by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
What is the authentic sign that someone is filled with God’s spirit and love the way Jesus was?
I wish I could send the following letter to the woman, a teacher, whom God used to change my life one day, simply by being who she was and doing what she did so often in our classroom.
Dear Mrs. Smith,
I don’t know where you’ve gone since that fourth grade class nearly seventy years ago. But if there is a special room in heaven for fourth grade teachers, I know you’re there. Do you still pull your hair up in a bun and wear ruffled blouses and small brown shoes the way you did as an “older” teacher (probably 33)?
Somehow, when you came around and bent over my desk, the rest of the world disappeared and we were alone. I’m not sure how you did it—but it made me feel very loved. Each of us must have thought, “It’s me! I’m the special one!”
You seemed to bring a glass bubble of caring and put it over the two of us so we could talk safely, privately. No longer did I have to be tough and swear and make nasty signs at the other boys. I’ll never forget that rainy day you brought us back the graded stories we’d turned in the Friday before.
Your eyes were shining.“John Keith,” you said in your quiet voice, “your story is excellent!” (you paused while you looked at the story, and I turned red. Then you continued, “You know,” and you nodded your head slowly. “I think you can become a very fine writer some day.”
First thought: “Oh no, if the other guys hear that, they willneverquit teasing me. I could hear them shouting already,‘Johnny is a wri-ter! Johnny is a wri-ter!’I’d have to whip them all.”
Second thought: “My gosh, she reallymeansit! Maybe Icouldbe a writer some day!” Then skyrocket thoughts going off in my mind: amazement, wonder, confirmation, fear, joy!
As a writer was being born in my gut that day, Mrs. Smith, you touched my shoulder and smiled a special smile about our secret, and moved on. As I sat there in your afterglow, I knew I’d been visited by an angel-messenger from God.
Today, remembering that moment, I can see that you planted a seed in my life that is still alive—not only about becoming a writer, but about how to love as a Christian. Your caring attention was warm, like a spotlight that god had given you to focus wherever you wanted to. And as you shined that spotlight on who we were inside, on the hidden hopes and dreams and loneliness, God’s love slid down the beam of your attention into our hearts and helped us see that we just might belovable and worthwhile, in spite of our insecurities and fears.
I watched you as you continued up and down the rows. I’m sure I must have had a dumb adoring smile on my face. And then I shook my head in amazement. You had stopped next to that mean Burt Logan.
And Burt was smiling back!
Thank you, Mrs. Smith,—for Burt and me, and for all the dozens of other scared, mean-looking fourth graders whom you taught over all those years, about finding hope and dreams…and about loving.
Lord, thank you that your footprints have always been mingled with ours even if you were wearing small brown shoes at the time. Amen.
“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simplybe yourself, your life will count for plenty.” Mt. 23:10-12 The Message
“Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” John 13:34-35 The Message
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
I feel alone in my own house sometimes. How did we become so afraid to share our intimate thoughts?
No one, it seems, is really sure about how human development takes place. And it is apparent from reading in the field of developmental psychology that crucial direction changing experiences can happen to different children at different ages. But in order to get a rough picture of how our identities may develop, imagine with me for a few minutes that it is a simple story (which it is not, of course).
From the time it is born a child responds naturally and openly to the people and events in his or her life with tears, contented looks or laughter. Dr. Paul Tournier, a Swiss Internist and founder of the concept of the “medicine of the person,” calls this natural responding self the child’s “person.” Along with the needs for food, water, air and sleep, the child has an inherent need to be loved by its parents or caretakers. And all goes well as long as the natural responses of the child are not in conflict with the desires or belief of the parent figures.But when the youngster unknowingly crosses a no-no line, life is no longer simple.
For instance, a guest may be entranced with the cooing noises a baby is making in its high chair while waiting for breakfast. And the mother is delighted. But five minutes later when the baby blows a mouthful of warm oatmeal all over the guests’face and Sunday clothes—a trick very similar to cooingfrom the baby’s perspective—the mother is furious, says “NO!’AND SLAPS THE BABY’S HAND. And after a few more tries the baby realizes that he or she will not get love from mother by blowing oatmeal on guests. So the child learns to hide the urge to blow oatmeal.
But there is a problem. The child has never hidden anything. Remember that the little “person” responds naturally and honestly. How then do we learn to hide our unacceptable feelings?
Tournier says that something happens at this point (at some point) which allows us to hide. We develop what he calls “personages.” A personage is like a selection of painted masks with expressions of the thoughts and feelings which I feel will get me love and acceptance from the people around me. All of us develop several of these personages/personalities, each with its own presenting language.
A child develops a “parent” personage—with a language all of its own for dealing with its parents. In every major area of our lives, it seems, we develop a personage which is designed to portray to the people in authority in that group the proper images whereby we can gain their love or approval—regardless of what the actual feelings of our inner person may be about that group or activity.
