have journeyed in a faithful way, leaving a clear record for those who walk the way after me.

But, in the most crucial moments, it all gets jumbled and messed up in a colossal manner.

My past is introduced to my future with moments I am ashamed of. Again and again.

Surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), I’m chagrined. Mortified.

I’m a failure.

But then, I look into those faces, the witnesses I mean. For one or two who are named, there is no record of failure. The rest of them? Failures, every one!

Every one.

Failures who fell flat on their faces. Liars, con men, drunks, womanizers, bad parents, murderers even.

But, they got up (or were picked up). They took the next step. And the next one.

I can do that. I’m still breathing.

I think it’s time to be walking again.

That way. Following His lead.

The future is still waiting.

I can’t change the past.

The next moment will be the present.

Here it comes.

Ready?

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
(Sir Winston Churchill ~ British Prime Minister ~ 1974-1965)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
(Hebrews 12:1 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

Turning the Screws

September 11, 2017September 11, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

It’s not like I’m a light weight.

In pounds, I mean. And yet, all it takes is the turn of a screw and I’m carried away.

All the way to forty years ago, I’m dragged back. Nineteen seventy-seven. And all I did was insert the blade of the Craftsman screwdriver into the slot and turned. Just a trivial flat-head screw.

The facelift on this old house has been a challenge. Nearly every new task has loomed before my spirit in brazen defiance. Several have very nearly defeated me.

In my deepest bouts of self-doubt during each of these tasks, I find myself turning aside for a few moments, or an hour, or even a day. I abandon the difficult and unfamiliar to spend some time doing the easy things—the repetitive little chores which must eventually be done, but require no great amount of knowledge or resolve.

I remove knobs or door stops. Here, a hinge needs to be replaced. There, a brace. Old screws are removed, the item repaired or replaced, and reattached, either with the same screws or new ones.

Almost without exception, the items I remove are held in place with slotted screws—the kind which require a flat-head driver to manipulate them.

I had one of those moments today. Overwhelmed by the mental gymnastics required to make a repair to an old section of the ceiling, I decided instead to install that cabinet door latch we had purchased a couple of weeks ago. Grabbing the Phillips-head screwdriver, I knelt in front of the cabinet and bent my head to peer inside the opening.

The tool I held was useless for the task at hand. You might think I’d be frustrated, but that wasn’t the case.

Smiling, I made my way back to the tool shelf in the utility room, selecting my favorite flathead screwdriver from the jumble of hammers, wrenches, drill bits, and pliers. Returning to the cabinet, I removed the old, broken part without a hitch.

It was his house, you know.

Always. Always, the white-haired man installed flathead screws if he had a choice. I met him forty years ago, and it was never any different.

Even before I went to work for him full-time in the music store, I helped out if he had need of an extra pair of hands when I happened to be loitering about. I loitered about quite often in those days.

That first time (the place I was carried back to), it was a piano bench—the kind with a storage compartment concealed under a hinged top.

The old fellow—in his late fifties by that time (anyone over forty was old to nineteen-year-old me)—knelt beside one end of the bench plying a Phillips-head screwdriver, not quietly.

“Those things are terrible! Give me a slotted-head screw any day. I don’t know why anybody thought a Phillips was a good idea.”

He looked over at me and grinned.

“I mean the Phillips-head screw and driver; not you and your family.”

Even when he was frustrated, the jokester in him wouldn’t be repressed.

We replaced every screw in those hinges with slotted-head screws when it was buttoned up, as he called it—just in case he ever had to work on that bench again.

In all the years I worked with that white-haired man who would become my father-in-law, I never knew him to have a Phillips screwdriver that wasn’t rounded off or stripped completely.

He did the same thing to many of the screws he attempted to remove with the damaged tools.

Did you know that most screws in use today are Phillips-head screws? The crosshead pattern, paired with the correct size driver, gives the person driving the screw greater turning power and a more secure seat for the tool.

Slot-head screwdrivers have—well—slots, places the driver can slide out of either side if it’s not held exactly flat and perpendicular to the screw.

It took me a year or two to figure out the old man’s problem with the new-fangled screws (they were patented in 1936) he fought with constantly.

He was using the wrong tool.

Oh, he used a Phillips-head screwdriver to drive Phillips-head screws, but there are, in fact, five different sizes of the tool. Five graduated crosshead shaped drivers, which fit twenty-four different sizes of screws.

That’s right. Five tools. For twenty-four sizes of screws. No wonder his drivers were always mangled.

I’m still smiling at the memory I have stored away. But, I’m wondering if there is something more to be learned here than not being set in one’s ways? I think there is.

I find myself these days reading a lot. As a writer, it’s a practical way to learn new techniques and different styles in writing. As an aging man, it can be a frustrating discouragement.

Everywhere I look, I see formulas. You know—if you do A, B, and C, the result will be D.

I’ve tried doing A, B, and C. The result is categorically not D.

It never has been. It never will be D, no matter how many times I repeat the process.

