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Is Anger Always Wrong?

11/13/2012

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“I AM MOVING THEM,” I barked!   I yelled loud...  in the front yard...  at 7 AM ... on a Sunday morning.   

     I would love my neighbors to come to church.  Our church is a friendly and encouraging place with kind and sincere leaders.  But that morning you couldn’t tell by how I acted.  I got angry over literally nothing.   

     All I had to do was move the speakers as we were loading up for worship early one Sunday morning.  All I had to offer was a strong back and an ounce of humility.  But instead, I wanted to do it my way, and even the fact that I had no knowledge of what the right way was did not keep me from getting angry. 

     Anger is everywhere.  Anger is hollering from the bleachers at youth sports.  It’s on cable news.  It’s inside the walls of our nice homes.  It is always stuck in traffic.  And it is filling up the local law enforcement and court system.  Anger comes out of people like us, almost everywhere we go. 

     Anger is an emotional response to not getting our way.  When we snap, rant, or  unload, we are responding to not getting our way.  

     Anger always reveals what we value, what we desire, and the way we want the world to be.  Anger, like our calendar, and like our bank statements, communicates what we value, and who we really are.  That Sunday morning my anger revealed that I have a hard time accepting the simplest instructions, that I want to do things my way, even when it is obvious I don’t know what that is.  So apparently, I value being a know it all.  My anger revealed a dark, stubborn side in me.    

     Often, in the name of religion, we are told to stifle our anger.  Some traditions speak of anger as one of the “seven deadly sins.”  While I agree that we can, and often do, respond emotionally to some of the most petty things, I also know that anger can be the most righteous response to a situation.  Anger is not always wrong.

     I know this because Jesus got angry.  One day he walked into the temple courtyard and completely blew his top.  The public gathering area to enter worship had been run over by con artists who sold sin-removing sacrificial animals and “clean” monetary offerings at ridiculously inflated prices.  Jesus hated seeing the people swindled as they tried to move towards God.  

     So Jesus got angry.  He created a whip of cords, and he drove out the money changers and let the sacrificial animals run free. Jesus‘ anger revealed what he valued; he valued people being able to access a relationship with God. (For a great video of this story go to YOUTUBE and search Jesus and Money Changers.  It is the first video to pop up; it is two minutes long.)    

     Take 30 seconds, and reflect on the last time you got angry (chances are you won’t have to think back too far).  Was it something petty or something life defining?  How did you not get your way?  What does your anger say that you value?  Does what you value need to be reconsidered?  Do not hide behind empty statements like “I can’t help it” or “I don’t know where that came from.”  Allow God to dig below the surface. 

     Anger is not always wrong, but anger does always reveal what we really value.     



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Adultery, Judgement, Death and Truth

4/13/2012

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The religious leaders thought they had set the perfect trap.  They had found a woman in the ACT of adultery, and brought her to Jesus.  The Jewish law was explicit - the penalty was death (Deut 22:22).  (Although the law called for both parties to be put to death - where was the man who had perpetrated the same?)  But the Roman law was looming in tension to the Jewish law; no death sentences could be carried out by the Jews upon penalty of death from the Roman occupiers.  If Jesus chose to follow the law of Moses, he would be accused by the Romans and likely killed.  He had already stated He had not come to abolish even a portion of the Jewish Law, but to fulfill it.  The religious leaders had failed repeatedly to arrest Him themselves, now they could just let this situation play out and let the Romans take over the dirty work of killing Jesus.

But when confronted, Jesus assumed a submissive posture, going low, bending to the ground.  Then He does the unthinkable; He inverts the situation to make it about the heart of each and every individual.  He asks the crowd a simple question, that only they can answer internally, giving them the green light to kill the woman as their law allows IF they admit the impossible - true perfection - that they have never sinned themselves.  And none can.  In the flash of a moment, He requires them to achieve introspective repentance, acknowledgement of sin, and in that truth, grace prevails.   In fact, it is only in fullness of truth that grace for each is acknowledged honestly as necessary.