The personage is not like the “mask” we speak of inAmerica. The American mask is opaque. But a personage is partially transparent. That is, I amafraid for you to see through my personage for fear that you’ll reject me, but I alsolongfor you to see through the personage to the person hiding behind it—hoping that you will know me and love me. But in actual experience we are usually not conscious of the fact that we even have personages. We just vaguely notice occasionally that we talk and act differently in different situations.
***
This information may shed some light on how we get to be afraid to share our intimate thoughts even with the people we love the most.So what can we do about it?When the separation of our personages from our person gets great enough that we repress our person’s feelings and get terribly anxious, we often go for help.Let’s say that I’ve decided to go to a counselor…Here I may enter what Tournier calls a “person-dialouge.”This happens when two people are willing to lay down their personages and talk about their real feelings—their persons.All healing starts when the client or patient quits communicating through his or her personages and begins to talk directly about her feelings.
But the process is long and sometimes fearful.When you are a counselee and you get one honest unflattering feeling out, it feels as if you have found a little thread sticking out of the corner of your mouth.By expressing the feeling you are handing the thread to the therapist.As he or she responds, it’s as if the thread is pulled a little. And you find there is a string tied to the thread—a deeper feeling—and as the string is drawn out, there’s a rope tied to it.And there is a chain tied to the rope.But as you feel the chain coming out you can almost hear a “bucket of garbage” coming up tied to the chain.
For some, learning to do this may require help from a counselor or minister or perhaps in a safe small group*.For some this process may take a long time, and be very frightening.But the miraculous thing about a person-dialogue is that when a person “comes out” and is honest about who he or she really is—with true feelings attached—and feels sort of emotionally naked before us on any significant level, I have found him or her always to have a haunting family resemblance to Jesus Christ.Realpeople being vulnerable are, it seems beautiful and lovable.And if that’s true, then you and I can be included.
Lord, thank you that because you are with us, we are never really alone.Help us to move toward the real people you have put in our lives and to be willing to come out from behind our masks, lay down our personages andreallytalk to each other. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
One such truth: “you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32, NIV
“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation!You know meinside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.” Psalm 139:13-16, The Message
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
What did Jesus say God would give us to overcome our solitary fears?
I remember clearly a particular day when I was four that marked the beginning of my own conscious search for the answer to that question.Happy warfare with small, bright lead soldiers on an ancient oriental rug, worn off in spots by a thousand such battles—and hundreds of other walking steps, marching through my parents’upstairs bedroom to bed. A battered tablespoon, an old brass tray—the gong to start and end each tiny epic struggle.
Then awareness!—total—I was all alone.My mother out back hanging up the wash. Then the hot-faced, wide-eyed, awful fear and dread!
“IT” was coming out of hiding in the closet, attic, basement, God only knew its secret lairs!My heart beat so loudly I knew it could hear and come to devour me, or worse, carry me away—like some winged older brother to torture and torment me forever! Silence! The grandfather clock ticked in the hall to disguise the monster’s tiny clawed feet and measured hissing breath.
In terror I began to sing and beat the gong—“Make noise and sound courageous—to scare away the boogie man,” my inner voices screamed! Maybe it would not get me if I could just sound strong. (So that’s where it started.)
Through crystalline rivers of tears—as I sang at the top of my voice—I could almost see the shadows of the fangs and beak of the monster projected in the designs of the flowered wallpaper in front of me—for an eternity of hour-long seconds. Then the distant “bang”—the back screen door slamming—the signal that my cavalry was going to charge over the hillside against the dragon.
“MU—THER!”—my own thin voice screaming! I knew the monster heard me too, so I beat the gong twice harder and heard running footsteps on the stair. “Dear God, let it be my mother!”
Then the door burst open!
It was she!
The brave gong-beater disappeared, and a terrified, sobbing four-year-old ran forth and buried his tear-drenched face into the cool ruffled cotton apron.
My mother—JOAN OF ARC—bigger somehow than my dragon/beast, sent it scurrying back into its dark lair, as she pressed me to her bosom. And let me sob.
As I cried, once more dread bubbled up from inside and filled me with a new terror.What if MOTHER died? Who would save me then?
Or would I only find a bigger spoon and gong—and a way to sing a louder song?
Lord, thank you that my fear drove me to try to find security in all kinds of ways…until I was finally able to surrender my pride enough to cry out to you—and to discover you’ve been in here all the time. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.” John 14:18 The Message
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
My family calls me “the Drama Queen.” My life seems to be filled with monster problems—and I do tend to spew these unsolvable resentments, fears, and dramatic (potential) tragedies my life seems filled with. Can you talk about how Christians can get over this “awfulizing”?
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.”James 5:16THE MESSAGE
I have always felt like I have an assignment to fight the raging fire-breathing dragons of life wherever I am—at home and school, in marriage and business.Imust be the one to fight other people’s dragons as well because I’ve had so many dragons to fight in my own life.
When I became a Christian I was told that it was God’s job to kill the dragons. I was to submit my whole life to him and learn how to listen to him, love his people and do his will. I might be able to help people face the deep problems of their lives, but only God could actually give each person the courage to face his or her own problems. I was to confessmy ownsins as soon as I could after I saw them, and tend to my own dragons before I could be effective in reaching out to others.
