Family
How Jesus Changed the World
This week we celebrate the world’s most important birthday–the birth of Jesus Christ. Three-quarters of our global population took time to honor this event in some way with music, church services, giving of presents, or family gatherings (the only major exception being the Muslim nations).
The world would be vastly different if Jesus never came.
How different? Let’s do some deeper thinking about the impact of the life of Jesus Christ. You’ve heard of the twelve days of Christmas? Let’s look at twelve ways Jesus Christ changed the world over the past two thousand years.
I’m not limiting Jesus’ impact to only a dozen areas. I welcome your thoughts as to other areas his life has wonderfully touched.
Today we’ll begin with the first six. Read More
It’s Only Real Love When It’s Hard
I possess a doctoral degree in Strategic Leadership, but sometimes I feel like I’m still in Kindergarten when it comes to some areas of life.
One such course of needed study and growth is the biblical quality of love.
Next week my wife, Shirley, and I celebrate forty years of marriage. I would have liked to have taken her on a cruise, a romantic getaway, or even to a nearby Bed ‘n Breakfast.
But yesterday, Shirley had major female surgery (a seven hour procedure), and for the next 6-8 weeks she will be convalescing and I will be her main caregiver at home.
But that’s okay. I know I have a lot to learn about the greatest subject in the world–love.
It’s only real love when it’s hard.
I know I could be writing about a lot of world events today. As I punch the keyboard, Hurricane Matthew is bearing down with ferocity on the US east coast. Two nights ago, Mike Pence proved his worthiness of Donald Trump’s VP pick by easily upping Tim Kaine in the vice presidential debate.
In about thirty days one of the most important presidential elections of our lifetime will take place between Donald Trump–weak on character and good on policies–and Hillary Clinton–who is corrupt in character and disastrous on policies. She would lead the American nation off of a progressive cliff.
But today, I’m thinking about none of those issues because love calls. My wife is resting comfortably at home while still hooked up to some technology. Her seven hour surgery two days ago was longer than the four surgeries that I have experienced before combined.
While I waited anxiously for her in the waiting room, two hours beyond the scheduled time, I thought about our lifetime of love and countless expressions of it. I pondered the privilege of having six great children–ironically the cause of her female surgery. I also had some tearful moments wondering why it was taking so long while pushing the thought from my mind that maybe something was wrong.
I knew she wasn’t having life threatening surgery, but this was the first time in six decades she’d been under anesthetic–and at our age, anything can happen. I was actually a little surprised at how emotional I was throughout the day. Tears came to my eyes when I saw her smiling face a few hours later.
Our love goes deep, and it’s only real love when it’s hard.
What do I mean by that?
Jesus told us that it’s easy to love people when things are familiar and good: “ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:46,47).
What’s hard about love is when you are not friends and things are not going well. That applies to two primary situations–loving your enemies and loving sacrificially when times are difficult. Let me focus on the second scenario.
For many years, I’ve defined love this way: Love is doing what’s best for another person from God’s point of view. In difficult circumstances or situations love oftentimes demands great sacrifice and continual death to self to really benefit another. The other person needs you, sometimes desperately. You need to change your schedule, your commitments, your likes and dislikes, and many other self-oriented things.
Right now, that’s what love demands of me in caring for Shirley. For the next week or so I need to carry her through a difficult time–loss of sleep, caring for wounds, dealing with the unpleasantness of restoring bowel movements and cleaning up messes.
For weeks after, I will cook some of the meals, do the grocery shopping, handle the laundry, and care for Shirley’s shut-in parents. For quite a while I need to do all the lifting–even a gallon of milk. Classes must be canceled, appointments postponed.
In the past when I’ve had surgeries or accidents, Shirley was my gracious caregiver and performed it beautifully.
Now it’s my turn to learn true servant-oriented love.
When she came home from the hospital yesterday I needed to make her some dinner. Since moving to a new home three years ago, I’ve never cooked a meal and don’t even known where many of the kitchen utensils reside. I even had trouble turning on the gas stove! Then, I made the only thing that I’m really able to cook–scrambled eggs.