After the crowd disperses, in their final conversation, the woman and Jesus reveal much.   Everyone misses the mark, says Jesus:  "Is there no one here to judge you?"   She replies, "No one, Master" using the Greek, kyrie, translated throughout the New Testament as "Lord", a term that denotes that she has completely devoted herself to him, a full confession of faith and belonging.  Acknowledging her statement of faith He replies, "Then I do not judge you either." He says,  "Go your way, but do not sin again."  Grace...surrender...freedom...truth.  He offers no threat, no judgement, and no condemnation.  She has sinned, everyone has sinned, He has intervened, she has believed.  He has forgiven her, and He has asked her to live better.

As believers we must proceed humbly, to serve the broken, out of the knowledge that we too have been broken and still are broken.   Jesus is as available for each person to approach personally, internally, as He is for us who have already appealed to Him.  And we can follow his example to offer opportunities to encourage people to pursue truth and grace - not through statements of judgement - but through gentle and honest examining of their own experience, their own heart:
   
"Is your life where you want it to be?"  

"Are you teaching your kids what love is?"   

"Are you good with your relationship with God?"
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Sexuality & Freedom

1/4/2012

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So lots of flap and fluff about the newest chauvenistic sex advice book for married couples from a misc. pastor.  I am not surprised by the flap but thought the world needed a little slap- in- the- face style clarity on this issue.

So here it is:

Your sex issues are yours.  Nobody else is responsible.  If you want to look at porn, or sleep around, or stare at women/ men in the gym, you don't get to blame your wife or your husband or their hairy back or big rear end.  The problem is you.  You.

Free will is really a bugger.  But it is real.  So please don't put your fail on somebody else's shoulders.  Time to own up, face the music you're playing, stop acting like a petulant child, etc etc.

But here is the good news:  We all fail.  It is a universal constant of humanity.  We all think or act on thoughts that we should not to whatever degree.  Because of us, ourselves, we are less than we had once hoped.  We are less than we are capable of.

And there is Someone who can help, who can genuinely transform the way you think, the way you act, remove this blight that is cancer to your soul from within yourself.  But only if you are willing to admit your inadequacy and turn your eyes and mind and heart to Him.

So stop blaming your spouse, your friends, or your parents for what you are doing today.  
Decide how you want to live.  Heck, it's your life, after all.  You are the only one who can do a thing about it.


Cheerio!
 

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It Never "Just Happens"

7/18/2011

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“I never thought I would be the kind of person that did that,” he said to me. 

No one wakes up and hopes to trash their marriage.  Yet, it happens every day.  And nearly everyone thinks “they could never do anything like that.”  The dark secret of marriage is the frequency of affairs.  And everyone thinks they are immune. 

The most common excuse I have heard?  It just happened.  I have had many things “just happen” in my life.  I have run a red light without knowing it.  I have drunk a pot of decaf coffee on accident.  I once got fifteen minutes into a movie until I realized I was in the wrong theater.  I have never had sex and then asked “how did that happen?” 

Big dumb choices are always preceded by a series of small dumb choices.  Before the affair there is a predictable series of incremental moves that everyone ignores yet everyone acknowledges.  Extra hours at work.  Drinks with co-workers where you two are the last to leave.  The embrace after a big project that lasts a little too long.  Texting, flirting, laughing and lusting.  Then it happens.  And you thought it would never happen to you. 

How can you avoid this avoidable trap?  How can you be more than a statistic?  Three tools to consider.

1)       Always ask, when dealing with members of the opposite sex: Is this the wise thing to do?  Not is this wrong, will I get caught or what is the worst that can happen?  But is this wise?  It might not be wrong for me to have lunch with a female co-worker but it is not wise.  Andy Stanely has written much on the topic.   

2)      Once you start to imagine “what if” you are playing with fire.  Affairs are played out in the mind long before they are played out at the Holiday Inn Express.  Whoever said look but don’t touch is a fool.

3)      Is it worth it?  Are you willing to throw away your spouse, have your kids every other weekend, move into a weird apartment and fight over holiday custody just to get…well you know.  Take the time to thank God for your spouse, your family and make the most of what you have. 

It never just happens.  But it can happen to you.    


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