I don’t fit their formula.

I notice now that many packages which once stated one size fits all have been amended to state one size fits most. I’m pretty sure even that is an exaggeration.

No one needs me to affirm that we are all different. One look at me (and possibly yourself) will confirm that some of us are, indeed, quite odd.

One size doesn’t fit all—or even most.

Our Creator made us to be the individuals we are, all part of the same human race, but all marching to different rhythms. We all have different sized dreams.

God gives us all different sized dreams. One size doesn't fit all. Share on X

He knows each one of us—knows exactly what drives us—knows how we’ve been uniquely gifted to achieve His purpose.

Every one of us who will come to Him does so in the same way, by way of the cross. From there, His Spirit is the driving force, perfectly proportioned for our life’s journey.

The apostle who wrote letters had a clear, personal understanding because of his own experience. His assurance was that God’s grace was enough.

Enough—specifically for him. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This is important.

God’s grace fits us—each one of us.

God's grace fits us—each one of us. Share on X

His grace is enough for me. It’s enough for you. Whatever we’ve done, wherever we’ve been, His grace fits our precise need.

Not one individual is excluded.

He doesn’t stop there. From the pen of the same author comes the declaration of infinitely more. (Ephesians 3:20)

Without limitation.

We come, every one of us by way of the cross, to find His grace enough and His provision more than we could ever ask of Him.

Can I say it? I think I will.

The Right Tool for the right job.

It fits.

It always has.

Every time.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
(Psalm 139:13,14 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

Integrity. Again.

September 5, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

It was embarrassing. To me, anyway.

I don’t suppose anyone else noticed it. Even if they had, they wouldn’t have mentioned it.

The pastor was talking. Something about things the disciples misunderstood about Jesus.

I think that’s what it was. I was paying attention. I was.

But, looking down as he spoke, I noticed them. The threads. The ones hanging from the hem on the right sleeve of my shirt. It wasn’t just one or two, either.

The whole edge of the sleeve was frayed, with white strings dangling like the fringe around the shade of grandma’s old table lamp.

I don’t remember what the pastor said now. I do remember looking quickly from my right arm to the left, only to find more frayed edges.

It is one of my favorite short-sleeved shirts, but I will never be seen in it again. Years of wear, of putting on and taking off, of raising my hands in joyful triumph and of shaking my fists in angry frustration, have taken their toll on the woven cloth and left it weak and fragile.

It has lost its integrity.

No longer do the crisscrossed threads, woven over and under, keep their place. No longer is there a sharp crease at the edge of the sleeve, a clear boundary between fabric and skin.

It has lost its integrity.

I stealthily ran my finger around the circumference of each sleeve, to try and hide the errant threads. Pulling the sleeves tight against my biceps, I hoped no one would notice.

They may have. Or not. It doesn’t matter.

The Lovely Lady will remove the buttons, tossing them into a jar—why, I’m not sure— and the once-favored garment will find itself in the trash bin, come trash pickup day.

Well? I can’t very well go around in a shirt with no integrity, now can I?

When last I wrote, it was scars. Today, a lack of integrity. Both hidden. Both needing to be exposed to the light of day.

They are not the same—scars and lost integrity. Somehow though, we punish folks for both, blaming the injured as much as we do the dishonest.

But, I want to make this clear—crystal clear: Grace suffices for both.

Grace heals our scars, restoring our damaged spirits and renewing our joy.

Grace makes new the fabric of our broken lives, restoring integrity and revitalizing our resolve.

Because of grace, we can journey on. In His redemption, we are made new, neither wounded nor dishonorable.

His offer is for a garment with integrity and without stain. Ours—the price paid completely by our Redeemer. (Revelation 3:18)

No more embarrassment.

No more being tossed aside.

He doesn’t cut off the buttons and throw away the worn out fabric.

He doesn't cut off the buttons and throw away the worn out fabric. Share on X

Grace makes new.

Integrity.

Again.

In great matters, men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are.
(Gamaliel Bradford ~ American biographer ~ 1863-1932)

May integrity and honesty protect me,
for I put my hope in you.
(Psalm 25:21 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

The Lawnmower You Gave Me

July 28, 2017July 28, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 4 Comments

I’ve never used a riding mower before. I never had a lawn big enough to need one.

For most of my life, since I was nine or ten, I’ve pushed a mower to get the grass to a manageable length. Back and forth, step after plodding step. Leaning forward, hands spread across the push handle, row follows row until the task is completed.

It has always been a hot, tedious chore.

I have always been careful to say so too, after each session. The Lovely Lady usually has a cold drink ready for me when I’m done and she stands there smiling as I complain.

The yard I mow now is done with a riding mower. I sit down to do the job. No more do I take step after step while following the roaring lawn implement. I let the clutch out and the machine carries itself (and me) back and forth across the expanse of green, chewing up and spitting out all that exceeds the height I want to see when I’m finished.

What could be better? Like day and night, the two methods are. Or, are they?

