Do I agree with this snippet from the book? Yes, by and large. My friend said, “I agree with it overall. I just took a little exception to the ‘discipline alone’ phrase. Even discipline is accompanied by grace.”
And I responded to him the way I always respond when this question comes up:
Of course we need grace. Grace is God’s department. And I’m not worried about God doing his part. I am worried about you doing your part.
Then I referred him to the perspective of the Apostle Paul:
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15.10, ESV)
Paul said, “Yes, it’s grace, but yes, I worked very hard!” I’m listening to When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Earvin Magic Johnson. These two gifted basketball players had tools the rest of us don’t have…BUT, they worked very hard. Once, the day after Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics won the NBA championship, a teammate called on him at his home to continue the celebration. But Larry wasn’t there. He had already started his morning workout, getting ready for the next season. When he developed a new shot, Larry practiced it 800 times/day in addition to whatever else he was doing to train.
So, yes, there’s no substitute for discipline.
Train yourself for godliness. (1 Timothy 4.7, ESV)
Sometimes we need to give thanks for what we have. We have the highest standard of living in the world and yet our measures of life satisfaction keep dropping. Here are some snippets from a US News and World Report article from 2019:
Residents in the United States are becoming unhappier. The U.S. ranks at No. 19 in the 2019 [Happiness] report, dropping one position from 2018 and five from 2017… Happiness and life satisfaction among United States adolescents, which increased between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012…Thus, by 2016-17, both adults and adolescents were reporting significantly less happiness than they had in the 2000s. In addition, depression, suicidal ideation, and self-harm reported levels have increased sharply among adolescents since 2010 and it affected girls and young women in particular. -US News and World Report, March 19, 2019
I was motivated to look up the happiness data, knowing that Americans are consistently dropping in their satisfaction measures because I received an update from my friend Eva DeHart who runs a humanitarian ministry in Haiti, For Haiti with Love. This is how she opens the web site:
Do you want to know what it is like to live in Haiti? I mean really, do they have it THAT bad there? Picture your house, mentally remove EVERYTHING that uses either electricity or running water. Now, remove all carpeting and stuffed furniture, including the bed. Replace this with a straw mat. No floors, no slab, just bare earth and a thatched roof. Take out all the screens in your house. While you’re at it remove the windows and the doors. No grass around the house. Got a good picture? Good. Now picture yourself with no car, or bike, or shoes for that matter. No job, no unemployment or welfare checks. You have no money, no bank accounts, no credit cards, no refrigerator, no ice and no food. You are hungry, and to make matters worse, your children are hungry. On top of that they are sick, full of worms and usually naked. This is the AVERAGE Haitian!! God’s people, just like you and me, just born farther south and east.
Here is part of her current description of daily life today:
Nothing in Haiti is closed except Churches, schools, and airports (cargo yes, people no). Since everything is so expensive parents simply cannot provide for their children and without school—they are on the streets. Some will try to get money by washing vehicles or at least your windshield if you are stopped. If this doesn’t work then looting and stealing. There has been no rain, they get no power and there has been no trash pickup so streets are near impassible. Not only makes driving difficult, but that standing water isn’t rain water. With all that is going on with corona just getting started… this is bad.
A Haitian street with overflowing garbage
I’ve been there. It’s unimaginable. But as I’ve written before, my friends Vilmer Paul and Lucner love God and serve people in this environment… with joy.
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4.11 – 13, ESV)
Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night. (Philippians 2.14, 15, MSG)
We’ve been looking at lessons from the story of Ruby Bridges who integrated a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 through the eyes of psychiatrist Dr. Robert Coles. The close of his essay is also provocative. It contrasts what I reported yesterday – that Ruby Bridges actually applied scripture to life – with his own experience.