And that would work for a while, but then apparently out of nowhere my life would be filled with the raging dragons of over-commitment, defensive pride, angry blaming, unkept promises to do or be something, and isolation and loneliness.
I have a dear Christian friend who used to be as frantic and compulsive as I. But now she looks peaceful and serene—even though she still lives a busy life and helps many others. Finally I asked her, “As busy as you are, how do you manage to be so serene and peaceful? You used to tell me your inner life felt like it was filled with people-eating dragons.”
“Well, one day I’d had enough of the chaotic overload, and,” she looked very thoughtful and then said simply, “I just quit feeding the lizards.”
“What do you mean; you just quit feeding the lizards?”
“Well, all I know is that one day I saw something shocking: when I was moaning and recounting the small resentments, criticisms, and gossip—these small “lizards” always developed into the raging dragons that were “killing” me. But one day I shared my dragons, confessed them to my small group of Christian friends. And that confessional sharing made it embarrassing for me to continue nursing and dwelling on the small irritations of over commitment, jealousy and resentment in my life. And after a few months of not feeding those small lizards, there simply weren’t any large size dragons left to battle. And when a new batch of lizards crops up I just try to starve them by not giving them any air time at home, and by sharing them with spiritual friends.”
“What a concept!” I said.I was floored. “Do you mean that if I don’t want full-grown monster dragons to battle, I can begin to deal with the small “lizard” problems that grow up to become life’s monster dragons?”
She smiled with a twinkle in her eye, and said, “That’s the way it works for me!”
Thank you, Lord that we can confess, make amends, talk about problems with a trusted friend sooner, and not feed the small lizards that can become the terrifying dragons that devour lives of loving. Amen.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
What can a Christian do when his spouse confronts him with the fact that he is so busy that: “You never have time for us any more. Sometimes I feel like a single parent.” Are there any effective ways you’ve found to remind yourself to stop and smell the flowers with your family?
Recently, after I wrote about the problems of being a husband and father when one’s calendar is loaded with trips and meetings, I jotted down some things that have been helpful tome in trying to move from the periphery toward the mainstream of your family’s ongoing life.
Years ago, when my writing and speaking career accelerated, I first started praying about trying to be a better father and husband.I made some disconcerting discoveries.In the first place I am controlled by habit to a larger extent than I realized.In certain ways I had put “other people” and “my ministry” (or business ventures) ahead of my family for so long that I did not know how to begin changing without going overboard in the other direction.
These are some of the mechanical changes I made to move back into the bloodstream of our family’s life: At the first of each year, I take my new appointment calendar and write on each family member’s birthday, “Commitment to Family.” Then I do the same thing with our wedding anniversary, and with my wife I try to plan a vacation time with the family and put it on the calendar. For a while I added a couple of random two-day “commitments” so that she and I could get away together. Later in the year, when some new project came up or someone called about a meeting that fell on one of the family’s days, I said without any hesitation, “I’m sorry, but I already have a commitment on that date.”
I remember the first time an invitation to participate in a big meeting came on one of the children’s birthdays. I was very interested in the meeting but said no. The man, who was a friend, must have sensed my hesitation, because he asked, “Why can’t you come? This is an important convention, and your witness might reach a lot of people.”
I was a little embarrassed to say that it was “my little girl’s birthday,” but I went on to tell him, “You can get half a dozen speakers in an hour, but I am the only daddy she’s got.”
He was quiet on the other end of the line for a few seconds, and I thought he had rejected me as a fool. Then he said quietly, “I wish I could do that.” And I knew I had started in the right direction.
Before that time, I had been away on three family birthdays in a row. Now, I hardly ever miss a birthday unless something comes up that seems to warrant a very special exception and we can all agree together to slide the celebration to another date.
Another thing that helped us while the children were small was to get a sitter so that my wife and I could go out of town for a day or two by ourselves once in a while. We generally went to a nearby city to avoid the expenditure of time, money, and energy required for a long trip. We checked into a hotel and relaxed. We might window-shop, read, see movies, eat quiet meals together, sleep late, and not contact people we know well.These mini-vacations without the children helped each of us know that we are being heard by the other and do something special for our relationship. This has not solved all our problems, of course, and I realize that many people cannot afford the money for this kind of “taking off.” But we have gone when we could not afford it, and somehow the sacrifice has said to us that our relationship is very important. But if traveling is out, a little creative thought may help a couple to come up with another way to find time alone away from the children.
As to specific ways one relates to a mate and children at home, that which is natural for one person will not be for another. But the thing good parents and good husbands and wives we know seem to have in common is the ability to make each member of the family feel important, and that both the woman and the man of the family are aware of each member’s needs and their accomplishments. The message I am trying to get across to my family is: “Although I am a busy person who will probably always be away from home some, each of you is very important tome. Among people, you arefirstin my life.”