Somehow, she still gets the same complaint from me at the end of the afternoon.

It’s a hot, tedious chore. And yes. I tell her so.

…and that seat just beats me up as it throws me from side to side over the uneven ground…

She smiles and hands me my cold water.

As I think about it, the red-headed lady who hands me my water is replaced—in my inner sight, that is—by another red-headed lady I loved—the red-headed lady who raised me.

She just looks up from her crocheting as she sits in her rocker and reminds me that I’ve always complained. Always.

You’d complain if they hung you with a new rope.

I didn’t ask. Sometimes, it’s just better to work things out on your own. Maybe it had something to do with that other thing she always said about ropes.

Give you enough rope and you’ll hang yourself.

Nope. No help there, either.

In time, though, I think I’ve worked out the new rope saying. Simply put, it means we complain about the most absurd things at the most inappropriate moments. It’s an absurd statement meant to point a spotlight at an absurd action.

The red-headed lady (the one who raised me) was right. I do complain about ridiculous things when, in fact, they are the very things for which I should be grateful.

Leftovers again? Again?

Why are they coming to visit tonight?

I just bought gasoline for this thing last week!

If I have leftovers, I have plenty to eat. More than plenty.

When they come to visit again, be it friends, or grandchildren, or even the in-laws, I have companionship—a wondrous gift ill-suited for disdain of any sort.

If I need to purchase gasoline again, I have had need of a vehicle and am blessed to have access to one—a luxury most in this world do not have.

I’m not preaching. I’m not.

Still, I am ashamed of myself, but I think I’m not alone.

It is some comfort to not be the only one. Really, I think if I didn’t complain, then I might be the only one. From the beginning, humans have complained.

The woman you gave me…the complaint Adam made, implying that if God had only had better sense than to burden him with Eve, everything could have continued as it was. (Genesis 3:12)

We’ve complained ever since.

The Children of Israel in the desert did it, again and again. Moses did, too.

Elijah hid in the mountains after an astounding victory and trotted out his accomplishments while complaining that He hadn’t been treated very well.

Jonah preached a better sermon than Billy Graham could ever hope for, with appropriate accompanying results, yet he complained that God allowed the repentant sinners to live.

It wasn’t only the men. Sarah suggested Abraham should take her servant as a surrogate mother, but then complained about the result of that relationship—so much so that her dutiful husband drove the child and his mother into the desert to die.

Martha complained that her sister was a slacker, leaving her to do all the important work.

I’m not the only one. But, here’s the thing.

I don’t want to be one at all.

Besides the infamous squeaky wheel, I see no lasting benefit to complaining.

It’s not what I want to be remembered for. And, that’s just what the Apostle, my namesake, reminded the good folk at Philippi of—that they were the focus of their generation’s scrutiny.

Everything—every single thing—you do should be done without complaining or grumbling. Live exemplary lives, with nothing to criticize. You are in full sight of the world, blazing like stars in the sky as you walk daily in the middle of sin-filled and perverse communities. (Philippians 2:14-15)

It’s not just complaining about the inconveniences of life he’s talking about, although given the nature of the creature, that seems likely enough.

Implied is the directive that we shouldn’t mutter against the folks around us, both followers of Christ and non-believers.

Selah.

Complaining is proof of an ungrateful heart. It is evidence of an unforgiving spirit.

In short, it shows a heart unchanged by grace and love.

Complaining shows a heart unchanged by grace and love. Share on X

My heart. Ungrateful. Unforgiving.

Unbowed.

I would not have it so.

I want to shine. Like a star on the horizon, I want to blaze clearly and distinctly.

I think I’ll start by thanking the Lovely Lady for the cold water. Perhaps the ride on the mower wasn’t as rough as all that, either.

All good gifts come from above.

It’s hard to complain when I’m saying thank you.

I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
(Jane Wagner ~ American writer/director)

Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
(Philippians 4:5,6 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

Treasure in the Dumpster

July 4, 2017July 4, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

I usually punch the snooze button on my alarm once—maybe twice. Okay. Three times.

Not today.

The noises outside my second-story window had been going for awhile. You know how sounds creep into your slumber, disturbing your dreams, especially in the moments just before the alarm begins to sound.

As I reached for the alarm button, a clatter from the dumpster reached my ear.

I got up.

I stood at my upstairs bedroom window and watched the shirtless man for some time. The dumpster had been almost full—or so I had thought.

He had stirred through the entire container, moving the larger items from the top to the bottom and around the sides. By the time I was aware of his presence, he was standing on the bottom of the dumpster, just like Moses in the middle of the Red Sea, with the mountains of debris piled up on either side.

Items (my trash!) he wanted to keep were carefully balanced around the edges of the steel container.

I decided I wouldn’t interfere with the man’s treasure hunt. I hadn’t wanted the items. Why should I keep him from taking whatever he thought he could use or profit from?

Treasures from trash.

The concept hasn’t left my head all day.

