You See George

"You see George, you really had a wonderful life."
"Strange isn't it? One man's life affects so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"  ~ Clarence


I love the perspective "It's a Wonderful Life" brings.The reminder that we each have been given a great gift. The gift of life. We have also been given the gift of choice on how to spend our lives. A blessing with a great responsibility attached to it. 


The new year is a wonderful time for me. It allows me to evaluate and come up with new year's goals. Even if they are never fully accomplished there are great plans in the works as a new year rolls around. There are ups and downs in a year. I don't know that there are ever years that are fully up which is probably a good thing because the down side would be sure to come and it would not be fun. The ups provide the spice of life. The downs often provide perspective and fresh reminders of what we are truly here to do, Who we are here to serve. 


As I think of the new year with all its prospects and reflect on the ideas in the movie mentioned above, my mind drifts back to George's statement to Clarence after deciding that suicide probably wasn't his best option he said, "I suppose I wish I had never been born." As the movie plays on George is given the gift of seeing the impact he made on others. How even though life didn't go the way he had hoped and dreamed, it went how it needed to go. Not to say that we shouldn't have hopes and dreams, just that maybe sometimes when they don't work out it doesn't  necessarily mean we failed but that there was possibly a different plan for our lives, a better one. 


We really are given a gift of life. A gift that so many have not been given. What will we do with this year? Will we make great and daring plans even though we might fail? Will we wish we had never been born, regretting the gift I'm sure many would have liked to have been given? Will we just let life happen because we're too scared to try to do great things? The choice is ours.


"But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands." ~Isaiah 37:8

Jane Eyre

I watched Jane Eyre for the first time tonight. I watched a movie recently that had the book in it. I had only seen the book's cover but had no idea the story that lay in between the pages. When I saw that it was on t.v. I decided I wanted to know more so I watched it. It's the cheater's version I know, but I was glad I cheated. I'll try not to ruin the story. I will however tell this about Jane Eyre. She was a woman who betrayed neither her heart nor her integrity, but it took not wavering in her integrity to not compromise either. Had she given in to her temptations she would have lost both.

I originally thought the moral of this applied only to a small group. It actually applies to each one of us. I have thought for a long time how we often forfeit blessings down the road for the pleasures of the moment and how if we could only see ahead and forgo those momentary impulses with lasting consequences we will find that true happiness we long for. Sometimes that means giving up what we long for entirely, other times it simply means not now. Unfortunately in the moment we hardly ever know which it is, and so too often we leap now and then regret later.

The story of Jane Eyre taught me that both the heart and integrity are important. She had an opportunity to leave her heart behind (on an impulse), yet she did not, and in the end gained what she desired. This was without the bitter empty feeling that acting without integrity almost invariably leaves because she had maintained her honor in the days prior to that. We are meant for great things in this life, but we must remain true to our heart and our integrity to fully attain them. Both are necessary.

"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart." ~Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

There's More to the Story

I am reading a book about "the 7 tipping points that saved the world." As I began to read the first tipping point, the book was giving names like Judah, Sennacherib, Assyria, and Lachish. I recognized them all from the Bible but couldn't pinpoint the story in my mind so I put down that book and began looking in the Bible for the story. I opened a Bible with archaeological helps in it and came across an article entitled "The Lachish Reliefs." It described 12 stone slabs that were placed in Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh. The slabs "vividly depict Sennacherib's victory over the fortified Judahite town of Lachish in 701 B.C." With this knowledge, I looked up the page at the story of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18. The story started out talking about Hezekiah's background and about his faithfulness to the Lord. In verses 6 and 7 it says, "He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow Him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. And the Lord was with him, he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him." Then in verse 13, "In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them." The text went on to say that Hezekiah sent a message to Sennacherib that he had done wrong and asked him to withdraw. Then Hezekiah gave him all his silver and even stripped the gold off the doorposts of the temple of the Lord. At this point I whispered to myself, "This doesn't make sense." In the verses before it said that God was with Hezekiah and gave him success in whatever he did, but in the verses after it and from the Lachish reliefs it sounded as though Sennacherib had won. Then the thought occurred to me to read on. The story was not over there. As I continued reading I discovered that Sennacherib's men came and blasphemed God's abilities to Hezekiah's troops. Arrogantly stating that Judah didn't have a chance against their army. When Hezekiah heard about it he tore his robes, and prayed. The Lord sent word through Isaiah that He had heard his prayer, and Isaiah delivered to him the word the Lord had spoken against Sennacherib. In chapter 19:35, "That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning--there were all the dead bodies!" It continues in verse 36, "So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there." The last verse of the chapter describes the assassination of Sennacherib by his own sons.

It's easy for me to get caught up in what is going on in this moment, and sometimes what is going on in this moment does not seem good to me. Sometimes I stop before the story is over saying, "I don't understand." The thing I can bank on, if I will, is that God is faithful 100% of the time. It's us who aren't always faithful, who don't always hold up our end of the covenant. Don't stop before the end of the story. Stay faithful to God because He is worthy of that faithfulness.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." ~Romans 8:28

The Great Were Once As You

There is a poem by Edgar Guest called "The Great Were Once As You." If you are unfamiliar with the poem its a great one to Google. The gist of it is that those we call great started out as ordinary and in fact still are ordinary men and women, but they didn't run when times of testing came. Rather they stayed and stood their ground even if that meant standing alone. There was no magic to it. They just did what needed to be done when it needed to be done. Its simple yet sometimes difficult to do.

It's not something that is done with perfection either. However there ought to be a striving for perfection and a forgiveness of self (and others) when that perfection isn't obtained. And if we strive for that perfection with the goal to glorify God and not self we will meet with incredible results.

Oh Youth, go forth and do! You, too, to
fame may rise;
You can be strong and wise. Stand up to
life and play the man
You can if you'll but think you can;
THE GREAT WERE ONCE AS YOU.
You envy them their proud success?
'Twas won with gifts that you possess. ~Edgar Guest

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, 
And lean not on your own understanding; 
In all your ways acknowledge Him, 
And He shall direct your paths.  ~Proverbs 3:5,6 (NKJV)

Example

I was playing basketball the other day with one of the players. As we were bantering back and forth he made a comment that struck a chord with me about the importance of our example in our lives because it was very telling about society today. I won't go into the actual details of the conversation but in a nutshell he automatically assumed that I was telling him not to say something that I would say myself when not in a "teacher" setting. He was mistaken, but the thought was very intriguing.

I began thinking about the importance of the teachers', parents', older siblings' etc examples in the lives of these young people (the future of our nation.) How can we expect them to listen to what we say and pay no attention to what we are doing? If we are honest with ourselves we cannot. If what we say and what we do are opposed to each other, odds are they are going to pay more attention to what we do. There will be times when even when we are doing the right thing people will assume we are not. Some of this can be prevented, some cannot. The point is if we want to help grow the people around us into men and women of integrity... we have to be that ourselves. Something that is so much easier said than done, but something that will require much effort, and might even step on our toes when we find we don't quite measure up to the standard. (I have seen that in myself often this year alone.) But if we can press on, I don't think we will be disappointed.

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed." ~Proverbs 16:3 (NIV)