There have been times when this was impossible to say, because I was mad, or anxious, or because I was off trying to participate in the building of a new kingdom for God (or for me). But I try to come back again and again and build time for my family into the fabric of my life. I do this because I love them. And I have to resort to mechanical means because it is so easy for me to avoid the responsibility of thinking of anyone but me.
I may not make as many speeches, attend as many meetings, or write as many books for Christ. But I hope I will at least have lived for Him more in my own home. There have been some horrible and excruciating failures, and Christ’s way of confession and making amends is the only hope sometimes.
For the trouble is that we are self-centered, and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour; the very effort will plant it there the more fixedly than ever. The man of science is drawn out of himself as regards one whole range of his activity by the concentration of his attention on the object of his study in his search for truth; the artist, by a similar concentration in his search for beauty; the good man, or public-spirited man, by a similar concentration in the service of his cause. But none of these cover the whole of life. Always there remains a self-centered area of life, and sometimes by a natural process of compensation those who are most selfless in the search for truth or beauty, or in public service, are most selfish, fretful and querulous at home.
William Temple, Nature, Man and God
Lord, You know how many days I cannot turn loose and be a good husband, how many times my mind is filled with visions of my work or myself. Yet I want to be Your person in our home. I love my family very much. But sometimes my behavior tells me I love what I am doing more. Help me to find a balance, so I can be free in my work and yet enjoy being the person my family needs. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
My dad was raised in the church, but he drinks a lot now. Even though he keeps saying he’s going to quit, it never lasts more than a few days. When I told him that God can help him quit drinking (because God has helped me quit), he said, “I can’t surrender my life to God because I’m still drinking, and I can just imagine the pastor’s face if I showed up drunk after I joined. I’ll come to church when I get my drinking under control.” Can you help me know what to tell my dad?
One evening many years ago now, I was taking a young friend out to dinner. He had just graduated from the university and was going off to enter the Christian ministry the next day. John was one of those fine, clean young men who somehow get through college without scar or blemish from the world. I found him hard to believe, but he was evidently sincere. We had eaten in a cafeteria and were talking about his future when a good-looking young woman sauntered up to our table in a pair of very short shorts, sandals, and one of those brief bikini tops.She was followed by a tiny daughter in a similar outfit. I recognized the woman as a member of the adult Sunday school class I taught. The class was rather large, and I had seen her only as a member of an audience. A few times I had spoken to her briefly before or after class, but I had definitely noticed her.
Somehow in the cafeteria, however, she looked very “un-Sunday schooly.” I introduced her to my young friend as a member of the same Sunday school class, and asked if she and her daughter would like to join us. She did, and said at once, “There is something I’ve wanted to talk to you about for months.”
“What’s that?”
“Paul, I think he was a sex deviate.”
I noticed that John’s eyes were protruding slightly in horror, and I sort of wished I hadn’t asked.
“Paul who?” I asked, smiling weakly.
She laughed, “You know who I mean, Paul the Apostle.”
So we began to talk about Paul’s views concerning women and sex. After about forty minutes it was apparent that
Paul was not the problem she wanted to talk about, and I told her so.
Her whole attitude changed. She said almost wistfully, “I really believe you’ve found hope in your faith, and I would honestly like to make this beginning commitment of my life to Christ . . . but I can’t do it.”
“Why not?” I asked gently.
“Because I’ve got a personal problem that I can’t seem to resolve.” She was biting her lips and looking down at a paper napkin she had folded into a small bulky square.
“But that’s why Christianity is called‘good news,’“ I said, coming on strong. “We can’t solve our own basic hang-ups and separations, and God is offering through the Holy Spirit to furnish us the motivating power to cope with the seemingly impossible situations in life. That’s why I’m such a nut about Christianity. I can’t promise to change anything. All I can do is accept His love and grace.”
“But,” and she hesitated. “I don’t feel acceptable until I whip this problem.”
“Listen, Susan, the old song doesn’t say, Just as I amwhen I whip my major problem.’It says, “Just as I am withoutone plea,’one promise, one guarantee!”
She looked at me with the strangest dawning look of hope. “Do you really believe that?” she said.
“I’d bet my life on it.”
She looked down at her hands for several minutes. “All right,” she said, almost as a challenge.I’m committing adultery every Thursday night with a man who has a wife and several young children.And Icannot quit. Now can I come into your Christian family?”
I just looked at her. I certainly had not expected that. My first conditioned reaction as a Christian churchman would have been to think she was not ready for Christ or to say something like, “Don’t you think you could at least cut down a little?”
Suddenly I realized how phony we Christians are. Of course wewouldexpect her to quit committing adultery. We don’t mean “just as I am without one plea.” We actually mean, “Just as I am when Ipromiseimplicitly to straighten up and quit my major sins.” And this girl had nailed me with her honesty. She had heard therealintent of our church’s congregational invitation and knew she did not have the strength to meet its requirements—to quit her “sinning.” And yet it was her weakness which had brought her toward Christ in the first place.