Trash. Treasures.

It’s nothing new. We don’t even have to say the entire maxim and most will finish the thought. One man’s trash. . .

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

The underlying premise is that one is no better than the other.

I have no intention of demeaning the homeless man foraging in my dumpster. He is doing what he knows to do to provide for himself.

Additionally, I have no desire to point a finger at any person, comparing them to others for the reader to make a judgment of character.

It’s just that I know something of dumpster diving.

I don’t know quite how to put it. Well, yes, I do. It won’t make some people happy.

The truth is like that.

I know two things about looking for treasures in the trash bin:

1. Even if useful items may sometimes be found in the trash, most of the time, there’s nothing but trash to be found.

2. If one digs for treasures in the trash long enough, eventually that person begins to forget that it’s trash they’re digging through.

It will most likely become evident soon—if it hasn’t already occurred to the reader—that I’m not really that concerned with dumpsters and the practice of digging through the ubiquitous receptacles.

There are some who spend their lives dredging through the garbage. Their lives and hearts are filled with the stench.

And still, they dive in.

A friend, many years ago, regaled me with the story of his sister-in-law and her experience at the local casino.

The first time—the very first time—she entered the casino, against her better judgment and at the urging of her friends, she won a large sum of money while gambling.

Willingly, eagerly, she returned to the gaudy, glitzy place again and again, certain she would find treasure once more at its tables. She never did. Even if she had, the losses could never have been surpassed by her gains.

There was never treasure to be found there—never more than false promises and empty hopes.

Still trash.

As to the second point, I can’t help but think of the Tolkien character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. He had lived in the dark and stinking places of the world for so long that when he, starving and weak, was offered the delicate cake of the elves’ lembas, he choked on it and called it ashes.

Ashes.

As I write this, in the wee hours of the night, the sun will be rising soon on another Independence Day in the United States. I’m saddened by what I see in the hearts of many in our country, even in my little town, and I have to wonder, what do we have to celebrate this July 4th?

We, and I include most folks I know—Christians and otherwise, liberals and conservatives, politically active and indifferent—seem to revel in the trash pile. We delight in all that is negative and hateful, dredging it up again and again, in whatever form we find it in the garbage container, only to throw it in the faces of our used-to-be friends and acquaintances.

It almost seems we believe this is how we were meant to live.

It wasn’t.

It isn’t.

In our interactions with others, we must—absolutely must—rise above the garbage and restore community. If we don’t, our country is lost, I fear.

And yet, there is an even more essential element to this conversation.

The Teacher, imploring His followers to set their affections on more important things, warned against the garbage.

Where the source of your treasure is located, your heart by nature will turn to. (Matthew 6:21)

If we do things the way we’ve always done them, the result will always be the same.

Every time.

Soon after that astounding Day of Pentecost, the disciples Peter and John were going to the temple to worship. A lame man sat there, in the place he had sat every day for as long as he could remember. It was all he knew, this detestable begging for his living. And yet, as the two men passed him, he looked at them, expecting nothing more than a few pennies to extend his unhappy misery an hour or two more.

Peter looked at him and said, “It’s time you stopped dumpster diving.”

Well, that’s not really what he said. What he told the lame man was that they had no money. I assume the disappointed man would have turned his eyes toward the next party approaching. Well? He wasn’t going to get what he needed here. Why shouldn’t he?

We have no silver, nor do we have any gold. Here’s the thing: What we do have, we’re going to give to you. Get up. Walk with us into the temple to worship. (Acts 3:6)

You know, there’s no treasure in any dumpster worth more than what God offers every single one of us.

His Grace and mercy will lift us out of whatever garbage receptacle we’ve been digging through to find our worth.

His love reaches down right where we’re searching, whether ankle deep or neck deep in refuse.

He sets us in higher places.

He sets us in higher places. Share on X

Higher.

It’s time to stop hoarding trash that looks like treasure to us.

It’s time to begin storing away the real thing.

In a place it will be safe.

In a place where we’ll be safe.

It’s time.

I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on caviar.
(Beverly Sills ~ American opera singer ~ 1929-2007)

Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?
Why pay for food that does you no good?
Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.
You will enjoy the finest food.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
    “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so my ways are higher than your ways
    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
(Isaiah 55:2, 8-9 ~ NLT)

Grace Comes Quietly

June 1, 2017June 1, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 6 Comments

I can’t remember when I’ve been more frustrated.

I like things to be done in a logical manner. When rules are followed, all is right with the world.

Or, is it?

My morning—as truth be told, have many other mornings over the last couple of months—was spent in dealing with one single company. The company promises to make life easier for me as the owner of a website.

The frustrating thing is, they aren’t. Making life easier for me, that is.

From the beginning, the hoops have been held in front of me and I have dutifully jumped through them. I like order and calm, you see. My assumption, when this journey started, was that by jumping through the hoops, I would achieve the goal.

