Last week I heard someone say, "We know God does not listen to the prayers of sinners." I was surprised he would say such a thing since he appeared to be knowledgeable of the Bible. I then wondered how many other people may think this.

In his book, “Learning to Love,” Willard Tate has a segment where talks about going through life like a referee.  What is the job of a referee?  He goes around looking for trouble, and when he finds it, he makes everyone aware of it.  Willard Tate’s point was that too often, we also go around like referees looking for trouble and making it our mission to point it out.  Sometimes it seems our sole purpose here is to point out what’s wrong with everyone else.

A group of us were looking at the book of Proverbs the other night, and during that time, a theme caught my attention.  The discussion centered around wisdom and several aspects of it.  One aspect I thought was interesting is that wisdom is not just knowing WHAT to say, it is also knowing WHEN to say it.  That is, if you have something that is true and right, having wisdom means you know when to actually deploy that nugget of truth.  The goal of having something to say is for it to stick with who you’re sharing it with.  You don’t want the other person to tune you out.

Shhh. We need it quiet. Look around. Make sure we are in a safe place. I have a word to share, a short phrase actually. I want to say it. I think we all know it, but for some reason we don’t often say it out loud. It’s too dangerous, even offensive. Offensive? Yes. Perhaps more to us than to someone unfamiliar with the phrase. That seems strange to me but it’s true none-the-less.

Listen to the words of the the English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Recently President Trump announced plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.

I lived on the Gulf for 20 years, and during that time I jokingly referred to it as the Gulf of Texas. While sitting on the beach, it just seems like it belongs to me and not Mexico, hence the Gulf of Texas.

When I was taking college classes to work on my accounting degree, one of those classes was on income taxes.  Some friends and I were sitting around a dorm room one night, discussing this tax class, and one of my friends hit on an epiphany – the answer to any tax question is “it depends!”  “Is this expense deductible?”  “It depends!”  “Do I have to report this as income on my tax return?”  “It depends!”  “Am I required to file a tax return?”  “It depends!”  And on and on.  We thought we were pretty clever.  I was never bold enough to attempt to use that on any test though.

While we were at the youth rally one time, I was walking around the building during some down time and I saw that someone had left their Bible laying on a table in the church’s foyer. There was nothing odd or special about that; there were hundreds of teens there that weekend. Someone was bound to leave their Bible laying around. What caught my attention, though, was that whoever owned the Bible had written some words on the outside edges of the pages, so that when the book was closed and all the pages lined up, you could read it. It read: “This is how I fight my battles.”

Anyone with a television, cell phone, or newspaper knows the chilling hand of death is all around us. Stories of death and destruction fill the headlines. Stories that feel too close to home.

We humans are so hard, aren’t we? Relationship maintenance is exhausting when we have differences. Based purely on what is available online, we are a nation of humans actively leaning into harshness and conflict. On social media, otherwise lovely people sometimes express strong opinions in withering, abusive comments as if they are the absolute last word. And others pile on. Our national culture feels, well – mean. And it’s easy for the habitual tone of the larger conversation to spill over into other, more personal, interactions. So take your temperature: Are you at odds with anyone these days?

In Hebrews 12, there is a contrast of two mountains where people go to God.  In verses 18-21, the scene is Sinai, which refers back to the Exodus moment where God came down to Mount Sinai.  The people were warned to stay away from the mountain, to not go near it, to not touch it.  The top of the mountain was covered in fire and smoke, like smoke from a furnace.

Isaiah 2:5   "Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord"

"Psalm 89:15  "Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, Lord

John 8:12  "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

1 John 1:7   "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin"

I used to think that when someone was grieving, it was my job to try to cheer them up. When I lost my father, I was able to understand this passage better. When we lose someone close to us, it creates an emptiness within us. Even if we know the departed is in a better place, we still feel a loss.

About a week ago, I was peacefully lying supine in my comfortable bed, drifting off to sleep, when my eyes suddenly opened to Dan standing over me. Closely over me.

“WHAT are you doing?” I inquired, irritated.

“Uh – making sure you’re still breathing,” he said sheepishly.

So this is where we are. Shocking.

How much would you pay for the best bowl of soup in the world? For the best bowl of soup in the world, I might go up to $100, but if it’s more than that, I’ll have to pass. What about for an average bowl of soup? How much would you pay for that? Not very much. Probably just a few dollars. Well, one time a guy bought an average bowl of stew using his birthright.

In the book of Ruth is a story about a lady named Naomi.  She moves to a foreign country, where her husband dies, and her two sons die.  She is left a widow, a beggar, with no form of support.  She moves back to her home town, and her daughter in law, Ruth, accompanies her.  In their hometown, Ruth catches the eye of Boaz.  Naomi tells Ruth that Boaz is their “kinsman redeemer” and enacts a plan that leads to Ruth being married to Boaz.

It must have been about the fifth or sixth grade.  I had a couple of friends who began to brag about how they had started stealing candy from one or two local stores.  They kept telling me how easy it was and how, if you did it right, you wouldn’t get caught.  As I recall, doing it right meant cramming several pieces into your pockets when no one was looking and then picking out one or two other items and paying for them.

In the 1980’s, Burger King had a promotion where a fellow named Herb would appear at random Burger King restaurants across the country.  The first patron to spot him would win a prize.  One of the goals of the promotion was to increase visits to Burger King restaurants.

When teaching Interior Architecture students how to draw architectural floor plans, I began by taking the class to an unoccupied house where they took all the interior and exterior measurements needed for the floor plan. I would ask two students to measure the width of a room, rounding their measurement to the nearest quarter inch, and then write the measurement on a slip of paper.

A few days ago, it was the start of a new year. And with that often comes a new resolution to start things off right. For us that usually comes in the form of healthier living, learning something to better ourselves, taking up a new hobby, reaffirm a commitment to philanthropy or religion, etc. All very good and noble pursuits.