Month: May 2026

Conflict

Today, the 4 of us (the Angel, my 2 sons, and I) sat down to play a board game. While the game isn’t too important to this post, it was called Hues & Cues. The board has 150ish color squares. One person draws a card with one of those squares on it, then that giver describes the color on the card first in one word, then the players place pieces on the square they think corresponds to the clue. Then, the giver’s second clue is in 2 words, then the players place another piece. (For instance, I had orange and I said “church” because it looked like the orange of the Bridge, then my second was “favorite color” because it’s my favorite color.) The guessers get points for how close they can get to the actual color, the giver gets points for how close the guessers are. It’s super simple and fun. Elisha won, The Angel complained about the game for the entire hour, then came in a close second. I was last by a mile, which makes me wonder if I my vision or my memory is a problem. (That’s not exactly true. I have won before, so I’m probably not broken, just had an off day. Maybe I told them I let them win.)

Before we played this game that I lost in spectacular fashion, we engaged in some serious conversation, and I was faced with a wonderful reality.

We have not always discussed/argued/disagreed/fought in totally constructive ways. Voices have been raised, offense has been taken, words have been said that deeply wounded those closest to us. But as was obvious today, we have come a long way in learning how to communicate through very difficult circumstances & topics. This may not always be the case, but it is today, and I thought of 3 observations.

First, our transformation usually occurs over long periods of time and is often unnoticeable from moment to moment. It’s like when you lose weight. You lose a fraction of a pound at a time so it seems to you like there’s no change, but when you see someone who hasn’t seen you in a month, you realize there has been change and it is striking. So, we keep moving, walking the path, with very few signposts that point out how far we’ve come. Today was one for us. When we are lucky enough to have a signpost, we must stop, look around, and feel (and express) our gratitude. It’s nice to grow, it’s important to appreciate the work and ground we’ve covered with the Holy Spirit.

Next, conflict isn’t awesome. With the exception of a very good friend of mine, nobody likes it. But without it, there’s no catalyst for movement. It requires honesty, grace, and love. If you didn’t care about the relationship, you wouldn’t wade into deep water, you’d just find a new pool. We open ourselves in the giving and the receiving and the ties that bind us grow tighter and tighter. Everyone the gets the opportunity to break free of our expectations and become more and more like the new creations we are.

And last: Mostly, when we are offended and respond in our offense, it’s because we are feeling insecure and/or inadequate. We are feeling some kind of fear, so we are hurt and lash out. We cannot accept any challenge to our fragile ego, anything that might suggest that we are not perfect and always right threatens our idea of our own value (based wholly on our performance) and that is terrifying. I believe what happened today was, 4 people operated out of a deep sense of worth, not tied to anything, with no conditions. 4 people knew they could be vulnerable, could receive criticism, fail, and consequently, were free to learn and evolve. Our identity is only found in God, not in our best or worst moments, not our behavior, our achievements, and not in our board game proficiency.

Maybe that’s what it means to find freedom in Christ. Or maybe it’s just a step in the path to that beautiful freedom. Either way, I’m thankful for who we are now, and who we are becoming.

    Behold!

    I sometimes write these posts as a sort of companion for the message on Sunday. We’re The Church, and that alone makes it obvious that it’s not simply an hour a week, a box checked off as “completed.” Each of our faith journeys are made up of a thousand small steps, each thought, each action, no matter how small. We are new creations, AND we’re becoming new creations; It’s immediate AND it’s a process.

    So with all of that in mind, William Blake said, “We become what we behold.” Whether it’s today, this week, next Thursday, or next February, it’s important that we consider what we are beholding.

    The things we consistently focus on, pay attention to, and consume eventually shape our thoughts, attitudes, character, and behavior. We are bombarded by constant messaging, what we regularly allow in eventually shapes us, shapes who we are. In the Bible, this process would be called transformation.

    The political discourse in our country is nasty and consists of each side deeply etching lines separating “us” from “them.” “We” are, of course, right, and “they” are obviously wrong. Not only are they wrong, they’re monsters, sub-human. And when we dive into that water, immerse ourselves in that kind of rhetoric, we simply can’t help but begin to adopt those viewpoints. They are monsters. We are the informed, the educated, the smart ones, and they are…not.

    Let’s say we go out after work on Thursdays for appetizers at a local restaurant, and the co-workers at our table spend that time venting about the management, their decisions, ethics, hairdos, and the shocking lack of communication. They also talk about how dangerously overworked and underpaid we all are. And let’s also say you haven’t really thought about it like that before that first night, maybe you like your job, maybe you even respect your boss. How many Thursdays until you start to see it their way, and join the cacophony of grumbling? Sadly, not as many as we think.

    Now, I say “sadly” because, in this context, it is awfully depressing. We take on the characteristics of our environment, we become what we behold, and lots of times, our environment isn’t that awesome or positive or uplifting.

    But what if it is?

    What if we sit at a different table? And what if that table is singing a new song? What if this new table is honest about the truth, but also grateful? What if they are looking for solutions instead of making lists of the broken parts? And what if, instead of the right or left talk shows, we start asking questions and listening to the answers? What if we look at those who might disagree, not as hopelessly pathetic dummies, but instead as human beings who might have arrived at different conclusions? What if we asked why, or how? What if the voices we hear are voices of love and kindness?

