Sometimes You Just Know...

My wife and I played dominoes with our friends Arnott & Jennifer last night.  That fact alone has nothing to do with this writing; however, while we were playing it came to a point in the game where we had to keep drawing a domino until we got the right one.  There was a lone domino off by itself and I made the comment…”this is the one right here”.  I turned it over and the revelation that I was correct made me feel like I was clairvoyant or something.  You know how it is sometimes when you feel like you just “know”?  Now the truth is that I had probably guessed before and got it wrong…but the last time was definitely my most certain claim.

Sometimes we just know.  We know that someone isn’t telling us the truth.  We know what the outcome of a situation will be.  We know what someone will say before they say it.  We know the next song before it starts playing on the radio.  The person we are thinking about happens to call at that precise moment.  I can’t explain it but I am certain that these phenomena have happened on more than one occasion to every child and adult.  I don’t think it all that strange or spooky when you think about it though.  With the thousands and millions of thoughts occurring within our mind everyday….how could we not have this happen occasionally?

Today’s passage in 1 Corinthians 2:9-13 is about discovering God’s plan and action within our individual lives as well as what He is doing in the world around us.  Our physical senses can’t pick up on such things and teaching can’t convey it to our hearts and minds.  All we can do is stand on the Scriptures as God has been pleased to reveal them to us. My friend Rick is always quick to point out the necessity for being in the Word of God for this very reason. 

As Christ-followers, we are not guided by worldly principals.  We aren’t solely directed by what our five senses can perceive and by what our minds can understand.  We are guided by the Spirit living within us who knows the mind of God.  Are we in tune with the distinct person of the Holy Spirit?  Do we give heed to what He impresses upon us even when it doesn’t make sense to us?  Most importantly…do we know Him as is only possible by what He has revealed to our own hearts?

To Kill a Swallow...

When I was about 12 years old, I went and spent the day with my friend, Jeff.  Jeff lived out in the country and his dad had an old dusty barn that probably more closely resembled a shop with old equipment in it.  What would a barn be without swallows?  They hated these small birds because of the mess they would leave over everything.

I don’t recall if my friend and I actually had his parents’ blessing to go out and try to shoot the birds or not.  My guess is that where there are 12 year old boys, pesky birds and a BB gun…well, you should have no problems drawing a proper conclusion.

Jeff and I alternately took turns drawing a bead on one of these tiny birds up in the rafters.  Not an easy shot at such a small target over your head and 20+ feet away.  We tried and tried and eventually the inevitable happened, one came fluttering down in a heap.  The bird was not dead, just wounded and scared.

It was amazing how quickly my aggression turned to remorse.  Everybody knows what it is like to suddenly wish that they could turn the clock back a few seconds and take back the action or words that have escaped from their person.  The reality of what I’d done made me kind of sick in my heart and I felt dirty and ashamed.  I had been caught up in the excitement of the moment but in my heart I knew better.  The hardest part of the experience was that we had to complete the job.  We couldn’t leave the bird like that and the right thing to do now was to put the delicate creature out of its misery.  I’ll spare you the details.

1 Corinthians 2:6-8 reminded me of that day in the barn where I realized that I hadn’t thought through the consequences of my actions.  So it was with the rulers that crucified Jesus.  I wonder when it hit them that they had made the gravest mistake of not only their lives but of human history?

Is the gravity of their actions really so unlike our own?  We may not have literally been the ones to crucify Christ, but how often do we wound Him and cause Him pain and sadness by our sin?  Stranger yet is that we know better.  It’s pretty hard to get self-righteous when we prove time and again that our understanding is no better than theirs.

Like a Gerbil...

I decided pretty early on that I would never want to write for a newspaper or periodical.  I figured that always living under a deadline would give me an ulcer.  So what do I do?  I go into an occupation that requires multiple deadlines every week.  I didn’t get an ulcer in my stomach but I sometimes think I would rather have the physical pain of a stomach ulcer than the pain of a mental ulcer.  For a guy who appears to others as never having a shortage of words…I have to confess that I feel like I’m exhausted.  Not physically—that would require labor, which my hands can attest to the lack of since they don’t have many calluses right now.  What I don’t do in physical exercise, I think I more than make up for in my time on the mental gerbil wheel…always running but never arriving.

 
When I first started teaching on a weekly basis some 23 years ago, the most overwhelming and difficult thing for me to deal with was that constant deadline week after week.  As soon as I would finish teaching a Sunday school class, I would have about 30 seconds of relief before I began stressing over the “what am I going to do next” question that grips every new teacher.  Yeah right…new teacher…I’ve been doing this for almost a quarter of a century and I’m still prone to that weekly panic attack.  This is especially true when I happen to hit a “home run” message because I always ask the very same day, “How am I going to top that?”

You’ve just received an insight into what I believe to be part of most every speaker’s, teacher’s or writer’s psyche.  1 Corinthians 2:1-5 speaks directly to this but I’m honestly frustrated by its simplicity.  Simplicity implies ease yet I’ve never experienced anything easy about this weekly rollercoaster of thrill and terror.

It isn’t easy to do what Paul said of himself.  He says that when he came to the church in Corinth, he had one message…Jesus and the cross.  It is interesting to note that this one message caused God to show up in power to the hearers.  It wasn’t good illustrations, clever analogies, well-delivered points of doctrine or even a hip and happening worship band.  It was a very simple message about something we’ve grown mostly tired of hearing.  As someone who has tried really hard to get better at speaking over the years, it is hard to admit that all of that hard work really doesn’t matter in the bigger picture.  The truth is this…if God doesn’t show up when I open my mouth, it is better that I just keep it shut.  Simple?  Yes.  Easy?  No.  If we want to avoid running on the wheel to nowhere, our only course of action is to rely on a demonstration of God’s power and not our own.