Rules followed? Goal achieved. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

The only thing jumping through the hoops has achieved in my case is the presentation of more hoops. Today, I would jump through what I believe to be the last hoop.

Well, really, the last hoops.

Muttering the entire time, I collected all the information the company required, and driving the well-traveled road to my bank, found a helpful young lady who was in possession of a legal stamp which proclaimed her to be a notary public.

I sat at her desk, proffering document after document to prove to the company that I am who I say I am. She dutifully stamped the copies and, watching me sign the final affidavit required, asked me if I was sure I was done.

I want to be done. I wish this were the end of this particular journey.

I’m not convinced it is. There will be more hoops to be jumped through—more rules with which to comply.

There always are.

While sitting at the nice young lady’s desk, I needed to separate a couple of pages of a document which were held together with a tiny staple. I pulled it out with my fingernail. She quietly mentioned that she had a staple remover, but I persisted in my quest without her help.

The tiny staple sat on her desk for a few seconds, only to find its way into my hand as I waited for her to make copies. I bent it back into the shape it had been in the paper. Then I bent it in half from that. Fidgeting still, I bent it again.

By the time my visit to the bank was completed, the staple was just a dot of crumpled metal in my hands. I would have thrown it away, but the trash can was behind the nice lady’s desk. I didn’t reach past her to toss it in.

I carried the tiny thing out with me. I could toss it into the dirt under a tree outside.

I didn’t.

Good people don’t throw trash on the ground. I would toss it into the tray in my pickup.

I didn’t.

The same thought came to me as I considered the deed. Someone would have to pick that up.

All the way home I held the tiny piece of metal between my fingers, its sharp ends and bent edges uncomfortable on my skin. Not until I walked through my door and into the kitchen, did I release the minuscule dot from my hand into the trash can under the sink.

Even then, I wondered if it could have been put in the recycle bin.

I hear the words now.

What a strange thing to write about!

What a stupid thing to do!

What a ridiculous amount of energy wasted for nothing!

Nothing!

Did I forget to tell about the lady who followed me out the door? I did, didn’t I?

I walked out the door of the bank, carrying my final (or not) hoop to be jumped through in one hand and the pesky little staple in the other. Focused on the little inconveniences of the day, I didn’t realize that a lady carrying her young child was close behind me.

Yep. I let the door close right in her face.

And the Teacher said to the religious leaders gathered there, calling them blind guides: You strain the gnats out of your drink, and satisfied with the result, swallow a camel instead. (Matthew 23:24)

I left the lady and her child to deal with the door on their own. I had more important things on my mind.

I carried my little staple all the way home. All the way.

Later this afternoon, as I sat at a traffic signal, I felt that old familiar surge of pride as I watched the driver of the car ahead toss the still-smoking filter end of a cigarette out on the pavement.

I’m better than that one!

No. I’m not.

I’m not.

If I could (which I can’t) follow the law in every facet, save one—if I only mess up one tiny rule—I have still broken the law. (James 2:10)

Two things I know about the law. Two things.

One, it is not possible for me to jump through every hoop without getting something wrong.

Two, pride and comparisons are always—without fail—the result of my little successes in keeping the rules. When I succeed, I think I am better than those who fall short in the same attempt.

Did I say there were two things I knew? I should have said there were three. The third is the most important.

Grace trumps law. Every time.

The nice lady at the bank offered me grace today. Quietly she said the words.

I have a staple remover.

Such a simple offer.

I just needed to give up my claim to the tiny metal staple.

Grace comes quietly.

Quietly.

Grace comes quietly. Quietly. And, it waits for us to respond. Share on X

It waits for us to respond.

I think I don’t want to carry around the little staples anymore.

I’m not all that good at hoops either.

Grace waits.

For us, it waits.

Grace puts its hand on the boasting mouth and shuts it once for all.
(Charles Haddon Spurgeon ~ English evangelist ~ 1834-1892)

Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
(Romans 6:14 ~ NLT)

Sidewalks to Nowhere

May 16, 2017May 16, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 3 Comments

Well, that’s it. We’ll head down to City Hall and pay our fine now. After that, we’re done. The new owner can move in tomorrow.

I grinned at the builder’s words, thinking he meant that fees still needed to be paid—for inspections or permits, possibly. Then, looking into his serious eyes and noticing his chin shaking back and forth, I realized he was serious.

A fine? Why would you have to pay a fine after building this beautiful new house?

With a wry chuckle, the man with the sun-bleached blonde hair explained.

Our little town, a forward-looking village of sixteen thousand residents, has a requirement in the building code which is intended to make all of the roadways friendly to pedestrians. Every new home built must include a sidewalk across the front, the specifications of which may be found in the city code, and the cost of which may be passed on to the new homeowner.

It’s a good idea. I like it. Except . . .

Well? What’s the problem?

Why wouldn’t the man just have the forms prepared and lay a sidewalk at the same time the big truck backed up to dump the liquid concrete for the driveway? Another hour or two; it would have taken no more.