It’ll be a miracle if Shirley nutritionally survives the next month. But I’ve got to rise to it.
It’s only real love when it’s hard.
While I was waiting for Shirley’s surgery to be completed, I read the current number one bestseller in America–Bill O’Reilly’s Killing the Rising Sun. I strongly recommend it. It shares the horrific story of World War II in the Pacific Theater where the United States defeated the militant Japanese Empire. Twenty-four million people died because of Japanese aggression and savagery.
The book is dedicated to all those who served in the military to defeat Japan. It tells numerous stories of heroism and bravery of those who laid their lives down to free the world from tyranny. They did it because they loved liberty and their own nation more than themselves.
It’s only real love when it’s hard.
While I was waiting in surgery, I needed someone to deliver something to me at the hospital. I called a nearby family friend who had just gotten up. He didn’t seem too interested in helping me and kept trying to find a way out of the errand. Eventually, I did it myself.
His response instructed me. You don’t love if your heart isn’t willing to sacrifice. It’s easy to “love” when it costs you nothing. But that’s not true love–just doing what’s convenient.
It’s only real love when it’s hard.
I’ve seen real love demonstrated by my parents. For a number of years, my mother took care of my aging father as he faced various medical problems. Occasionally the roles were reversed. There were numerous ambulance trips to the hospital and the anxious prayers that accompanied them. There were weeks and months of exhausting care.
They both needed to look past the beauty of youth and deal with sagging skin, no privacy, clipping aged toenails, and cleaning up errant bed-pans. This sacrifice usually fell to my mom and she did a superb job of serving my dad until he drew his last breath. I learned much by watching them.
It’s only real love when it’s hard.
I also know that I haven’t come near to experiencing what some people have faced in the “exam” of real love, such as:
- Caring for a dying child who passed away at a young age.
- Dealing with a handicapped relative over a lifetime–putting another’s greater needs ahead of your own.
- Serving in a war zone or caring for the destitute after some terrible natural disaster.
- Enduring sex slavery, being abducted to fight as a child soldier, being raped and abused by evil aggressors–and having the opportunity to help.
Many people in our world daily face terror and difficulty that can only be eased or erased by those who reach out with true love.
Jesus is, of course, our greatest example of true self-sacrificing love. He left the comforts of heaven to walk the dusty streets of earth. He healed the sick and raised the dead, and most didn’t respond favorably to his compassion and concern.
He ultimately laid his life down on a barbaric cross to make atonement for the entire world–and this after they’d spit on him, whipped him and yelled “Crucify him!”
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
It’s only real love when it’s hard.
Our 40th anniversary arrives on Monday. Between now and then I will be at home, caring for Shirley and trying to nurse her back to health. When our special day arrives, the only thing on the calendar is a trip to the doctor to have some technology removed. Then we will return home to keep healing, loving, remembering that we made a pledge four decades ago to stand by one another “in sickness and in health.”
It might be easy to feel sorry for ourselves. Wouldn’t our love be greater if accompanied by the blessings of health and excitement or luxury and travel?
No. Absolutely not.
This year we get the privilege of experiencing the true heart of love which is intimate sacrificial caring for another. The fluff will be gone, the dross burned away, and the real deal left to sparkle and shine. This is going to be the most loving anniversary we’ve ever known or experienced.
It’s only true love when it’s hard.
And… very precious to God.
Leaving a Legacy Through Journaling
A wise man named Blythe Harper told me at nineteen that one of the smartest things I could do in my life was to keep a personal spiritual journal or diary.
I started practicing his advice on October 30, 1972. I’ve been doing it ever since–for the past forty-four years.
At the moment, I’m looking down at the yellowed first page of that record when my hand-writing was still young and vibrant, and the thoughts flowed like water!
I’m sure glad I heeded his advice.
You can also leave a legacy through journaling.
To the left of my desk is a shelf that contains more than four feet worth of those journals, painstakingly kept over four decades. The early years were written on college-ruled paper and filed in notebooks; the middle segment were penned into the pages of a Youth With A Mission Prayer Diary; the last ten years have been complied and stored on computer with a paper copy back up.
