Did you hear that pt2

Staying with the theme from last week's post, let's talk about the need for an interpreter. When I lived in the inner city, I had a lot of contact with Hispanic immigrants. There was a large population of Hispanic people in my neighborhood. The school where I taught had a lot of Hispanic students. I heard everything they said perfectly fine. I understood very little though. I needed an interpreter. Of course, the more time I spent in these kind of conversations, the more I began to understand. But I never reached a point where I could make it without an interpreter.

Hearing from God is like that. The more you hear from him, the more you are able to understand on your own. However, there are some things you just want to verify that you are understanding correctly. It may be really big decisions. It may be that even though you are 99% positive you have heard correctly, there isn't any peace about the decision. That's where it's good to have an interpreter to consult.In fact, it's good to have several interpreters. Friends you can trust with the details. Friends you can trust to listen to God with you.

I've been using some interpreters myself lately. I'm glad I have them because I don't want to give somebody a big yellow pencil when they are trying to tell me they are having a heart attack.

In the news today

Here's a sample of interesting news that caught my eye today. Some are worthy to ponder, others are just for a good laugh.

God gets sued (be sure to read the whole article)

QB testifies to miracle from God

Meteorite causes sickness

BoSox rookies get hazed (you'll have to wait thru a 15 sec commercial)

Feel free to comment on any of these. Have a great day.

Did you hear that?

I was brushing my teeth this morning when I thought I heard my phone ring. That happens frequently because I use an electric toothbrush. Sometimes when I turn it up to extreme super max high speed with the grinding wheel so I can really polish my molars, it creates a ringing in my ears. I turned off the toothbrush and listened more closely and realized it was just the ringing inside my skull created by the 100,000 rpm motion of the toothbrush head.

By now you've probably heard about the mosquito ringtone you can download for your cell phone. We all know that as we get older certain parts of our body do not function as well. Our ears are two of those parts. The internal parts of our ears become less sensitive to higher frequency noises as we age. Someone has done the research and found out a frequency that teens can hear but adults cannot. I've been to the website above and tested it myself. My kids could indeed hear what I could not.

This morning as I was hearing things I didn't really hear and pondering things I couldn't hear, I began to think about hearing God. Most people are afraid to say, "I heard God speak" for fear of being locked away someplace where you can't hurt anyone. Most of the time it is true that when we "hear" God it is more like a feeling that we know what we are supposed to go and do, say, stop, or whatever. There have been times in my life where I knew what God was saying to me but pretended it was something else because I didn't want to do the thing he said. Those times usually don't end well until you turn it around. Luckily, I eventually turned it around.

There are other times where we misunderstand God or just hear him wrong. On a few occasions, my wife and I have stepped out in faith to do something we just postively knew was something God had told us to do. Halfway through the endeavor it became obvious we needed to turn around or just stop the thing altogether. The question then became, "How did we misunderstand? Will we ever be able to understand and know for sure what we are supposed to do?"

Misunderstanding/mis-hearing will go a long way in making you gun shy in the future. It certainly has for us. So what do you do? One of things you can do is bounce it off your friends who are on the same faith journey as you. Ninety-nine percent of the time they'll be able to help you discern if you are doing the right thing. You can always compare it to things you thought you heard in the past; for example, ask yourself, "Is this something that is out of character for what I know about God?"

Sometimes you just aren't going to know until you step out. When you do, don't worry if you discover that you may have misunderstood. Remain faithful on your journey - that's what he's measuring anyway. Above all else, keep listening because he will speak to you.

Now, I wonder what would happen if I hooked my toothbrush up to my car battery?

Secrets Revealed

Last night I watched a show that revealed all the secrets to how magicians, or more appropriately called illusionists, do their tricks. The Masked Magician revealed the secrets for everything from pulling a rabbit out of a hat to cutting a woman in half to making an elephant disappear. Some of the secrets I had suspected. Others were new.

Here's the disappointing part. Now I won't be able to enjoy myself the next time I see an illusionist perform. I'll know how he does it. It will be like that first holiday you discovered that all its characters were not real (I'm writing in code for all our young readers!). All the mystery will be gone, just like that 7000 pound elephant.

How many of us have become disillusioned on our faith journeys because the mystery was gone? I know some for whom their faith never had any mystery about it and it worked for them. They were strict rationalists. Some have argued people like that have a dead faith, but I would not dare try to judge such a thing in a person's life.

Personally I need some mystery - that's why I'm a mystic. I don't mean mystic as in mixing eastern religious chants and other non-Christian practices and philosophies with my faith. I mean mystic in the sense that I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit; mystic in the sense that I have peace in the face of adverse circumstances and I can't explain why; mystic in the sense that I know exactly what God is saying to me at that moment.

Which leads me to other thoughts - what would it take to remove the mystery from my faith? Is mystery even an appropriate element in our faith? What do you think? Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go saw one of my kids in half.

Remembering . . .

Last week was filled with one story after another about Princess Di. It was the tenth anniversary of her tragic death. I remember exactly where I was when I found out. I might even be able to remember what I was wearing. I do know I was at church the morning after, attending services at Brick by Brick UMC in Lexington, KY.

It's amazing how things get rooted in your memory. Tragic events have a way of doing that to you. I remember where I was and what I was doing when Elvis died, Reagan was shot, the shuttles Challenger and Columbia exploded, and of course 9/11. Many people from generations before me remember details about Vietnam, Pearl Harbor, and even the stock market crash of 1929.

The media was filled with stories about Princess Di last week. All her good qualities were noted and memorialized. It made me think about how I will be remembered after I'm gone (which I hope is a long time from now). I know that there are some mistakes, poor choices, character flaws, and misunderstandings that some will remember. I hope the majority of what is remembered will be the good things that I have done. People even talk about the good things Nixon did nowadays.

Above all else, I hope that my faith journey is the dominant memory people have of me. I hope that people think of me and say it was obvious that I loved God will all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I hope they say I loved my neighbor as myself.

Of course, fifty years after I'm gone, unless I become really famous for something, there will be very few people who will remember me. That's where it's important to have invested in other people's lives. Someone will remember them one day and if we live in such a way as to inspire them to live their own faith journey so that they are totally committed to God, then in an indirect way, we are remembered. That's all that's really important anyway.

Just a thought.