I stood there on the side of the little cul-de-sac, looking around the neighborhood, and I laughed out loud.

It is an old neighborhood. The little craftsman bungalow just finished next door is almost certain to be the last house ever built on the street. The last one.

Not one of the other houses has a sidewalk in front of it. They never will.

There is no need. In this neighborhood, folks walk across lawns to the house next door, or three doors over, leaning over fences to talk with anyone sitting on a patio, or in their garden, or trimming the shrubbery.

If they’re going farther, they cross the pavement at long angles, perhaps even walking down the middle of the street. Nobody will run them down. The turnaround is just a few feet up ahead; why would anyone be going that fast?

He’s going to pay a fine of two thousand five hundred dollars.

Rules are rules.

One complies or they pay the price.

I don’t understand. A segment of sidewalk must be laid in a neighborhood which will never have other segments of sidewalk to join it.

By itself, a sidewalk to nowhere will lie unused. It will still require care. Weeds will eventually grow in the expansion cracks filled with dirt that no schoolchild returning home will ever kick out. If the homeowner doesn’t run a trimmer religiously along both edges, the lawn will inevitably cover it.

In the end, it will lie, cracked and useless, for all the world to laugh at the folly which required its construction in the first place.

The builder will pay the fine.

We don’t believe in sidewalks to nowhere. We wouldn’t think of making useless rules that are ultimately costly and purposeless.

No one I know would ever make someone pay the price for not complying with the book of rules.

Or, would we?

Adamant, that’s what the city inspector will be. Unmovable. Unyielding.

Set in stone. It’s what adamant means. Like a diamond, harder than anything around it.

Adamant. Too often, it’s what we are.

Unmovable. Unyielding. Too often it's what we are. Share on X

It’s why we still build sidewalks to nowhere.

The Stone we should be building on, the one the other builders and their inspectors rejected? (Matthew 21:42)

Turns out, He’s made of love—flexible, movable love.

Love that bends over backward to reach out to its neighbors. In ways the rule makers and enforcers can’t possibly understand, love reaches every time.

Every time.

And, He wants us to be the same.

It’s the law we live under, the law of love. (Romans 13:8)

It’s time to stop building sidewalks to nowhere. Even the old builder knows that.

Love reaches.

Every time.

Sometimes it pays the price first.

Love reaches. Every time. Sometimes it pays the price first. Share on X

“Yes,” said Jesus, “what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.”
(Luke 11:46 ~ NLT)

He’s a real nowhere man,
sitting in his nowhere land;
Making all his nowhere plans
For nobody.
(Nowhere Man~ McCartney/Lennon ~ British singer/songwriters)

Parenthesis Closed

February 7, 2017February 7, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 4 Comments

Three of these things belong together.
Three of these things are kind of the same.

From childhood, we learn it. Things that are similar belong together. Even educational television programs teach the concept. Things that do their own thing don’t belong.

From our youth, we have followed the theory.

Somehow, we misunderstood the idea. With disastrous results, we misunderstood, thinking it could mean people, when it only meant things.

A subset.

That was the word he used. Subset.

It was the night of the Super Bowl. I don’t live for sports, but it seemed to be the thing to do, so I watched the game. Exciting action. Really.

I didn’t watch the halftime of the game. I had work that needed to be done before I went to bed that night. I said as much. But, I also made the mistake of posting a comment that seemed to denigrate the halftime entertainment. It was intended to be a comment about the hype leading up to the act, but several took it as criticism of the entertainer herself. And, as could be expected, there were a few folk who echoed the inferred slight.

Then one friend, who held a different viewpoint, entered the conversation. Not understanding, nor agreeing with, the direction the comments had taken, he suggested that I and my other friends were an interesting subset of our society.

We’re still friends. He didn’t mean it to be an insult and said so, apologizing. I believe him. He is my friend.

And yet, I’m concerned.

A subset?

Really?

What if he’s right?

The big thing in our culture right now is to find your tribe. Writers. Artists. Musicians. Professionals. Gamers.

Like the folks in the television bar, Cheers, we want to be where everybody knows our name.

So we really are subsets. We gather in groups where we have things in common. We don’t waste time on those who don’t fit the pattern.

Oh, I know the gurus insisting we need a tribe add the thought that we need diversity, but what they mean is we’ll accept diversity in non-essential aspects. Just as long as folks pass the litmus tests for the really important things we stand for.

Tribes. Subsets.

I remember learning a concept when I was very young. It was one of the most effective principles in winning any game.

Centuries old, the phrase was known before the time of Christ.

Divide et impera. Divide and rule. Commonly, we quote it as Divide and conquer.

The concept assumes the invading enemy, the power that intends to rule, will divide those it has come to war against.

In our day, we who claim to be followers of Christ, have made it our duty—yes, our duty—to do the deed for the enemy ourselves.

Subsets. Closed.

Liberal believers write oceans of words condemning the evangelical church to hell for abandoning the poor and downtrodden. Conservative believers publish scathing papers trashing anyone who could consider homosexuals as part of the Body, and denying the possibility of salvation to anyone who would support abortion.

