Our Relationship To Others
Worship
Old Wine In New Skins
Calls To Worship And Other Worship Resources
One of the most popular songs of a generation ago talked about the world needing, more than anything else, "love, sweet love." If it needed it then, how much more so now? Actually, we can measure the amount of love that's in the world at the present time by using an inverse ratio: The more people there are who are seeking power, the less love there is. Power and recognition are those two commodities which people are driven to possess most when they have not been loved in their primary relationships. If I grow up knowing beyond doubt that I am loved, and that there are people whom I can always trust with my welfare, then I won't demand power and recognition in order to define my life. What power and accolades come my way will then be used to benefit others, not exploit or abuse them.
What makes a great lover? Is it your magnificent good looks, or your mastery of every mechanical sexual technique in the "how to" manuals? The primary ingredient in being a truly great lover for your mate is trust. When she knows her welfare is safe in your hands, when he knows you will never humiliate him, when she's confident that you will not betray her, the crucial ingredient for a truly loving and highly rewarding relationship will be firmly in place. Physical love is only genuinely fulfilled in the spiritual connections of fidelity and devotion to our mate. The ecstasy of floating on the barge of love is only possible when we have no fear that our mate will sink us. With loving trust at the center, technique is secondary. Without loving trust, technique is a deficient substitute.
Sometimes we fuss at the shallow ritual of asking, "How are you?" You don't really want to tell me; and if you do, I don't really want to hear. But even if that's true, it still does provide us with an important avenue of acknowledging one another's presence. There's a biblical admonition about being courteous in Titus 3: "Show perfect courtesy toward all people." Though common courtesy is a ministry, it often falls on hard times at the checkout stand. But it's through simple acts of courtesy that we have an avenue to acknowledge the value of other people around us. A smile, and words like "thank you" and "yes, please" can be the most important things we can say during the day. As we acknowledge others, we affirm their worth. Such a simple word as "please" pays respect to the dignity of another human life.
How do we measure the quality of our humanity? A significant standard of our living is found in how we care for our dying. When we walk past a category of people, considering them irrelevant, when we view blood and death as entertainment, we're losing contact with the value of life. Mother Teresa's going to Calcutta to embrace those dying in the gutters and giving honor to those "nobodies" in their last days is a timeless demonstration of the measure of the human spirit. Saint Paul said it for us all: "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself." If I feel not even modest grief for the dying, if a little of me does not die when another dies, even a stranger, then all of me is already dead to my own humanity. For my life finds value only in its connectedness to God first, and to other lives second.
Edna St. Vincent Millay poetically bemoans: "'Tis not love's going that hurts my days, but that it went in little ways." The pain in love is to realize that it didn't just disappear one day, but that bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour, it slowly wore away. No one planned it; no great scheme caused its death; it just happened. And in that, Miss Millay finds the most pain of all. People wake up one morning and discover their marriage is gone. But it wasn't so. Like multiple shoes on the stone step, it wore away a little at a time, unnoticed, until one day it was too obvious to go unobserved. That's why maintaining that love relationship day by day is so very important. It must be closely attended especially when we suppose things are going well. For if love goes "in little ways," it also strengthens "in little ways."
Lovers hold each other's lives in their hands. That's physically true with sexual diseases. It's even more often true mentally and spiritually. To love is to trust and be vulnerable to the aggression and self-centered carelessness of another. It's to be liable to a person's felt need to use intimacy to injure and humiliate. Scripture warns that we can do great harm with our deceits. We must not take love relationships lightly. Sex without regard for this principle does terrible damage to the psyche. God warns us against promiscuity, not because He is against physical pleasure, but because our sinful natures will turn the most wondrous of human relationships into the most damaging of human affairs, when we refuse to honor the spiritual value of the one whom we love sexually and are privileged to cherish.
Jesus said that it's more blessed to give than to receive. As we give in the spirit which Jesus had in mind, that's certainly true. But giving is hurtful if we give out of a lack of trust, or to meet our own needs rather than the needs of the receiver. We may give to keep people in our debt or to control their decisions. We may give to gain fame for ourselves or to enjoy feeling a sense of power. We might even humiliate some in our condescending act of giving. What a tragedy it is when we give for any of these reasons. We rob ourselves of blessings and joy which would give us far more satisfaction and sense of well-being than any of our mean-spirited acts of "charity" could offer, which cause harm in the receiver's life. Experience the blessing. Give with utter abandon and without expectation except to please the recipient.
Promises made to the dead can be deadly. A deathbed promise demanded by the dying is an effort by the departing person to control future events beyond her/his own lifetime. Promises made to the dead by the living become shackles to the past. Circumstances and events, even personalities and life goals, are bound to change, making those promises obsolete and damaging to the conscientious survivor. It robs the living of freedom on the supposition that the wisdom of the past is flawless and immutable. Better that the dying commit the living to the ongoing wisdom of the living God. Then shall the power of the dead be deservedly broken, and the fulfillment of the living be achieved in its own day. Binding our loved ones to the daily guidance of God is far superior to entrapping them in our shortsightedness.