He talks about having maid service in their dorm at Harvard. He wrote:
I remember when I was in college. We would come back to our rooms and a woman would be there, cleaning our rooms and making our beds. We had a name for these women in the Harvard of the 1950s. We called them biddies. We never knew the name of the woman who did this for us because she was just our biddy. She cleaned up after us…I don’t want to remember how many times we never thanked her. At the same time, of course, we were taking courses. Courses, for instance, in psychology, where we would learn about empathy. You would get an A in a course by writing for a whole hour on empathy. But I couldn’t tell you the biddy’s name. We weren’t asked to do that, because that wasn’t part of the curriculum, core or otherwise. It still isn’t. – Dr. Robert Coles, “The Inexplicable Prayers of Ruby Bridges,” in Finding God at Harvard by Kelly Monroe, emphasis mine (You might be able to read the entire essay here.)
His point was that he was educated while Ruby Bridges and her family were not. Yet they could apply profound truths to life while he, with all his sophisticated understanding of human behavior, could not.
I wrote earlier that I’ve heard a lot of sophisticated sermons with profound theological insights from people who could never do what our pastor did recently: apply love and forgiveness in a real-life situation.
Maybe we start by paying attention and learning people’s names.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9.9, NIV, emphasis mine)
As [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. (John 9.1, NIV, emphasis mine)
I wrote yesterday about Ruby Bridges, the 6-year-old black girl who integrated a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 while white people threatened to kill her. The reason I had discovered Ruby Bridges’ story (I don’t remember ever hearing it before) was an article by Marvin Olasky of World Magazine. He wrote:
Let me close by mentioning to you one of the best essays I’ve ever read: “The Inexplicable Prayers of Ruby Bridges,” written by Robert Coles. The essay describes a little girl who desegregated a New Orleans elementary school in 1960, walking in and out every day between federal marshals. As Coles writes about the daily greeting party of 50 or 75 adults at that school, “They called her this and they called her that. They brandished their fists. They told her she was going to die and they were going to kill her.” Ruby Bridges was a tiny heroine for going to school each day. But she was more than that, Coles found out. Told that Ruby seemed to talk to the people verbally assaulting her, Coles asked what she was saying, and Ruby replied, “I wasn’t talking to them. I was just saying a prayer for them.” “Ruby, you pray for the people there?” “Oh yes.” “Really?” “Yes.” “Why do you do that?” “Because they need praying for.” – Marvin Olasky, from a speech in 2004. https://world.wng.org/content/glorifying_god_in_the_white_house
Robert Coles writes more:
I asked Ruby about this praying. “Ruby, I’m still puzzled. I’m trying to figure out why you think you should be the one to pray for such people, given what they do to you twice a day, five days a week.” “Well,” she said, “especially it should be me.” “Why you especially?” “Because if you’re going through what they’re doing to you, you’re the one who should be praying for them.” And then she quoted to me what she had heard in church. The minister said that Jesus went through a lot of trouble and that Jesus said about the people who were causing the trouble, “Forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.” Dr. Robert Coles, “The Inexplicable Prayers of Ruby Bridges,” in Finding God at Harvard by Kelly Monroe
In other words, a Harvard-educated physician has trouble relating to someone who actually tries to apply the scripture to everyday life, even when it’s hard.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1.22, NIV)
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (1 Corinthians 8.1, NIV)
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. (Romans 12.14, NIV)
My friend Tom Shaw posted an excellent comment on yesterday’s blog:
[quoting yesterday’s blog] “Just because anarchists, ‘Communists,’ etc., are using the discontent as an opportunity to escalate and destabilize, doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate grievances.” Being a Viet Nam Era veteran I hear echos… It is too easy to be distracted or to choose to focus on ‘law & order’ (the 1960s Domino Theory) and thereby not deal with the fundamental issues. Injustice exists because people do not put themselves at risk to correct it. Am I willing to be a pariah on the police force, in my neighborhood or wherever? Will I stand up and say “I’m calling you out; This needs to stop!” -Tom Shaw, Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 2020
I just read an article that referred to the integrating of the New Orleans schools in 1960 and about Dr. Robert Coles, a Harvard psychiatrist who ended up being involved with the family of Ruby Bridges, the lone black girl who attended an all-white elementary school. Dr. Coles wrote a provocative essay on his experience with Ruby Bridges, and there is a lot of food for thought. I think we’ll be here for a couple days: please stay with me. Here’s part of the opening of Dr. Coles’ essay:
Outside the Frantz [Elementary School in New Orleas] I saw a mob of people standing and screaming. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and I realized they were waiting for something. I asked one of the people what was happening. He answered, “She’s coming out in half an hour.” I said, “Who’s she?” And then I heard all the language about who she was–all the cuss words and the foul language. I decided to stay and watch… Soon, out of the Frantz school came a little girl, Ruby Bridges. And beside her were federal marshals. She came out and the people started in. They called her this and they called her that. They brandished their fists. They told her she was going to die and they were going to kill her. I waited when she left in a car, and I wondered who was going to come out of that school next. But then I found out no one else was in the school. The school had been totally boycotted by the white population. So here was a little black child who was going to an American elementary school all by herself in the fall of 1960. – Dr. Robert Coles, “The Inexplicable Prayers of Ruby Bridges”
Federal marshals escorting Ruby Bridges to school in New Orleans, 1960
My question for today is, where were the people who were willing to call out this injustice? At the beginning ALL the white families pulled their kids out of that school. 50 – 75 people per day came to taunt and threaten a 6-year-old girl. Even if you believed that integration was wrong or federal interference was wrong, is that a reason to take your frustrations out on a 6-year-old?
There are other lessons from this story. Stay tuned.
You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. (Exodus 23.2, NKJV)
[Jesus said, ] “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7.12, NLT)
I wrote earlier in connection with the racial challenges we’re facing now about my friend and former pastor John Ed Mathison of Montgomery, AL. At the time, he hadn’t finished his four-part series (with six main (alliterative, of course) points. It’s worth revisiting. Here’s John Ed’s summary:
To summarize – I’m listening to God and people – I’m learning what God can do – I’m leaning on God for strength and direction – I’m striving to love all people – I’m looking for ways to lift people – I’m standing up to lead. This is what I can do. What’s your plan of action? -John Ed Mathison, July 1, 2020, https://johnedmathison.org/blog/
You can read John Ed’s whole series beginning here.
Listening is big – being willing to hear from people different from you. This blog, written on June 3, contains comments from African-American friends of mine, both in Christian ministry, both walking with God and helping others do the same. One said, “This is everyday life for black men in America.” The other said, “It’s a very very tough journey.”
I have a friend who seems to want to find out about all the sinister forces involved in the demonstrations and riots and thereby negate (I think) the message that some of us white folks need to hear. I told him, “Just because anarchists, ‘Communists,’ etc., are using the discontent as an opportunity to escalate and destabilize, doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate grievances.”
I believe John Ed has given us a good road map: listen, learn, lean on God, love everyone, lift people up, and lead.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Galatians 5.13 – 16, NIV)
It’s the fourth of July, a momentous event in world history.
The Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776, more than a year after Revolutionary War hostilities had begun. The war formally ended in 1783, and the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1789.
I’m wondering if we’re at another crossroads in our history. Can we rise above the long-term effects of COVID? Can we actually provide “liberty and justice for all?”
I’m thinking not without prayer. Ronald Reagan reminded us of Benjamin Franklin’s call to prayer at the Constitutional Convention:
The national celebration of the Bicentennial of the Constitution also gives us an opportunity to remember and honor those who gathered in Philadelphia to forge a document that would provide a blueprint for this great Nation. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest member of the Assembly, reminded his fellow delegates that God had heard their prayers during their struggle for Independence. Should they not remember, he asked, that God governs in the affairs of men? “If a sparrow cannot fall without His notice,” he urged them, “how can an empire rise without His aid?” – Ronald Reagan, February 12, 1987
From time to time June or I receives an email or sees something on Facebook about a one-minute daily prayer for the nation. It dates back to a one-minute prayer in Great Britain during World War II. This is an apparent grass-roots movement about which I know nothing. This expression of it has been around since 2008. In Great Britain, it never went away and revived after 9/11/2001. The web site tells the history and encourages us all to pray for one-minute at 9p, Eastern time.