Tribes. Locked in battle.

I have asked the question before, thinking about a different situation, but I ask it again now: Does God cry?

Do you suppose this would be enough to bring tears to His eyes? Is He weeping over us today, as His Son did over Jerusalem? (Luke 19:41)

I’m no mathematician. I don’t understand sets and subsets.

This I do know: God never closed the equation.

If X = (Recipient of God’s grace), then X = (Anyone

Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life. (Revel ation 22:17b)

It may be bad mathematics, but it is seriously good grace.

It may be bad mathematics, but it is seriously good grace. Share on X

Every tribe. Every nation. Every language. Every people group. (Revelation 7:9)

All of these things belong together…

What a gathering!

It’s time to break out of our subsets.

Who’s going over the wall with me?

I am in them and You are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent me and that You love them as much as You love me.
(John 17:23 ~ NLT)

In real life, I assure, there is no such thing as algebra.
(Fran Lebowitz ~ American author/public speaker)

God Eavesdrops

August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 4 Comments

I wonder sometimes if God listens in more to our normal conversations than He does to our prayers.

You too?

It happened tonight.

Twenty minutes prior, as the Lovely Lady and I worked together on a late-night project at the music store, I had—albeit, unknowingly—laid down the challenge. We were discussing a transaction which had taken place earlier in the day.

I told her about a minor mix-up in the terms of a trade I was making and then mentioned to her that I had compensated the customer with some free merchandise.

She looked at me, a little surprised. We are in our traditional summer slowdown—the calm before the storm, you might say—and the finances are a little tighter than usual. We don’t normally give away a lot of products during such times.

I explained that I felt the customer had been offered something he hadn’t received, so I wanted to make up for it. My next words are the ones I probably should have kept to myself.

“I’m not going to let circumstances determine who I am. “

I admit it; I was tired, and possibly not thinking at my best. That said, I never expected anyone was listening besides the two of us.

She went home, leaving me to toil on a different project, one which has been on my to-do list for weeks, maybe even months. I had already spent a fair amount of time replacing the head on the banjo during the afternoon. New strings had followed the head, along with a good bit of set-up.

The old banjo, one my father-in-law had sold way back in the nineteen-seventies, was once again playing as it did when it was new. All that remained was for me to replace the resonator, the round, wooden back-piece, on the instrument and I would be done.

A missing nut for one of the mounting studs was searched for (at length) and finally located before I completed the job. Then, picking the banjo up from the cradle upon which it rested, I strummed the strings a time or two.

Proudly, I should have said, I strummed the strings. Man! I’m good!

That’s funny. I heard a little vibration. That wouldn’t do.

I realized the resonator was shifting its position when I handled it, but I knew what to do about that. I simply needed to tighten up the four nuts that held it in place. So, one after the other, I tightened them up.

Until I got to the last one. That one, I went overboard on, tightening too much and twisted the mounting loose. The mounting is inside the resonator.

I would have to remove it completely, and make a repair. Then, I would have to put the instrument together again.

Again!

It was the proverbial straw and I snapped. I had had all I could take.

I wonder if this was the moment God had been waiting for. Perhaps, not. Regardless, it wasn’t pretty.

I shouted the words to the ceiling. Shouted them!

What gives you the right? Leave me alone!

The words had no sooner left my tongue than I clapped my hands—both of them—over my mouth.

What am I saying?

I could hardly believe the words came from me. Worse than that, I remembered my statement to the Lovely Lady, just moments before.

It had been a promise—a covenant if you will.

Circumstances will never change who I am.

And yet, all it took was one tiny Phillips-head screw to make me go back on my word.

I accused God!

I—proud and boastful—opened my mouth and questioned His authority, implying that He not only caused my misery, but He was overstepping the boundaries of His authority.

From somewhere in my head, I hear the voice of another man saying something similar. Job, as he sits in his misery, utters the exact sentiments. God is oppressing me. Without cause. (Job 10:3)

Worse, I told Him to leave me alone.

And somehow, again, there is the voice of Job speaking the same words, only to repent later. (Job 10:20-21)

I tell you, it is not a proud and boastful man who writes these words tonight. I trust it will not be a proud and boastful man who places that instrument in the hands of the lady when she calls for it in the next day or two.

Job knew enough to repent. I do so, as well.

I, too often, speak of things as if I have grasped the truth, only to realize that I merely know the truth in my head, but have not taken hold of it in my heart.

Whatever I am becoming inside is because of His presence.

When I boast of my resolve, He shows me how long that will last.

When I believe I have become something, He uses life’s tests to show me clearly what I would be without Him.

Did God break the banjo?

No. I make mistakes all the time. All the time. He just uses my mistakes to teach the lessons I need to learn.

I failed a test tonight. Standing there by myself in front of my workbench, I failed.

Circumstances do change who I am inside. I don’t want them to, but they do anyway.

