Past future

I was once a member of an organization that might surprise you. Yes, dear readers, I was an official participant in the Future Farmers of America. Not by choice, mind you; in the small, rural high school I attended, all boys were required to take two years of “Vocational Agriculture,” while girls were shunted into “Home Economics.” My memories of FFA include my attempts to raise chickens, my assisting the Ag teacher in converting male hogs into not-so-male hogs, the annual livestock show, and the monthly FFA meetings. At the meetings, the officers would sit behind two tables at the front of the room, wearing their blue corduroy jackets. Before each boy was a small statuette related to his office. I can’t remember what they all were, but among them were an owl, a plow…and an ear of corn. Each officer would stand and state their office and what their symbol represented. The owl, of course, stood for wisdom, the wisdom hopefully exhibited by the advisor, our Ag teacher. Corn marked the secretary’s position. I remember him stating that corn was grown in all fifty states, but I can’t for the life of me remember what was so “corny” about being the chapter’s secretary.
I did not go on to become a farmer; as far as I know, neither did anyone else in my class. See, it wasn’t really my goal at all. No matter how many times I heard the pledge to corn, it always fell on dear ears (sorry). Of course, I never went on to become a superhero or an astronaut or a rock star, either. I probably should have belonged instead to the Future Fatties of America, but who knew?
Few of us end up where we thought we would. But God knows we really don’t need that many ballerinas and firemen. He also knows exactly what he wants for your life: joy, peace, grace, forgiveness. He also wants you to spread the word about Him, to be a sower of seed, to…uh…be a farmer.
In God’s kingdom, we are all future farmers, planting seeds He will harvest.

How sweet it is…

My dad was as vice-free as anyone I’ve ever known. But he did have a little bit of a sweet tooth. And when I say “a little bit,” I mean it; the kind of sweets he enjoyed were not typical of what tempts most of us.
His unusual taste in candy went back to his childhood when he would spend Saturday afternoon at the “picture show.” He would buy a nickel’s worth of candy corn at a store next to the theater and make it last through the afternoon as he watched a double feature, newsreel, cartoon and previews. He described to me how to do this: First, put one piece of candy corn in your mouth. Bite off the little white tip and stow the rest in your cheek. Slowly shave down the white piece with your teeth, savoring each tiny shred. Then bite off the yellow top of the corn and proceed in the same fashion. By the time you finish the orange middle piece, 20 or 30 minutes could have elapsed.
As an adult, he liked one candy that hardly anyone admits to eating. They’re called Circus Peanuts, but they’re really spongey, orange marshmallowy lumps shaped like large peanuts in shells. He could stick one of these between his cheek and gum and sit happily in a hunting blind for hours as the rubbery abomination slowly dissolved.
During the last years of his life, he kept a large jar of jawbreakers on his desk. Once a day he would pop one in his mouth and let the thing melt.
I’ve got his jawbreaker jar on my desk now, but I find it hard to follow my dad’s example. I get impatient and chew up the candy corn or bite down on the jawbreaker as soon as it’s small enough or spit out the circus peanut because…because…well, it’s because I’m not as wise as my dad. He knew that the sweet part of life was to be savored, not gobbled. He knew there was enough goodness to last a lifetime if he paced himself. He took his time and enjoyed every second. Sweet!