I came across a statement that intrigues me: "Don't cut what you can unravel." Cutting has to do with destroying, while unraveling suggests exercising patience so that the problem can be solved without doing damage to the cord. In human relations, some people feel the urge to sever the connection because they don't have the patience or the skills to unravel the tangles of human emotions. Others cut rather than unraveling the snarls because they're angry and seek revenge. Unraveling takes courage and love, insight and a willingness to learn; and that can be highly rewarding. It's something like Jesus untangling the knots in Peter's psyche after his betrayal. By leading him gently through the steps of forgiveness and restoration, Jesus gained a powerful and devoted friend forever. He did it by salvaging the person as He solved the knotty problem of failure and guilt.
Proverbs 25:20 (NIV) is a biblical gem: "Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart." Christians can lay a terrible burden upon suffering people with their shallow cheerfulness. Their "Miss Merry Sunshine" attitude demonstrates that they have little appreciation of the situation. Either they have no concept of the depth of the pain, or they have no ability to empathize with the individual suffering from that "heavy heart." It's not that the person who is entrapped would not like to hear the happy songs some day. But grief must have its day, heaviness must have its say, and a burdened heart must be honored, even if the misguided friend can truly see a way out of the morass. Save the happy songs for later. For now sit silently close by, and listen for the unspoken instructions on how you can genuinely help.
The mark of an accomplished singer is not how loudly he or she can sing and maintain the tone, but rather, how well he or she can sing the soft notes and maintain the quality of that tone. Some of the most expressive musical notes are found in pianissimo, rather than in double forte. But it takes the truly skilled vocalist to perform in such a soft style. Sadly, many singers suppose that only by blasting us out of our seats with the amplifier cranked high can they properly impress us. That's not art; that's in-your-face confrontation to mask a lack of talent. Unfortunately, we do the same thing with other forms of communication, from language arts to painting. But it's a rule of thumb that the louder we have to present ourselves, the less tenable our position is. Whether it's a mom instructing her child, or Jesus teaching His disciples, the greatest truths are stated in the strong, steady notes softly presented.
Grandiose statements are easy to make, sound so wonderful, and are as phony as a four dollar bill. One such statement is, "I love everybody!" Uh huh. I hear these statements at funerals about the deceased: "He didn't have an enemy in the world!" Right. "She never gave us a worry in her whole life." Oookay. By making issues grandiose, we can avoid responsibility in two ways. First, we don't deal with the particular. If I love the whole world, I don't have to deal with my hard feelings for that woman in the checkout line, or those unpredictable youth on the street corner downtown. If I say I'm compassionate, I can still excuse myself from acting by saying that the problems are too great to solve. But as Mother Teresa said, "We may not be able to feed the multitudes, but we can feed one." And if we truly want to love the whole world, we start with our obnoxious neighbor.
What makes a great lover? Is it your magnificent good looks, or your mastery of every mechanical sexual technique in the "how to" manuals? The primary ingredient in being a truly great lover for your mate is trust. When she knows her welfare is safe in your hands, when he knows you will never humiliate him, when she's confident that you will not betray her, the crucial ingredient for a truly loving and highly rewarding relationship will be firmly in place. Physical love is only genuinely fulfilled in the spiritual connections of fidelity and devotion to our mate. The ecstasy of floating on the barge of love is only possible when we have no fear that our mate will sink us. With loving trust at the center, technique is secondary. Without loving trust, technique is a deficient substitute.
Sometimes we fuss at the shallow ritual of asking, "How are you?" You don't really want to tell me; and if you do, I don't really want to hear. But even if that's true, it still does provide us with an important avenue of acknowledging one another's presence. There's a biblical admonition about being courteous in Titus 3: "Show perfect courtesy toward all people." Though common courtesy is a ministry, it often falls on hard times at the checkout stand. But it's through simple acts of courtesy that we have an avenue to acknowledge the value of other people around us. A smile, and words like "thank you" and "yes, please" can be the most important things we can say during the day. As we acknowledge others, we affirm their worth. Such a simple word as "please" pays respect to the dignity of another human life.
How do we measure the quality of our humanity? A significant standard of our living is found in how we care for our dying. When we walk past a category of people, considering them irrelevant, when we view blood and death as entertainment, we're losing contact with the value of life. Mother Teresa's going to Calcutta to embrace those dying in the gutters and giving honor to those "nobodies" in their last days is a timeless demonstration of the measure of the human spirit. Saint Paul said it for us all: "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself." If I feel not even modest grief for the dying, if a little of me does not die when another dies, even a stranger, then all of me is already dead to my own humanity. For my life finds value only in its connectedness to God first, and to other lives second.
Edna St. Vincent Millay poetically bemoans: "'Tis not love's going that hurts my days, but that it went in little ways." The pain in love is to realize that it didn't just disappear one day, but that bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour, it slowly wore away. No one planned it; no great scheme caused its death; it just happened. And in that, Miss Millay finds the most pain of all. People wake up one morning and discover their marriage is gone. But it wasn't so. Like multiple shoes on the stone step, it wore away a little at a time, unnoticed, until one day it was too obvious to go unobserved. That's why maintaining that love relationship day by day is so very important. It must be closely attended especially when we suppose things are going well. For if love goes "in little ways," it also strengthens "in little ways."