Still, I repent.

There will be other days—other tests.

I wonder sometimes if I’m the only one who has these failures along the way. I really hope not.

My words in the moment notwithstanding, I am not estranged from my God. I have not abandoned my pursuit of Him, nor He His of me.

But, I did speak the words. I did think the thoughts.

And yet, the God who listens still calls.

Mercy still beckons.

I will follow.

Again.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
(Psalm 139:23-24 ~ NLT)

We fall down, we get up.
We fall down, we get up.
We fall down, we get up.
And the saints Are just the sinners
Who fall down and get up.
(from We Fall Down ~ Kyle Matthews ~ American singer/songwriter)

Iron Sharpened

June 6, 2016June 6, 2016 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

It was only one letter that had fallen. One of fourteen—surely it wouldn’t be missed much.

I fished the defective aluminum “M” out of the hedge beneath my music store’s sign over four months ago.

It was cold then. I hate the cold.

So, I took the letter inside and laid it down on a table in the back storage area. I would reattach it on a warmer day.

Four months, it lay there. I told myself I was waiting for a warm day. Possibly, I was actually waiting for someone to miss it. I waited in vain.

No one ever did. After one hundred and twenty some-odd days, not one single customer had mentioned the missing letter.

I climbed the ladder yesterday—on a warm day—and glued the metal letter back into place. You would have laughed to see me clinging to that shaky ladder as I re-attached the errant letter.

I’m not sure what to think about the episode.

Were the people who do business with me, some of them for almost forty years, worried that I might be offended if they brought it to my attention?

Were they afraid I’d be embarrassed? Did they think I would become defensive and make excuses for my defective sign?

I’m baffled.

You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?

A letter missing from his sign? He’s worried about whether people care if his letter is missing?

Well?

I’ve had hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand customers come through my door in the last four months. Surely one would have thought it important enough.

Okay, I’ll level with you. I haven’t lost any sleep over the issue. It was just a letter from a sign.

Still, I am struggling a little with the concept. The concern is so subtle, so niggling, that it’s almost not worth mentioning.

Then again, it really is.

If we care about someone, why wouldn’t we mention that something is missing from their sign—or their car—or their relationship—maybe, even their spiritual life?

Have we so easily forgotten what friendship requires of us?

We live in a day when judge not is the mantra of the masses. In some ways, it’s understandable. We have made it our business for too long to point out every difference, every dispute, every dogma we hold dear, to total strangers.

That’s not what I’m talking about. The argument about our responsibility to correct the sins of the world will continue long after we’re gone.

But somehow, it’s easier for us to shout about the glaring sins of the wide world than it is for us to actually act upon, and change, something we have power over within our sphere of influence

I want to know if we can still help our neighbors realize they have a problem which needs attention. I am suggesting that we should also make certain they understand an offer of aid accompanies our observation of their lack.

When the Apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters that his readers should not only look to their own affairs, but to the affairs of others, he wasn’t only suggesting they point out areas of deficiency; he was clearly instructing them to help correct the problem. (Philippians 2:3-4)

It’s what community does.

We do it because that much, and more, has already been done for us. (Philippians 2:5-8)

In the early days of our nation, evidence of this way of thought abounded. A farmer needing to get a roof on his barn, but caught in the responsibilities of planting his fields, might see a caravan of men and women on horseback coming to help put the roof on.

Expecting no pay but that of continued communion, and under no burden but that of shared need, they gave freely of themselves and their talents. It wouldn’t be very long until one of them would likely need to be the recipient of such attention. The original farmer was almost certain to be in the bunch who showed up the next time.

He wasn’t offended because his lack had been pointed out, but he was grateful it had been noticed and remedied. He would happily repay the generosity.

The truth of our faith is this: We are not in this walk alone. We serve and are served. (Galatians 6:2)

I wonder. If the world around us could see that side of our faith, and not only the list of regulations we’ve drawn up, is it possible they would understand more clearly what grace is about?

How will they know love unless we demonstrate it in our relationships with each other?

In the same way iron sharpens iron, we help each other to be better followers of our Savior. (Proverbs 27:17)

The sign outside my music store is how I show the world what goes on inside the building.

When the message is incomplete, those who pass by may get the wrong idea of what is being offered.

It’s not all that different in the rest of our lives, either.

The next time you see I have something missing, I’d appreciate a heads-up about it.

If you can help with the solution, all the better Your bucket truck may be a little better than my shaky ladder..

I’ll see if I can pay more attention to what you need, too.

Perhaps, we can stay sharp together.

The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.
(C.S.Lewis ~ English educator/theologian/novelist ~ 1898-1963)

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:24-25 ~ NIV)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

grace

Changing the Future

Turning the Screws

Integrity. Again.

The Lawnmower You Gave Me

Treasure in the Dumpster

Grace Comes Quietly

Sidewalks to Nowhere

Parenthesis Closed

God Eavesdrops

Iron Sharpened