I thought about Jesus and what He would have done. Then I looked up at her. “Of course, you can commit your life to Christ just as you are,” I smiled. “He knows you want to quit seeing this man, and I don’t know where else you can ever hope to find the security and strength to break up with him. So if you commit your life to Christ right now, then Thursday night, if you find you can’t help meeting your friend, take Christ with you in your conscious mind through the whole evening. Ask Him to give you the desire and the strength to break off the relationship.”
And she stepped across the stream and became a Christian.[1][1]
Sometimes at that moment [in despair] a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted.You are accepted,accepted by that which is greater than you . . .”
Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations
There are many religions which know no divine welcome to the sinner until he has ceased to be one. They would first make him righteous, and then bid him welcome to God. But God in Christ first welcomes him, and so makes him penitent and redeems him. The one demands newness of life; the other imparts it. The one demands human righteousness as the price of divine atonement; the other makes atonement in order to evoke righteousness.
J. S. Whale, Christian Doctrine
Thank you, Lord, that the guarantee of strength and integrity in this relationship is yours and not ours. Thank you that Susan saw this and wants to change because you have accepted her. Thank you that John was there and that he was able to accept Susan in her weakness. Help me to know that I canpromiseyou nothing except myintentionto be your person. I pray that you will give me the desire and then the strength to put aside any actions that separate me from you and your other children. But I am very grateful that your love does not depend on my success in doing so.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy . . . Titus 3:4, 5
The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery . . . he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus~ John 8:3, 7
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
My husband is so picky about having everything in the “right” place (the place he thinks is right) that he is constantly picking at me. I was not raised to even pick up my clothes or towels that dropped on the floor. He wants every towel and wash rag hung up, and he also wants all the edges straight. And lately it seems like it’s getting worse. Nothing I do seems right. We’re both Christians trying to live for God, but when he gets on his critical master sergeant high horse I want to excuse myself (from God) and hit him with a golf club (at least in my imagination). Do other Christians have this much trouble dealing with little things?
I don’t know how many other Christians do, but years ago when I was first married, I remember one morning saying, “What’s so horrible about leaving the toilet seat up in the middle of the night?”I was furious and defensive. I knew that her reaction at breakfast was far too heavy for the nature of the complaint. That made me mad too . . . and frustrated. It seemed as if everything I did anymore bugged her—innocent mistakes like leaving the shower head at “on” over the bathtub or forgetting to close the closet door in our bedroom.
I work very hard, spend a lot of time with our family, and try to be generous as a provider. These petty complaints over a few mechanical omissions that were totally accidental, and from my perspective, seemed unreasonable.I was beginning to suspect that I had a nagging wife. But as I drove to work the realization came back that—as bad as it was—the incident the night before was not as big as her anger. (This almost always means that the present argument is not the real one.) So I began to try to find out the true cause of this rash of getting mad about “little things.” It seemed obvious that something I was doing or being was causing her to run up her red flag.
When the dust settled during the next couple of days, she was able to tell me, “Honey, what these careless things you keep goingreallysay to me is that you don’t care enough about me to make an effort to stop doing things that make me mad and frustrated.” She stopped and then went on, “I guess I keep waiting for you to remember, and when you don’t, I get madder.”
“I really do care . . . ,” I started, in defense of myself. But I stopped, because I know that wedowhat we unconsciously want to do in life. I may protest to high heaven that I honestly want to remember things and just cannot. However, I have learned that this is often a deceitful trick the mind plays ON ITSELF. Many psychologists have understood that we seldom forget something wereallywant to do unless we have a reason that is hidden . . . often from ourselves. A golfing enthusiast may forget to take his wife shopping, but he is not likely to forget a golf partner. A young man in love with his girlfriend is not apt to forget to pick her up for a date—even if he does forget to do his homework assignment and to mow the yard the same weekend. Although I am terribly forgetful about many things, I did not forget a single basketball practice or game during the twenty years I participated in that sport.
Remembering this made me realize that I was evidently not interested in helping my wife’s feelings of discomfort and frustration—at least not interested enough to remember certain little common courtesies. Why not, I wondered? I love her and want to be a good husband. And I feel certain that God would have meatleastcare for her needs and comfort with common courtesy.
Then I remembered. Several weeks before I had been feeling especially romantic. And she had been feeling especially tired. I had interpreted her tiredness as a purposeful rejection and was particularly furious when she claimed later that she had not gotten my signals. I remembered smoldering and thinking, “If she really loved me, she would always be sensitive to my needs!”
So that was my problem. The world was centered inmeagain. But being too proud and “too good a Christian” to set
out consciously to punish her for hurting my pride, I repressed the feelings. And I got back at her subtly and unconsciously by forgetting things that hurt her pride—things that made her feel the way I had felt: that she was not loved enough for me to think about her needs and comfort.
And do you know what? When I realized that the problem had started inmeweeks before and it was that most pervasive sin of self-centeredness, my average improved tremendously in remembering the shower head, the toilet seat, and the closet door.
