This post is a follow up to an earlier post (http://www.timkwrites.com/blog/you-are-the-world).
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that…. God’s love for the world isn’t just for the sum total of “the world”. It’s also for each individual part of the world, especially including you. Jesus came to save the world. But, when it comes down to it, God loves you so much that if it was only for you that Jesus had to suffer and die He would have done it. God knows all about you; the number of hairs on your head, every stray thought, all your actions good and bad. You are loved with a love that surpasses all understanding. You are loved enough that Jesus came to earth and died on the cross for you. You are special. Do you ever get upset with others? Have people wronged you? Next time you’re mad at another person please remember the following. Jesus came to save the world. But, when it comes down to it, God loves that person so much that if it was only for them that Jesus had to suffer and die He would have done it. God knows all about them; the number of hairs on their head, every stray thought, all their actions good and bad. That person is loved with a love that surpasses all understanding. That person is loved enough that Jesus came to earth and died on the cross for them. Everybody else is special too.
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John 3:16 – THE Verse. Ask any group of people at church for their favorite verse and this one inevitably pops up. It even shows up in the end zone at football games. Many people connect with it. I didn’t.
John 3:16 reads “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” That’s nice, Jesus with his great love lays down his life for the whole world, saving billions. I’m just one of the billions. It’s good, but not very personal. One Sunday when I went to church at Shepherd of the Hills in the old sanctuary I sat in a row of pews I had never sat in before. Along one wall there were two rows of pews that faced directly into the sanctuary instead of looking forward at the altar. I think maybe they ended up with some extra pews and these were just plunked down in some empty space. We had arrived late and found seats in the back of these two rows. I’m six-four so I have a lot of leg. The space between these pews and the row in front was about a foot. I had trouble sitting down. As I sat in discomfort I’m afraid I didn’t pay too close of attention to the service. I started thinking of some Old Testament Bible stories. God started the world by making just one person. Noah and the flood. In all the world only Noah was a good person. God could have just wiped the slate clean and started over, but when it came down to it for the sake of Noah he figured out a way to save him. God and Moses. God and David. God and any number of different people. It hit me then. That God wants to have personal relationships with people. And God has the ability to have personal relationships with billions of people without becoming impersonal. Suddenly THE Verse becomes very personal. Jesus came to save the world. But, when it comes down to it, God loves you so much that if it was only for you that Jesus had to suffer and die, He would have done it. God knows all about you; the number of hairs on your head, every stray thought, all your actions good and bad. You are loved with a love that surpasses all understanding. You are loved enough that Jesus came to earth and died on the cross for YOU. My daughter and father-in-law used to play April Fool’s tricks on each other. It was all in good fun, something we laugh and tell stories about. Alicia started it one year by telling her Grandpa that his truck in the driveway had a flat tire. He went running out to the driveway. Alicia followed so she could say, “April Fools” at the right moment. The next year Alicia was told the wheel of her bike had fallen off.
The culmination of these tricks was a grand performance by Alicia. It was on a Sunday after we had been to church. We were going to stop in to see Grandpa Jim and Grandma Bub. While the rest of us waited in the car Alicia went up to the house. She arrived breathlessly showing up at his door claiming, “my parents left me at church.” She told them we thought she was going home with a friend, but her friend had already left. So, we had left without her. She had run all the way to their house. Chaos ensued or so I have been told. Alicia waited until they had picked up the phone to call us before saying, “April Fools!” I am reminded of the story in chapter 22 of Genesis. You remember this story. God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham obeys and at the point where he is about to kill his son an angel stops him. Because Abraham obeyed God he is given many blessings. Abraham loved God so much that he was willing to sacrifice his son. I remember the first time I heard this story, sitting towards the back of St. Bonaventure in Bloomington. I was horrified that God would do that. I mean asking someone to kill another person. And then, stopping them at the last possible instant? God and Abraham, this had to be the worst April Fool’s joke ever. Can you imagine Isaac sharing a laugh later with his dad about the time he was going to slit his throat? How could God do that? And what sort of parent would send their own child to die? Wouldn’t that be the hardest thing imaginable? There is a literary technique called foreshadowing. It can mirror something that happens later in the story. The best ones also give some understanding of the events to come. You’ve probably heard the Bible described as the greatest literature ever. Well the story of Abraham sacrificing his son has to be the greatest foreshadow ever. God, the Father, sends his son to earth to be sacrificed. It was a hard thing to do. But, because God’s love for us is so strong, because He wants us to be in heaven and not separated from Him due to our sins, Jesus is sent to die for us. There was a point in time where my most commonly used vocabulary word was “what.”