    What if the first thing we hear everyday is the ways we are valued and enough, instead of what we lack and how we’ll never be complete until we get that ____? What if we choose to input the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount before the video games or TikTok? (Did you notice? We’re not dreaming about eliminating video games or TikTok. We’re just reordering our priorities. We’re just reconsidering what gets to be first.)

    Our design is our design, the principle works just the same. We become what we behold. Are we letting someone decide what we’re beholding? Or are we being intentional about the messages we receive? I know, I know, too often others choose our path, but maybe that hasn’t been working? Maybe we’re not that thrilled with this soul-numbing path that’s been paved for us? Maybe it’s time for the new, narrow path of the Gospel. If it is, maybe a new transformation all starts with waking up to what we are choosing to consume.

    Graduation!

    My niece graduated from high school yesterday. (Of course, it’s impossible that this young woman is old enough to finish high school. It’s a little bit like that famous creepy Wooderson line in Dazed and Confused, in reverse: every year they get older and I stay the saaame age.) Her journey has been very interesting. The family (2 adults, 2 girls, and a variety of pets) decided to leave their home and live in a motor coach for the last several years. This necessitated a remote learning situation, and she received her diploma from a Christian school based in Pensacola, Florida. And in May, they hold an in-person ceremony that looks exactly like every high school graduation looks, except most of the kids have never met each other.

    The keynote speaker was the Academy President, who didn’t have to be awesome but was anyway. He gave a message with 3 main points, the first was “Never underestimate the value of daily faithfulness.”

    Sunday was Mother’s Day (incidentally, I don’t really believe in participating in these holidays invented to sell product, opportunities to worship at the altar of consumerism, but that’s hardly important) and I mentioned that anyone can be great on Mother’s Day. Anyone can buy a present and call on Mother’s Day. Anyone can honor their mom on Mother’s Day. But we are not anyone. It takes someone different to honor their mom on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, right?

    Jesus commands us to love each other, even our enemies, and it’s mostly the same thing. Everybody can practice love for the people they like, or when they want to, but what about the people we don’t like, or that we disagree with, or don’t agree with, or when we’re tired and don’t feel like it? This works for everything, I suppose. Great marriages aren’t built on airport pickups, anniversaries, or honeymoons – everybody shows up for those things – they’re built on mealtimes and mornings, on kind words and patience. And a high maximum bench press doesn’t happen in a 3 hour workout, it happens through a long, long, long series of boring workouts.

    My niece watched lectures, took tests, read textbooks, and wrote essays on a tour bus. She did it at all times of the day, without a desk or a classroom or bells. Most times she did it without teachers, just her and her “daily faithfulness.”

    And I’m thinking about why she did that. What got her out of bed to open the books, over and over and over, who and what was she being faithful to? The answer probably isn’t one thing. I’d guess she’d tell you that she was faithful to the God who gave her the gifts she has, and the call she has been given. But I think she was also faithful to the person she is becoming, to a future version of herself, who practices quiet daily faithfulness, discipline and intention.

    The hard work of building isn’t ever for today, it’s for a vision of the marriage, the bench press, the person you want to be who does those things, who loves in spite of feelings or convenience. When you see it, it’s inspiring and almost never about motivation. Nobody feels like it all the time, but she probably found that she doesn’t even ask herself how she feels, there’s not an IF in the neighborhood. The graduate that she was working towards – and that she now is – simply gets up and goes to work. We’re all proud of her, it’ll be fantastic to see who she decides to become next.

    Something Else About Judges

    Yesterday, I wrote a very long post about an odd story in the Bible (called “It’s In The Bible”). The story is strange, but its inclusion in the Scriptures is even stranger. The point of the post was that I don’t get to decide what makes sense, what should happen, or how things are supposed to be, and that it’s wildly arrogant to think that I do.

    But there is another layer to this, one that I didn’t mention yesterday. As the Micah account begins, verse 17:6 says, “In that day Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” This verse is repeated, the last verse of the book, 21:25. Maybe that’s important.

    The chapters immediately following the one on Micah are equally disturbing, I could’ve written yesterday’s post about them just as well. And twice, in 18:1 and 19:1, we find an abbreviated, “In that day Israel had no king.” Maybe that’s important, too.

    What do these verses mean?

    First, it’s just a fact, in those days Israel didn’t have a king. The people were decentralized, each tribe governed themselves. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the next sentence (after a semi-colon) and these stories are clear clues as to what it meant then.

    I say “then,” because “whatever seemed right in their own eyes” is kind of a cultural ideal today. My truth, your truth, follow your heart, do what feels good, and on and on. So, today, it is played as a positive direction. (Is it, really?) But then? These few stories in these few chapters are not at all what we’d consider awesome. The chapter following Micah’s is far more horrific, maybe one of the most shocking in the entire Bible. And the last is ugly and misogynistic.

    But it’s the semi-colon that ties them. Even though “all the people did what was right in their own eyes” isn’t spelled out every time, the semi-colon of chapters 17 and 21 tells us it is still there, the continuation of an idea. They had no king, and this fact serves as a symbol of spiritual anarchy, chaotic and random, without vision or coherence.