For there is only one sin, and it is characteristic of the whole world. It is the self-will which prefers “my” way to God’s—which puts “me” in the centre where only God is in place.It pervades the universe. It accounts for the cruelty of the jungle, where each animal follows its own appetite, unheeding and unable to heed any general good. It becomes conscious and thereby tenfold more virulent in man—a veritable Fall indeed.
William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel
Thank you, God, for showing me again that so many of my complaints about other people could be stopped if I would only see my sin. I am amazed at the way I can hide my true motives even from myself. But I am grateful for finding out another of the deceitful maneuvers my ego uses to protect the “fine man” image . . . when a consciousness of my true intentions would destroy it. Please help me see my self-centeredness sooner, and to give it up sooner. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. But God searches the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be.” Jeremiah 17:9, 10 The Message
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
How did you survive losing every member of your family of origin by the time you were twenty-eight? How did you handle that—when the last one died?
“Nannie’s dead.Aunt Nannie is dead!” I kept saying it over and over to myself and shaking my head.I couldn’t believe it, and yet I knew it was true.I had just seen her body at the funeral home.
I felt sick in the lower part of my stomach—empty. My throat was tight. I wanted to cry but could not because of a lifetime of conditioning to “be a man.” But I had not expected such a strong reaction. After all, Mother, Dad, and my only brother had all died or been killed over ten years before.And Nannie was only my aunt.
No, she wasn’t “onlyan aunt.” She had lived with us for fifteen years during my grade school and high school years. She had helped spoil me and had given me almost continuous approval (or acceptance when she did not approve) all my life. Now she was gone, and a great sadness had come over me. I knew that whatever good God may have for Christians, Nannie would now have. So I wondered why my grief was so deep. But all I could do was drive around the town, which had changed so much, and show our children where Aunt Nannie had lived. And I knew something was dying inside me.
It was five months later when I finally realized why my grief was so deep when Nannie died. I had loved her very much, but there was something more. The day before, we had received the initial copy of my first book,The Taste of New Wine.I was very excited. I had secretly wanted to write a book since I was a small boy. I didn’t think many people would read it, but that did not matter.
I started instinctively for the telephone to call and tell . . .whom? Then it hit me. Everyone who had known me as a child in our home was dead. There was no one to tell who would understand about the dreams and hopes of a little freckle-faced boy who had always tried to look tougher than he was.
When I got in bed that night, I lay there in the dark and began to weep for the first time in years. A great wave of loneliness came over me. I realized that all the memories of our home had died with Nannie . . . except mine. I was alone with my past. But the flood of grief was a great release.
The next morning I could see that the previous night I had stepped across one of the many small streams that separate children from adulthood. And although in one sense I was alone with my past, in another I was not at all—God had been with me as a small boy with my hopes and dreams and is with me still. In a sense, the Lord and I will always share the memories of the past. In Him not only Nannie but Mother, Dad, and my brother Earle, may in some way that is beyond my understanding still share these memories with me. And in any case I was not alone that morning with my past.
I had never seen before this aspect of Christ’s amazing statement, “I am with you always, even until the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20 KJV)—that his presence is really the thread which runs through the memories in a Christian’s life, holding the years together, giving them unity of meaning like a string of pearls. Without his continuing presence with each of us, fear, separation, and death would scatter the Christian family in the wind. And although at times I am still lonely, God’s presence and Christ’s promises help me not to feel so alone when I face my family’s death . . . and my own.
“The paths of glory lead but to the grave”—whether the “glory” be the conspicuous achievements (or perhaps only the conspicuousness) of the “great,” or the modest successes, or the “quaint deeds” of ordinary men. Not long ago I had occasion to visit a small church in a small town inVirginiawhere my father was pastor some fifty ears ago and where I spent an important part of my boyhood.My father was quiet and modest, a man of remarkable intelligence, humor, and charm and of quite extraordinary goodness, and I found that he was vividly remembered by the oldest members of the church. But the number of these is small and becomes smaller as each year passes, and quite soon no one at all will remember him. His name will be read for a while—as on a window in the church which they have dedicated to his memory—but the name will mean no more to those who read it than most of the names on the plaques and portraits of oldbuildings mean to us. Not only will he be silent, as he has been for nearly forty years, but he will no longer speak, for there will be no one to hear him. He will be forgotten. Here is perhaps the supreme pathos of human life—not that we die only but that any real and living memory of us must die too. Unless God is to raise us from death, it is in the end as though we had never been. Our dead have perished leaving no trace except our sad, if grateful, remembrance of them—and in the final reckoning no trace at all.
Death is the “last enemy,” and no man, however strong willed and defiant, no matter how stoical or wise, can wrest the final victory from its hands. Our only hope is in God. “Save us, Lord, or we perish”—perish finally and utterly, along with all we love and treasure.
John Knox, Life in Jesus Christ
Lord, thank you for not only healing the bad memories of the past through forgiveness but for preserving the good ones in the memory bank of your mind. Thank you for your awareness of our efforts and strivings, which sometimes seems to be the only thing that gives meaning when we fail. But thank you most of all that you have promised to take our hands when they can no longer reach out to you, and lead us through the doorways between death and life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:51-58
by Keith Miller | Weekly Devotional
Now that I’ve decided to say “yes” to God and am willing to follow Christ, I don’t know if I am kidding myself about my motives—I sometimes think I do good things for people so they’ll think I am a good Christian. How can I know for sure I’m not building my own kingdom instead of God’s?