I’d known for years that my hearing was not very good. I worked for a manufacturing company and all employees had to have their hearing checked because of the noise in the shop. My tests always came back showing that I had hearing loss with higher frequency sounds. That makes it hard for me to distinguish between some sounds. I noticed that I was having conversations where I was politely nodding and saying “yes” without really understanding what the other person was saying to me. Or I would figure out what they had said later after it was too late to respond. Finally, Debbie talked me into looking at hearing aids. I had one tryout that didn’t work. After some time, with my family getting more frustrated with me, I went to another place. The audiologist there worked with me and explained that a different type of hearing aid would work best with the type of hearing loss I have. This time the one that I used worked well. The first time I walked out of my audiologist's office I was noticing the sound of my shoelaces as I walked. It took some time to get used to having them in my ears, but I eventually got used to them. I could tell that they were working and helping my hearing. Either that or Debbie and the kids all stopped mumbling. Still I wasn’t sure exactly how much they helped. One morning I was listening to an audiobook on my phone as I was putting in my hearing aids. It wasn’t as a test; it was more from a suspenseful book. I put the first one in and it was amazing the difference I could hear from that. My hearing aids have two settings. I can pick the second setting when I need more of a boost. When I go to the theater I can boost them to hear the actors better. If you think you see me scratching behind my ear, I may be adjusting the setting. I love being able to hear better. I have more confidence in talking to people; it helps when you can understand what they’re saying. If you find yourself saying "what" a lot, consider having your hearing checked. You may read this post and wonder about the title and how it fits with what I’m writing about. Don’t worry, I will explain it.
Just a note before I start. I did an upgrade with Weebly on the site. I’ll be able to post videos now, you might have noticed that in last week’s posting. I also have a new website address: www.timkwrites.com. If you access my blog with the old address it will redirect you to here. And now onto my posting. We’ve all heard the story of if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out, but if you put it in cold water and gradually increase the temperature it won’t be aware of it and won’t jump out even as the water gets to boiling. What if you reverse that? There are times in our life when our world is despair, hopelessness and brokenness. We’re in hot water and we can’t get out. It’s times like that when we need the heat turned down. That was me during the final stages of Debbie’s battle with breast cancer and after she passed away. Looking back, I’m not sure how I got through it. It feels like it was a blur, but I also have some very clear memories of that time. In fact, I just had to pause in writing this as I remembered when a group of her students came over and sang to Debbie while she was in hospice. It was so beautiful that all I could do was run into another room and silently sob. And, of course, if the computer screen is all blurry through tears you can’t write. What can we do for someone in that situation? We want to give them hope and encouragement. But you can’t say that. At that point, they’re focused on the moment and nothing else. Things in the future, like hope, don’t mean anything. We need to lower the heat. We might not be able to do much, but if we lower the heat one degree we’ve made a difference. The other person might not notice it, but every little bit adds up. Eventually the heat is lowered enough that life becomes bearable. I’ll tell you what helped to lower my heat, even though I didn’t notice it at the time. Every expression of support, every card that was sent, every hug, every meal that was delivered, every prayer, each of the over 400 people who came to the funeral brought the water to a lower temperature. Eventually, gradually, hope started showing up in my life again. The mourning doesn’t stop. Like a limb that is amputated that person isn’t coming back. But increasingly that stops being what defines your life. Acknowledgment and support are the best ways to lower the heat. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge what someone is going through. You may not say the right thing, but at least you’re letting them know you’re concerned. Even a simple, “I’m sorry for what you’re going through” works. You’ve read some of the things that people did to support me and my family. If you can think of something specific that you can do offer to do that. The old standard, “If you need anything, just let me know” is more of an acknowledgement since they don’t really know what they need. Gratitude doesn’t seem like something that relates to what I’ve been talking about. But for me it does. I feel so much gratitude for the many people whose kindness and concern were manifested through their support of Debbie, my family and me. I feel truly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. I thought this mash up of the titles of the two movies that Carrie Fischer and Debbie Reynolds were best known for sounded like a good way to think of where they are now.