It’s not a bad idea. And I think we should pray not only for the U.S. for all world leaders.
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. (1 Timothy 2.1, 2, NIV)
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7.14, NIV)
I received a note from my friend Ray Bandi in New Hampshire containing this little, very simple, suggestion on how to do Bible study:
When I wrote to thank him for it, he responded that it wasn’t his…it came from his friend Bill, a janitor in a local high school! Here’s some of what Ray wrote:
I want to make sure to give credit where it is due. It’s not my stoplight illustration, it’s my friend Bill Fraser’s. Bill is about 65. He’s a janitor at the Lincoln, NH central school…One Sunday morning after church, Bill came over, and he said, “You know, I read the Bible often, but I never seem to get much out of it.” So, I asked him, “When you read the Bible, what are you looking for?” And he smiled and said, “I’m supposed to be looking for something?” So, I started him with the quiet time card we use with questions on the back: “Is there … Something to learn about God? Something to learn about me? A promise to trust? An example to follow? An action to take? etc.” A couple of years later, Bill and another man joined me for Every Man a Warrior. After that he came with me with to [a Navigator men’s conference]. Then he started coming on our Disciple-Makers Weekends. Now the “janitor” is leading an Every Man a Warrior group with a retired math teacher, a retired (90+ year old) pastor, and a young guy in his 30s with a couple of kids. … And they all know that God has put some things in them that they didn’t have before Bill started helping them. – Ray Bandi, New Hampshire, June 2020 (emphasis Ray’s)
So many lessons. I’ve been writing all week about how God spoke to me through an obituary of someone who “…lived the adventure of seeking God and loving people…” while working as a vice-president for Marriott. Now here’s a janitor doing the same thing. It goes back to my small addition to the message from the obit:
Seek God, love people, help others do the same!
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4.13, ESV)
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.1, 2, NIV)
I’ve written before that it was important that Jesus grow up in Nazareth, not the Temple. I want to revisit that in light of the past two days’ meditations on the obituary:
Ed lived the great adventure of seeking God and loving people…
Ed was not a religious professional: he was a food service executive for Marriott. Now let’s look at Jesus:
His parents were shocked to find him [in the Temple], and Mary scolded him, saying, “Son, your father and I have searched for you everywhere! We have been worried sick over not finding you. Why would you do this to us?” Jesus said to them, “Why would you need to search for me? Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be here in my Father’s house, consumed with him?”…Jesus went with them back home to Nazareth and was obedient to them. (Luke 2.48 – 51, Passion Translation)
Was Jesus less consumed with God in Nazareth than he was at the Temple? Was Ed less consumed with God working for Marriott than he would have been had he been in “full-time ministry”? The Apostle Paul was clear:
And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there… Friends, stay where you were called to be. God is there. Hold the high ground with him at your side. (1 Corinthians 7.17, 24, MSG)
I wrote yesterday about how God spoke to me through the obituary of someone I don’t even know:
Seek God, love people, help others do the same
Later, I thought of one of my life verses:
For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel. (Ezra 7.10, NASB)
It ties together:
Study the Word – not for academic purposes but in order to know God. (You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me. John 5.39, ESV)
Practice the Word – Jesus said the law of the LORD calls for loving God and loving people (Matthew 22.36 – 39)
Teach the Word – help others do the same. (Anyone who does not know the teaching, you teach them! Ezra 7.25, MSG)
To put it back into the language of the obituary:
Study – seek God
Do – love people
Teach – help others do the same
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24.27 ESV)
…Through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5.13, 14, ESV)