Getting the point…

When we were kids, my older brother did something which made a big impression on my mind. He shot me in the head with his bow and arrow. We were in the backyard and I bent over to pick up a ball and the sight of the top of my big, round head was apparently too much for him to resist. We both quickly realized that a mistake had been made. I was in pain and bleeding…and he knew he was gonna get it.
After a trip to the doctor, I was okay; I even got to wear my baseball cap to church that week to cover the shaved circle on top of my head. The evening of “the incident,” my parents were in their room when a sheet of paper slid under the door. My brother had drawn up a formal document, using my dad’s typewriter. The title was in all caps (though misspelled): “A PLEDGE OF SAFTY.” Below, in a signed paragraph, he solemnly promised to never again shoot his little brother with an arrow.
And you know what? He never has…at least so far.
If only all our pledges could be so easily kept, all those promises we’ve made to God if He would only give us a break this one time. I’ve done a poor job of holding up my end of the God-bargains I’ve sworn to.
In a scrapbook at home, I still have my brother’s pledge. I can flourish it in his face if I ever need to, saying, “See? You promised!”
But God is not like that. Those broken promises I made? He can’t find ‘em. He doesn’t seem to remember them. The wounds and hurts I’ve caused Him? He’s forgiven and forgotten them. And I love that. See, I need more guilt and shame like I need…well, another hole in my head. And I’ve already got one of those, thanks to my brother.

Come, thou font…

When the personal computer began to invade homes in the late 1980s, people had access to some tools they had never experienced before. Chief among these was the availability of fonts—different styles of lettering. A few fonts came loaded on that new computer, but there were soon thousands of different fonts available. For the obsessive among us, it quickly became a badge of honor to amass a library of as many fonts as we could gather. No longer was a simple missive limited to the common typefaces we recognized as coming from a typewriter. No more were your flyers and posters limited to whatever varieties of “rub-on” letters you bought at the office supply stores. It was an era of changing times…changing Times to Futura or Arial or Poster Bodoni, that is.
The drawback to this bounty was that everyone felt compelled to show off their font collection. Your corporate newsletter soon had ten or twelve different typefaces on the front page alone. Such ostentation meant there was little regard for the actual text, for the message intended for the reader. Desktop publishing instead became a can-you-top-this game: “Hey, look! These letters look like cheese!”
Fonts became as numerous and varied as denominations of churches, and the similarities didn’t end with sheer numbers. It doesn’t matter how fancy your new font is if the words cannot be read. Words—and churches—are for communicating a message. When we become too intent on showing off our edgy new look or our hip facade, we obscure the simple word, the text that pre-existed everything: “In the beginning was the Word.” A word so powerful, so eternal, does not need to be set in 72-point New Century Bold Italic All-Caps. It just needs to be legible, on the page and on the street. The question in your mind should always be: “Do you read me?”

Sock it to me?

During the week, I get up at 6:00am. But on Sunday morning, I arise at 5:30, before the other members of my family. They are not morning people, so I try to let them sleep as long as possible. I’ve grown accustomed to getting out of bed while it’s still dark and, for the most part, it hasn’t caused me any problems. I can find my clothes in the dark. I know where I put my shoes. My wallet is always in its place. But occasionally I will discover—too late—that I’ve made a mistake. I’ll be at church, ready to teach my class, when I notice I have on one blue sock and one black sock. Or one dark brown and one black.
It’s my own fault. Usually I roll my socks together after they’ve been laundered. But there are always a few strays, a few orphan socks whose mate is…somewhere…probably in my sock drawer. So I put the strays in the drawer and then, some dark morning, I can’t find a pair that’s been rolled and I pick out two that sorta seem, in the pre-dawn dimness, to be alike. And therein lies the lesson. In darkness, it is difficult to make the right choices. You make a guess and take a chance. Sometimes it’s the wrong choice.
That’s when I have to find the time to dump all the stray socks out on the bed, during the afternoon, with the blinds open and the sunlight shining in. Now it’s much easier to tell the blue from the brown or the black. All I have to do is let the light in.
How frequently do we make choices blindly, choices which are much more important than what color socks to wear today? We ask for guidance and then sit there in the dark, hoping we will do the right thing. Don’t you want to choose wisely? The light switch is right there. Flip on the light. Open the blinds.
Let in the Light.