    These stories don’t make sense, and that’s probably the point. When we are left to our own devices, we choose what feels good, we choose pleasure, and we always choose comfort, always choose ourselves. There’s no right or wrong, up or down, so we’re always casting idols, selling out, and throwing our daughters to the mob to save ourselves (a reference to chapter 19.) Our lives begin to look like these chapters, messy, disturbing, and often horrific.

    They sound objective, like journalism, but they most certainly are not. They’re charged and pointed lessons, teaching us what it is to be human. Of course, we haven’t learned, our news stories could carry the tagline, “In these days the people have no king, and do whatever seems right in their own eyes,” and we are drifting farther and farther away from our shared humanity. It’s a sad story, this history of us, but it’s one that can change the moment we open our eyes and get back to writing the Big Story that’s always been there, from the beginning.

    It’s In The Bible

    I am following the Bible-In-A-Year reading plan. Each day, there’s a section of the Old Testament, a section of the New Testament, a section of the Psalms, and a few verses from Proverbs. I like it a lot, and am mostly very faithful. When I am not, I never have an excuse. I missed yesterday. What was I doing? Nothing. I ate pizza, took a nap, watched the finale of a show called Extracted, and 2 game 7’s in the NBA playoffs. You can see how easy it was to forget, with all of this terribly important stuff going on. So, today I read 2 days worth, May 3 and May 4.

    [Incidentally, today is May the 4th, which has been ridiculously christened Star Wars Day. I know this because 1. I love Star Wars, and 2. Because the man monitoring the self-check at my supermarket gave the super special greeting, “May the 4th be with you.”]

    Yesterday’s Old Testament reading was from Judges, chapters 17 & 18, and was awfully strange…

    A man named Micah stole a substantial amount of money from his mom. She didn’t know this, so she put a curse on whoever did it. When he became aware of this curse, he confessed and returned the money. She was happy, and, as you do, she took the money and had it cast into an idol (“in honor of [her] son” – it’s not stated what it looked like, but in my head, it was a silver bust of Micah. That sounds appropriate.) that Micah kept in his house. Then, a Levite (the Israelites tribe of priests) happened to be traveling by, and Micah asked him to live with him and become his personal priest, which he did. So, then, a group of Israelites from the tribe of Dan sent some scouts (who ended up at Micah’s house), who noticed the town of Laish (a fertile land inhabited by “peaceful and secure” people.) The Dan-ites took the advice of the scouts and decided to take that town. As they went, they passed by Micah’s house. These scouts told the rest of the idol & other valuable items, so they went into Micah’s house and took them. They also convinced the Levite to come with them and be their priest. The tribe of Dan took Laish with swords, burned the town to the ground, and renamed it Dan, where they set up Micahs idol to worship.

    And there’s no more, chapter 19 just moves on to the next story. This is the entire story of Micah, Micah’s mom, their idol, Dan’s theft and subsequent destruction of “peaceful” Laish. I think there is value in every word of the Bible, even when we can’t immediately see it, that there’s layer after layer of wisdom to be discovered. I believe there is not a wasted word and nothing is in the Scriptures by accident or without purpose.

    So, what about Judges 17 & 18? I think something should have gone wrong for Micah, who stole from his mother. But nothing did In fact, the opposite happened, there was blessing. They fashioned an idol? Why? Have you ever fashioned an idol? And, then something BIG and significant should have gone wrong for the Levite who monetized his priestly call to be someone’s personal priest, worshiping some random image, right? It should’ve gone wrong again, when the priest sold Micah out and moved on with the people who looted his house. But it sure didn’t. And Dan, one tribe of the 12 of God’s chosen people, who stole what may as well have been a golden calf, then destroyed a whole town of “peaceful” people, who didn’t do anything wrong except be peaceful – why wasn’t there consequence for them? This story isn’t supposed to end “happily ever after.”

    This all makes me think of something my old pastor said. She asked the age-old question, if a tree falls in the forest and I’m not there to hear it, does it make a sound? “Of course it does!” The world doesn’t revolve around me, it continues to operate and trees continue to crash even if I’m not involved. She thought it was a terrific analogy to illustrate our limitless arrogance.

    Does this passage truly not make sense simply because I can’t find sense in it? Of course not. Why would I get to decide what should be, or how things are supposed to go? Just because I’m selfish?

    I really cannot find any meaning or purpose in it. It sounds all wrong to me. But I think I’m seeing what 1 word I’m missing: now. I can’t find meaning…now. It sounds wrong…now. How many passages and verses didn’t make sense to me the first time I read them? How many didn’t the 300th time? Jesus’ teaching on the “pearls to pigs” in the sermon on the mount is a perfect example. I thought it was impenetrable and silly, but it just turns out that I was. Now it’s thick with meaning and informs much of my behavior in relationships.

    Maybe this story about Micah and his mom will be the same way. Or maybe it won’t. But today I had my eyes opened by this passage, and I didn’t so much like what I saw. I guess Micah isn’t the only one who struggles with idolatry.