“Mommy, I’m not sure if I am being nice to these people because I like them or because I believe it will make them think I’m a neat kid. And it worries me.Should I quit being so friendly?”
The woman who was showing me this passage was puzzled.It was from her young teenage daughter who was away at camp for the summer. The mother said that she had not worried about such things when she was a girl and asked me what I thought about the letter.
Smiling a little to myself, I realized that I could have written a similar letter at many different times in my life. The problem—of mixed motives—has given me fits in several different ways. Those of us who have a deep need to be accepted and for whom acceptance as a child was subtly contingent on our “being good” may have more trouble with motivational nit-picking than other people. Sometimes in school, I remember worrying about whether I was thoughtful to other kids because I meant it or because by being friendly to them I would likely be elected to class offices. Although I knew at some level that both motives were there and that both were pretty natural, I wanted to besuremy motives were right—like the young girl in the letter.
When I became a Christian, this occasional compulsive need to have pure motives took an especially insidious form, which brought the whole business to a head. Beginning to witness in other churches as a layman, I wondered sometimes if I were going because I wanted to tell people about God . . . or about me. This worried me, since I reallywantedto be God’s person and to do His will. On one occasion I almost called a minister and cancelled a meeting because I wasn’t sure if I were going for God or for Keith. But having put off contacting him until it was very late, I went ahead an drove to the church—knowing that my motives were definitely mixed. Before I spoke that night, I prayed silently that God would use me “if you can use a man as full of himself as I am.” After I started speaking, I forgot all about my motives.
Several days later a man who attended the meeting came to my office. he said that he had been desperate and had almost lost hope, and was considering suicide. But as a result of attending the session that night, he had decided to give life another try. After he left, I sat thinking about what had happened.
In the first place, my desire to keep my motives spotless and pure had almost kept me from helping a man who was really desperate. I saw how totally self-centered this “keeping myself righteous” is. It constitutes a strange kind of Christian idolatry—I was worshiping clean motives. Keeping them spotless was more important somehow than going ahead with mixed motives and letting God possibly help someone through me.
In the second place, it came crashing home to me that my motives arealwaysmixed to some degree-and that most likely they always will be in this life. So that for me the leap of faith in witnessing for Christ is to go, knowing my needs for attention, but taking the risk that I will speak for Him instead of for myself. I must go in faith, praying that God will use me in spite of my self-centeredness.
In fact, after all these years, I simply pray that God will free me to point over my shoulder to Him. Because when it comes right down to it, all I have to tell about is what I have seen and heard of God—how he is helping me to find freedom, occasionally to love other people, and even to accept myself . . . with my mixed motives.
What can we take with us on this journey to we do not know where? What we must take is the knowledge of our own unending ambiguous motives . . . .
The voice that we hear over our shoulders never says, “First be sure that your motives are pure and selfless and then follow me.” If it did, then we could none of us follow. So when later the voice says, “Take up your cross and follow me,” at least part of what is meant by “cross” is our realization that we are seldom any less than nine parts fake. Yet our feet can insist on answering him anyway, and on we go, step after step, mile after mile. How far? How far?
Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
Dear Lord, help me not to be a Christian Pharisee who is more interested in “being ethical” than in loving you and your people. Be with the young girl who wrote the letter to her mother, and help her to understand that sometimes she will have to risk her motives in order to do anything good.Give us both the courage to follow you, even if it means taking the risk, as you did, of being misunderstood.I want to resist phoniness . . . yet without wallowing in the problems of motivation. It all seems very complex, and sometimes I do not even understand my behavior after the fact.So I am offering myself and my subtly mixed motives to you, Jesus, right now, asking that you take me beyond such self-centered preoccupations with taking my own spiritual temperature into your loving perspective. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then act another, doing things I absolutely despise. . .I obviously need help!…I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one out there who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. Romans 7:15, 17, 24, 25 The Message
by Keith Miller | Weekly Devotional
Keith,my life seems uneventful compared to the dramatic circumstances and situations outstanding Christian witnesses describe. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t be more committed if I could go to the Holy Land and see the historic shrines where the biblical heroes were born, called by God, and died for their Lord. Do many people feel limited by their prosaic lives?
A friend who is a top flight management consultant and a very sharp Christian layman went toEuropesome years ago. He was excited because he had always wanted to visit the Christian shrines inEnglandand on the continent. He went toAldersgate Street, where John Wesley’s “heart was strangely warmed,” toWittenberg, and to Rome, where Luther’s incisive turnings took place. But as he saw these places, which have become shrines for many Protestant Christians, he was frankly disappointed. He had expected to be inspired and awed, but these were just plain buildings and towns.