A lot of good people left this world in 2016. My condolences to anyone who is grieving somebody who is now singing in the stars. A joyous reunion is coming. I am sorry this post is a little late. When Andrew left to go back to college last night I had some cleaning to do that I had let go too long. When I finished with that I was just thinking about relaxing and not about the fact that it was Tuesday. So here I am on Wednesday morning writing my blog post. I sat down after Christmas and tried to plan what I would be writing about in the coming weeks. I was creating my editorial calendar. Certain posts will fit better on some days and I wanted to be aware of that. My post for this week was supposed to be about goals and New Year’s resolutions. Then Andrew and I watched the original Star Wars trilogy this weekend in honor of Carrie Fischer and I decided I wanted to write something fun. So I’m going to write about some lessons that can be learned from Star Wars (the actual first movie that was released, not the whole series). I won’t go into too much depth with these, I’m just having some fun. Beware of those who see everything in black and white. The evil empire of course is filled with white armored storm-troopers and black Darth Vader. Life not only has various shades of gray, but also different colors. Luke’s development as a leader. Luke changes quite a bit from the beginning of the movie to the end. At the beginning, he’s a whiny kid. By the end of the movie he’s become a leader. Compare how he sounds when his Uncle Ben asks him to do something to the attack on the Death Star, it’s quite a change. He pulls it off because he’s gained confidence in himself and his abilities. Having confidence in yourself allows you to do more. On the future your focus keep – part one. (Sorry I couldn’t resist using a bit of Yoda syntax.) George Lucas is a creative genius. Yet, he kept coming back to Star Wars rereleasing it with tweaks, updated special effects and CGI. What if he had instead worked on something new, what did we miss because of this. Don’t be stuck in the past. On the future your focus keep – part two. And then he issues a new trilogy that tries to explain things that happened in the original trilogy. Not only does it not explain everything. (Why does Beru need a Bocce translator?) But it also raises new questions. (Why does Luke go from a baby to about 20 while Obi-wan appears to age about 40 years?) Don’t focus on explaining where you were, focus on where you are going. Even when you know something well you can still learn new things. I’ve seen the original Star Wars many times as has Andrew. But while we were watching it again this weekend we realized there’s a line that’s got to be the most unintentionally funny line in the series. How many times do the stormtroopers shoot and Luke, Leia and Han? How many times do they hit them? You know their percentage is lower than the Twins batting average from last year. It makes the line by Obi-wan when they find the jawa’s destroyed sandcrawler humorous. “And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.” Thanks for reading. May God (the original force) be with you. Next week my plan is to write about the safari from my trip to Tanzania. Tonight, I was talking with someone about 2017 and I told them I didn’t have anything real big plans for the year. I realized that if I had been talking about 2016 a year ago I might have said the same thing. And, oh how wrong I would have been. Mostly that’s a good thing.
It would be easy to list all the things I did in 2016, maybe even do the year end top ten list. But thinking back, what stands out are the people in my life and how my relationships with them changed during the year. The biggest change was my relationship with Dad. Although I believe that you can still have a relationship with someone who has left this world, it is a lot more one sided. I’ll always miss him. I was in a relationship with a woman earlier this year. That came to an end. She was a good person, but it wasn’t meant to be. I was elected to the Governing Board of my church last January. It’s been good to getting to know the other Board members better. I’m proud to serve with them. I travelled to Tanzania with a group of 9 other people. I had only known one of them before our first meeting. They turned out to be a fantastic group of travelling companions. And the people of Tanzania were wonderful. I was talking to a teacher at Bomalang’ombe school and he said he would like to meet me again. I told him I felt the same way. But I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go to that school if I return to Tanzania since it is in a different area than Kidamali. But I told him we will meet again, if not in this world then in the next. He gave me one of those big Tanzanian smiles and laughed. Even though my daughter was married twice this year I only gained one son-in-law. But he’s worth two, so I’m glad he’s a part of the family. I had the chance to meet his parents and several of his brothers at the various weddings. Wonderful people all of them. I am so pleased that our two families have connected. I also gained a grand-niece when my niece Sarah had a baby girl in February. She’s a cutie. It was good for the Anderson side of the family to grow this year. We went up to the North Shore this summer. My parents were there and for different parts of the week, most of their children and grandchildren were able to come and spend some time. I am so glad we could to do that for my dad before he passed away. I’ve also been developing a relationship with the readers of my blog over the last 6 months. Weebly tells me the number of page views and unique visitors for my blog. For page views, I was averaging 21 per day for the first three months. For the last three months, I’ve been averaging 31 per day. So, I am honored to have been included in your readings. I appreciate your comments on the blog and to me. I find the emotion that I am feeling the most about my relationships as the year draws to a close is gratitude. I am very thankful for the people in my life. I pray that you will all have a blessed new year and will develop a closer relationship with your God. Saddened by the scenes from Aleppo. Sickened by reading the University of Minnesota's report investigating football players. Disgusted by the report in the paper that many kid's headphones that are sold as safe for young ears aren't safe.