Happy to meet you…

I was in a bookstore a couple of weeks ago when I came upon a display table at the end of an aisle. On the table was a placard that read “Happiness.” I drew closer and examined the books stacked there; eighteen different titles, all promising to help the reader find happiness. The sheer number of books on this subject—and I’m sure there were even more on a shelf somewhere—was evidence that a whole bunch of people are unable to find happiness…and they will fork over their money to anyone who can tell them where to look.
Why is this? Doesn’t the Constitution—unlike any other country on earth—guarantee us the right to happiness?
No, not quite. It actually guarantees us the right to pursue happiness. There’s no guarantee that we will find it. However, I think there’s an important clue hidden in that phrase. What if happiness—instead of being the goal—is just a by-product of the pursuit? I recently read a book by an author who searched for the happiest place on earth. He pointed out that most of us move “from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house and, if we’re really wealthy, to an estate. We think we’re moving up, but really we’re walling off ourselves.” The more we close ourselves off from community, the harder it will be to find happiness…for happiness comes from other people.
It’s like Jesus told his disciple friends: If you wanna do something nice for Jesus, do something nice for some person around you. Therefore, if you want to be happy, try to make someone else happy. If you spend some time pursuing happiness for another person, you may be surprised to find how much you get to share in it.

Teddy or not…

I heard a story recently, told by the father of a small boy. The boy had been plagued by health issues from the time of his birth, but was finally able to live a normal lifestyle. His family took a much-anticipated trip to Disney World and had a great time. When they arrived back home, however, the little boy discovered that his teddy bear had been left behind. The bear had been his constant companion through illness and hospital stays and the boy plaintively cried that he didn’t know how he could live without the teddy. Frantically, the parents called the hotel in Florida; no one had turned in a teddy bear. The father boarded a plane back to Orlando, drove to the hotel, and questioned all the housekeeping staff. One woman remembered seeing the bear…in the trash.
The father and several hotel staffers dashed to the basement, only to find that the trash had already been picked up. That was not the end. Dad and the hotel staff drove to the garbage dump, finagled their way in, and located the container which had come from the hotel — a huge metal dumpster the size of an 18-wheeler trailer. The container was emptied on the ground and all activity at the dump ceased while a half-dozen people began tearing open trash bags. Finally, the teddy bear was found, none the worse for wear, and the exhausted father took another plane back home.
I thought about this story for days after I heard it. If you’re a parent, you can probably identify with the dad, dropping everything to care for his child. Or maybe you feel like the child, knowing what it’s like to have a father care so much for you. But then a third thought occurred to me: I’m the teddy bear. Lost. Alone. Buried in garbage. Hopeless. But Someone came looking for me, digging through the decay and filth, never giving up until He found me and brought me home. How about that; I was enthralled by this story…and then I find out it’s about me!
It’s about you, too.

Lemon aid

I have a dependable car. It was not always thus. The first several vehicles I owned were my first experience with gambling; the odds on getting where I was going were rarely in my favor. The rule seemed to be “If life gives you lemons, sell ‘em to Mike and laugh all the way to the bank.” I had a ‘65 Mustang; great car, right? Except this one had been in a wreck and the frame was bent, grinding the tread off my tires every couple of weeks.
I had a car which had the lovable quirk of catching on fire about once a month. I was driving another car down the street when the driveshaft just…fell…out…on the ground. On another vehicle, the back wheels would lock up occasionally, causing the tires to screech loudly and pedestrians to look around in fear. I grew accustomed to hearing mechanics say that sentence that you never want to hear: “Wow, I never saw one do that before!”
Eventually, I experienced the thrill of buying a new car. That smell! That shiny chrome! That warranty! I could at last drive without fearing that something might explode or fall off at any moment. It was an entirely new level of confidence and peace of mind.
I think that’s why the Bible says that when we begin a relationship with God through Jesus, we become new creations. Would you buy a used car from God? You can’t. All He has are brand-new models. God doesn’t just set our odometers back a few miles. He doesn’t slap a sticker on us that says “As Is.” No, we come off the assembly line shiny and new, with no miles on us, no scratches, a host of new accessories, and a warranty for a billion years or a billion miles, whichever comes last. So what are we supposed to do? Sit in the garage? No, we’re supposed to get out and go. And don’t just be a Sunday driver, either; show off that newness every day of the week.