As he thought about his disappointment, he realized that these had been just ordinary places when the action had taken place that later made them important. In each case the thing that made these churches and cities shrines was that each was a simple setting in which a person made a decision concerning God’s will for himself or herself—a time when someone turned with his or her whole life, faced God, and chose Him over “things.” The events that followed were so significant that people now travel for miles just to see the site where the decision was made.
In considering this I realize that so often I have looked for a special place or dramatic circumstances in which I could do God’s will. I remembered a sermon another friend once preached about the places where faith can blossom and lives can be committed. He spoke of Moses and the burning bush and concluded the sermon by pointing out that “Any Old Bush Will Do.”
The potential shrines in our lives, then, may not be exciting sites or meetings but rather circumstances in which we run out of our own strength and turn to God, offering Him our futures, whatever the cost. The birth of a deeper transforming faith seems to be the event that melds the decision, the deeds, and the place into a shrine. And for this,any old bush will do—any old loneliness or frustration, fear, anxiety, or broken relationship—or any of the outward circumstances in which we find ourselves when we commit our lives to Him. Any of these simple “places” where faith comes alive may one day become for us a Christian shrine—any old house, kitchen sink, office chair—or wherever you are reading this . . . right now.
IN A GARDEN:
. . . I cast myself down I know not how, under a certain fig tree, giving full vent to my tears . . . I sent up these sorrowful words; How long? how long, “tomorrow, and tomorrow”? Why not now? Why not is there this hour an end to my uncleanness?
So I was speaking, and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take up and read; Take up and read.” Instantly, my countenance altered, I began to think most intently, whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God, to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read, was spoken to him; Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. And by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle, when I arose thence, I seized, opened, and in silence read that section, on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence.no further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.
Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine
ON A HIGHWAY:
“Thus I journeyed toDamascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’And I said,‘Who are you, Lord?’And the Lord said,‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and bear witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles—to whom I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” Acts 26:12-18
IN AN OFFICE:
Lord, It is frightening to me to call you “Lord” when I realize that means that I am signing up to be your servant—to go and do and be according to your designs, even if they should conflict with my own. Although it is easy for me to say “Lord” most days, sometimes—as right now—I realize the awesome and unconditional response for which you are asking. And I want to say with young Augustine, “not yet, Lord.” But I won’t. Help me as I make this chair and this room a shrine in my own pilgrimage by offering myself to you right now. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
by Keith Miller | Weekly Devotional
Keith, sometimes I think my kids will never learn to be unselfish. They fight over everything and are constantly begging for new toys. Any suggestions?
When I first thought about your question, all I could remember was fighting with my brother and our father lecturing us about being so selfish. He and Mother must have wondered if we’d ever get to be grateful for what we had. So I know we were selfish.
But then I recalled an incident that took place when I was a little boy, probably about five years old. I was invited to a birthday party of a boy in my first grade class, the first one I had ever been to. I went in this boy’s house. Our house was very nice, but I could tell this house was the house of a poor family. I don’t know whether the boy’s mother had said not to bring presents, or what, but hardly anyone brought one. And I didn’t either.
I few weeks earlier I’d been given a small toy car.It was made of lead and painted bright red. It was a race car with little fins out the back. It was amazing for 1933. It was my treasure, and I carried it everywhere.In church it would keep me from crawling around under the pews. It didn’t make much noise when it rolled. Well, I had this little red car in my pocket when I came to this party, because I always kept it with me. It was my favorite toy.
After the boy blew out the candles, his mother brought out a few presents his parents had been able to get him. I could tell he was disappointed and embarrassed. I don’t know how I knew that, but I could just see it.I felt strange about how he must be feeling, and I thought, “Gosh, I’ll bet he’d love to have a nice red car like I have.”Then I just said impulsively, “Oh, here’s my present. I forgot to wrap it,” and handed him my little red car.
He was ecstatic.Going home from that party, I missed my car. But I was glad I’d given it to him. And my mother said she was glad I did, too, because it “saved the day” for the boy—whatever that meant.
I can’t remember doing that kind of thing for another kid.In fact I became a very self-centered boy and young man who had to hit the wall before I could surrender to God and be grateful that Jesus told us that it is more blessed to give than to receive even though my mother certainly had tried to teach me that. But I didn’tknowhow true that was until I remembered the day I gave a gift that really meant something to me in terms of my six year old world.So I don’t know what it will take for your kids, but I had to grow up rebelling against my parents until I was ready to hear what they had been trying to tell me all along.
Lord, thank you that you guide me toward loving in the strangest ways and have been teaching me through my parents, then teachers, friends and even impulsive nudges, until I was needy enough to be able to recognize you and receive the costly gift that’s “saved the day” for me—for the rest of my life.That’s when we know what your words mean. Thank you that my mother encouraged me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Teach what you’ve seen and heard to your children and grandchildren. Deuteronomy 4:9 THE MESSAGE
Point your kids in the right directions—when they’re old they won’t be lost. Proverbs 22:6 THE MESSAGE
Children, do what your parents tell you.This delights the Master no end. Colossians 3:30 THE MESSAGE