How am I supposed to feel the Christmas spirit? Once when I was little, I was watching TV. The evening news was on. Suddenly my big sister Kerry turned to my dad and asked him, "Is the news always this sad?" When Jesus said the poor will always be with you, he might have also added so will people doing evil things. Of course the news will always be sad. Bad news is easier to sell than good news. It doesn't make headlines, but the world is becoming a better place. War and conflicts are no longer glorified, we see more of the true nature of war and its affects. Hopefully this reduces the number or wars. Sexual assaults are talked about and confronted. There is less sweeping under the rug and more support for victims. A grass roots movement created changes in our environmental laws that led to a better planet. Most of the animals I saw in the city when I was growing up were squirrels and robins. Now just in my yard, I've seen a bald eagle, wild turkeys and as I write this I can hear an owl hooting in the park behind my house. Good news is out there. Good news is also there in the small things. Last Saturday I came up from my basement planning going out to use the snow blower on my driveway. My neighbor, Dwight, was in my driveway with his snow blower. He didn't realize I had a snow blower and was helping out. I told him I would finish up. As I was snow blowing I noticed another neighbor, Rob, was out shoveling his driveway. I know he has a snow blower, so I wasn't sure why he was shoveling. I asked if he'd like me to blow off the heavy stuff from the plow. He said yes. He told me his snow blower was leaking gas the last time he used it and he hadn't had the chance to get it fixed yet. So I blew off some of his driveway for him. This was just a small example, but things like this happen a lot without much fanfare. Good people will always be with us. Jesus is alive and active in this world. He came for each and every one of us. That such good news that in the past when they were deciding what to call the section of the Bible that tells Jesus' life story they could think of no better word than the Greek word for good news - Gospel. Enjoy the season. Merry Christmas to you! Let me start off with a prayer request. If you were reading my blog while I was in Tanzania you might remember Freddy Hanson. I had asked for your prayers for him while the doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He ended up having surgery and was expected to make a full recovery. Unfortunately, it has been discovered that it was cancer. Freddy has been at Mayo Clinic for radiation and chemotherapy. Your prayers, once again, would be a big help. Thanks. In Tanzania I was bemoaning that my pictures of sunsets never turned out. Tom Olsen, who had volunteered to be our trip photographer, told me to try editing it and using a red filter. I was trying out the editing capabilities of my phone/camera. If you're a friend on Facebook, you might have already seen what I did. I posted a new cover photo that took a nice sunset picture that hadn't turned out and changed it to look more like the actual sunset. I improved some pictures from Tanzania. I'll give you a sampling below. This got me musing about befores and afters in life. Sometimes it takes time afterwards for details to come forth and present a clearer, more understandable picture.
For years after the Twins won the World Series in 1987 I would have conversations with people where we were trying to figure out when something had happened. One or the other of us would say, "Well, I know it was before the Twins won the World Series." Or after. It was a shared event. After so many years of no championships for Minnesota pro sports teams, the Twins win created a shared sense of euphoria in Minnesota. We could all place when it had happened. Before and after meeting Debbie. She changed me for the better. I was a different person back then and Debbie drew out the best in me. (She tended to have that effect on people.) Before and after Debbie's death. A marker in time. Although on either side of it things are not clear. Her illness was a blur and afterwards I was in a fog of grief for some time. Bit by bit I progress towards being able to look back and understand. I know that my life will now be divided into before and after Tanzania. This trip changed me in so many way, changes that I know about and changes that I haven't realized have happened yet. But I know that they are changes for the good. I know that because of another before and after that's important to all our lives. As we celebrate Christmas this year, think about the before and after of Jesus. How this coming to earth changed more than just flipping the calendar from BC to AD. He comes as a child inviting us into a relationship of love. Accept the invitation with joy and afterwards... I once wrote a story. It was handwritten and filled seven notebooks from cover to cover. Then I asked a friend to read it and give me some feedback.
The feedback came back: “The 7th word on the 22nd line of the 60th page of the 4th notebook.” “What about it?” I asked. “It’s the only word that you spelled right.” Good, constructive feedback. I had to change the story. Looking at that one word I realized how much I loved that word there in that place in the story. However, all the other words were bad. That was a problem. So, I took out my eraser and started erasing all the bad words. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it to save that one word. I know you’re reading this and shaking your head. Wouldn’t it have been much easier to start over from scratch? Why go to all that work? It’s because of that one word, I loved that word. A lot. You’re shaking your head again. This isn’t a real story, is it? Nobody would do something like that. Ok, I’ll admit to making up the story. But something like that was done before. Everyone in the world was bad except for one person. It was Noah. And God didn’t just wipe the slate clean and start over even though that would have been a lot easier. The extra work wasn’t a problem because He loved Noah so much. That’s how much God loves us as well. God will go to extraordinary lengths for those he loves. For you. |
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