Lovers hold each other's lives in their hands. That's physically true with sexual diseases. It's even more often true mentally and spiritually. To love is to trust and be vulnerable to the aggression and self-centered carelessness of another. It's to be liable to a person's felt need to use intimacy to injure and humiliate. Scripture warns that we can do great harm with our deceits. We must not take love relationships lightly. Sex without regard for this principle does terrible damage to the psyche. God warns us against promiscuity, not because He is against physical pleasure, but because our sinful natures will turn the most wondrous of human relationships into the most damaging of human affairs, when we refuse to honor the spiritual value of the one whom we love sexually and are privileged to cherish.
Jesus said that it's more blessed to give than to receive. As we give in the spirit which Jesus had in mind, that's certainly true. But giving is hurtful if we give out of a lack of trust, or to meet our own needs rather than the needs of the receiver. We may give to keep people in our debt or to control their decisions. We may give to gain fame for ourselves or to enjoy feeling a sense of power. We might even humiliate some in our condescending act of giving. What a tragedy it is when we give for any of these reasons. We rob ourselves of blessings and joy which would give us far more satisfaction and sense of well-being than any of our mean-spirited acts of "charity" could offer, which cause harm in the receiver's life. Experience the blessing. Give with utter abandon and without expectation except to please the recipient.
Promises made to the dead can be deadly. A deathbed promise demanded by the dying is an effort by the departing person to control future events beyond her/his own lifetime. Promises made to the dead by the living become shackles to the past. Circumstances and events, even personalities and life goals, are bound to change, making those promises obsolete and damaging to the conscientious survivor. It robs the living of freedom on the supposition that the wisdom of the past is flawless and immutable. Better that the dying commit the living to the ongoing wisdom of the living God. Then shall the power of the dead be deservedly broken, and the fulfillment of the living be achieved in its own day. Binding our loved ones to the daily guidance of God is far superior to entrapping them in our shortsightedness.
I came across a statement that intrigues me: "Don't cut what you can unravel." Cutting has to do with destroying, while unraveling suggests exercising patience so that the problem can be solved without doing damage to the cord. In human relations, some people feel the urge to sever the connection because they don't have the patience or the skills to unravel the tangles of human emotions. Others cut rather than unraveling the snarls because they're angry and seek revenge. Unraveling takes courage and love, insight and a willingness to learn; and that can be highly rewarding. It's something like Jesus untangling the knots in Peter's psyche after his betrayal. By leading him gently through the steps of forgiveness and restoration, Jesus gained a powerful and devoted friend forever. He did it by salvaging the person as He solved the knotty problem of failure and guilt.
Proverbs 25:20 (NIV) is a biblical gem: "Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart." Christians can lay a terrible burden upon suffering people with their shallow cheerfulness. Their "Miss Merry Sunshine" attitude demonstrates that they have little appreciation of the situation. Either they have no concept of the depth of the pain, or they have no ability to empathize with the individual suffering from that "heavy heart." It's not that the person who is entrapped would not like to hear the happy songs some day. But grief must have its day, heaviness must have its say, and a burdened heart must be honored, even if the misguided friend can truly see a way out of the morass. Save the happy songs for later. For now sit silently close by, and listen for the unspoken instructions on how you can genuinely help.
The mark of an accomplished singer is not how loudly he or she can sing and maintain the tone, but rather, how well he or she can sing the soft notes and maintain the quality of that tone. Some of the most expressive musical notes are found in pianissimo, rather than in double forte. But it takes the truly skilled vocalist to perform in such a soft style. Sadly, many singers suppose that only by blasting us out of our seats with the amplifier cranked high can they properly impress us. That's not art; that's in-your-face confrontation to mask a lack of talent. Unfortunately, we do the same thing with other forms of communication, from language arts to painting. But it's a rule of thumb that the louder we have to present ourselves, the less tenable our position is. Whether it's a mom instructing her child, or Jesus teaching His disciples, the greatest truths are stated in the strong, steady notes softly presented.
Grandiose statements are easy to make, sound so wonderful, and are as phony as a four dollar bill. One such statement is, "I love everybody!" Uh huh. I hear these statements at funerals about the deceased: "He didn't have an enemy in the world!" Right. "She never gave us a worry in her whole life." Oookay. By making issues grandiose, we can avoid responsibility in two ways. First, we don't deal with the particular. If I love the whole world, I don't have to deal with my hard feelings for that woman in the checkout line, or those unpredictable youth on the street corner downtown. If I say I'm compassionate, I can still excuse myself from acting by saying that the problems are too great to solve. But as Mother Teresa said, "We may not be able to feed the multitudes, but we can feed one." And if we truly want to love the whole world, we start with our obnoxious neighbor.