I’m really glad that I did it. These precious journals contain many things that are irreplaceable to me:
- They share the story of my growth as a young believer to a forty-plus year career missionary with YWAM.
- They contain my thoughts on many subjects, personal, theological, practical, and relational.
- They tell all the stories of my travels, ministry, and spiritual highlights over a lifetime.
- They record the details and records of all the people I’ve met during my life on all the continents of the world and in sixty nations–what a treasure!
- They expose my personal failures and struggles, and how God made a way out of them for me.
- They help me remember the many things that God has taught me and spoken to me over forty plus years of walking with him.
It’s amazing how much you forget in a single day, let alone a year or a lifetime. One of my current practices with the journal is to print it out at the end of every year and then use the month of January to read it through again and remind myself of the things God has showed me and what he’s doing in my life. I’m always amazed at how much I forget–if it weren’t for the discipline of writing.
That’s why they say writing is 20/20 memory.
Yes–I’m like everyone else–not always faithful to record in the journal. When I started out in 1972, I wrote something down everyday. But for years now, I don’t write daily, just regularly to record the highlights of life and keep the thread of continuity going. Sometimes I get way behind and have to catch up on a trip or long flight across the ocean.
But I always catch up and keep the tale building. It’s a tremendous benefit to my own life–even if no one else ever sees it.
One thing I use the journal for is to organize my time wisely–what the Bible calls “numbering our days” (Psalm 90:12). About thirty years ago I prayed about the possible length of my lifetime based on the ages of parents, grandparents and other factors–and settled on eighty-five years. There’s no guarantee, but that’s what I’m aiming for.
Then I decided to “number my days”–literally–and place the number of days that I’ve already lived and the number of days I could possibly live (up to age 85) on each entry page of my journal. The purpose was to remind me that life is short, there’s no time to waste.
Thirty years ago those numbers stood at 10,952 days lived with 20,067 to go. Today those numbers stand at 22,968 days lived, and 7,963 left. Looking at those stats almost daily places a great motivation in my heart and conscience to make my life count for eternity. At this stage in my career, the hands of the clock are turning faster and faster.
But besides the personal benefits of journaling, I figured out a long time ago that recording my journey might be a blessing to my family, my children and grand children, or anybody else who might be interested. Years ago God impressed me that journaling was a great way to leave a legacy to those who come after you–so that they can learn from your mistakes and be inspired by your victories.
That’s a great motivation to keep writing–for the help and encouragement of others–especially those who are your own flesh and blood. (Nobody else may be interested!)
Sometime in the future I’m going to put those journals into a book form that can be passed down to my ancestors. I want them to learn how I survived the death of my mother, the imprisonment of my father, how I found God at fifteen and was called into his service at nineteen. I want them to read of all of God’s miracles in my life and how he carried me through the trials and stressed that we all face. I want them to know that I loved God with all my heart and want them to love him too.
Even if I don’t get around to the book, the journals are there. They’re a permanent record that I’m sure someone will enjoy.
They won’t know much about the real me unless I tell them–and write it down for them to read. The cool thing about today’s world is that it’s pretty easy to put your thoughts in a book form. Computers make that process easy and it doesn’t cost much to self-publish. You can print ten copies for your grandkids or 100,000 if your life is a block-buster. By the time I reach eighty-five in 2038, they’ll probably have figured out a way to take my old written journals, and scan them straight into type!
It gets easier every year.
Journaling is one of the simplest and most long-lasting ways to leave a legacy to your family and friends– one they can hold onto and cherish for the rest of their lives–and pass on to others. As Francis Bacon once said, “Reading makes a full man…writing an exact man.” I want to “fill up” my descendants with the great news of God’s grace in my life–and the only way I can be “exact” about it is to write it down.
It’s that simple.
So how about you? You say you’re older and it’s too late to start journaling? How about doing a “recap” of your life that can be a blessing for generations to come. If you’re closer to mid-stream, why not get started with that wealth of life experience that can be a help to those that follow you.
And if you’re young, this is the time to begin. Take the wise advice I was given over forty years ago:
Keep a personal, spiritual journal.
It’s your legacy to pass on for the glory of God.