God Speaks; I’m Listening.

When I first opened my eyes Monday morning I knew that it would be a day unlike most. For one thing, it was the day I’d be saying goodbye to a dear friend who died one week before – unexpectedly. Cora was a special soul and my church family was set to gather for her memorial service in the afternoon. But I still had to go through the motions of a half-day at work, even though my heart really wasn’t into it.

Just then, the snooze alarm woke me up – again – ten minutes later, telling me to, “Wake up slacker!” Okay! I got it.

Off then to work, gazing at a gloomy morning through a dirty bus window in mourning for a dear friend and walking through the proverbial “to do list” in my mind. I wanted to turn it all over to the substitute a smooth-running flawless learning machine. (By the way, I’m a special education school teacher.)

I got the kids off the busses at 9:05 am and we headed to breakfast.

On the way I was still thinking, “Attendance: check! Lesson plans: check-a-rooney! Note to sub explaining the afternoon’s activities in great detail: check again! Wow! I wish I could have it all together like this when I’m here all day… If only!”

At 9:20 am the first period bell sounded. That’s usually the signal for us to gobble-up the rest of the vittles and then head to our room for “morning meeting.”

For my kids, morning meetings consist of enthusiastically welcoming the new school day by posting the daily calendar, running through the days of the week, months of the year, counting to whatever day it happens to be. Monday was the 19th of March – considerably more ground to cover than way back when it was March 3rd, but time does fly. Counting all the way to the 31st will be a bumpy ride indeed.

I’m usually in my room during our morning meetings, and for all the daily activities, so when general ed students occasionally approach me to say, “You have so much fun in your class!” I generally agree, but I never really understood what an objective outside-my-classroom observer meant by that – until Monday.

I had to excuse myself temporarily and left my assistant in charge. Five minutes later I came out of the main office door (a considerable distance – and around a corner – from my classroom) and heard our typical “morning meeting” already in progress echoing through the vacant school halls. And I must say, boy was it swingin’!!!

I could hear the days of the week, counting to 19 (a great accomplishment, as I have already pointed out), months of the year, identification of pictures associated with the calendar holidays, and most of all, I heard the loud and proud cheers of encouragement that my students have learned to share with one another from day one, in order that they all should feel good about every accomplishment they make – and recognize one another for those accomplishments.

I stood and listened for five minutes in total amazement at what I have been a part of every day for seven months, but never really heard from an outsider’s perspective.

And are you wondering why this audio image hit me so hard? Well, it could have been the fact that, out of nine students who started the school year in my classroom, way back in August, only three could speak recognizable words – only these same three offered to make any real sound at all. The others were silent, except for occasional brief unrelated-to-anything-else sounds, or crying tantrums.

That was back in August.

The reality that eight out of nine of my students use words regularly now (and the ninth uses sounds in a more purposeful way – i.e. to get something, or communicate wants and needs and emotions), was not lost on one of those people who have been working very diligently to get the voices singing. No, it wasn’t lost on me at all.

In fact, to say that God was speaking to me through my kids’ voices on a morning I needed so badly to hear from Him, just goes to show how in tune He really is with us all – every second of every day.

How is this possible? Because He’s God, that’s the only explanation I have.

Cora’s passing left a hole in the world – a hole in my world too. Through my kids, God let me know that my work here is important – that I need to carry on until I am called home. I have a purpose greater than self and that is my hole to fill. He let me know, even though I had to say goodbye to Cora, everything is going to be okay, because He’s in control.

It’s comforting to know that, considering I still feel like crying about every thirty seconds. It’s a bitter pill, but through my kids God said, “Tomorrow will be a better day and the day after will be better still.”

God Speaks; I’m listening.

So, there I was, sitting in the choir risers, high upon the chancel with about sixty others, overlooking the sanctuary filled with about six-hundred guests, ready to sing Cora’s farewell.

We all wore white robes with beautiful silky white stoles around our necks. I couldn’t believe how heavy it was – the robe – not made of a flimsy material at all. I felt elegant, angelic almost. But then I got hot and started to sweat as I am known to do in any situation where the temperature rises above fifty-five degrees.

I’m a Chicago boy. What can I tell you? Collar and sleeves are not an option usually, even where snow is a concern, but I was wrapped to the wrists and tripped up the stairs from the choir room to the chancel on the long train like I was wearing a prom gown and high heels for the very first time.

I was very nervous sitting there waiting to sing, which didn’t help the blast furnace I had going on under my robe any. I am not a member of either choir, but was invited to join in the voices anyway. I was thrilled and wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I don’t sing. I play bass in the praise band and the running joke (at least I think it’s a joke) is that the Music Director won’t let me have a microphone. She was seated straight across from me and I tried hard not to catch her eye out of fear she’d come over and tell me to, “Just move your lips, Bob… no one will know you aren’t making a sound.”

We all stood to sing Cora’s anthem and it was wonderful. From my place I could see the family, but I tried not to look there too much. I found comfort in the baptism candle, which stood tall next to the baptism font only a few yards in front of me. Lit only for baptisms, Easter, and funerals, the candle made me feel Cora’s presence. I’m sure she was pleased to see me there within the ranks of not one, but two really good choirs. She’d probably say that it took real “chutzpah” to pull it off. Yeah, I think she’d use a word like that to describe it?

I looked around the big sanctuary. It was full of my church family mostly. Yeah, it could have been broken-down into individual family units, but it wasn’t like that for me. I’m an only child from a family that could never have been considered close. No, that’s not the word I’d use anyway.

So, when I looked out there it was all family to me. And although most of them will never know how much they mean to me, the fact that we were all there together to say goodbye to Cora made them even more important in my eyes – infinitely more important.

...all the time. And all the time, God is good.

I heard God speaking again during the service. He said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

His grace resonated in the hymns, in the scriptures read, in the enormous sound of the pipe organ, and in the Pastor’s voice. I heard Him comforting us, cleansing us, telling us to move forward, even though we felt so much pain on that day. I heard Him say that everything was going to be alright.

I know one thing’s for sure… I believe every word.

Metamorphosis

If being (or becoming) a Christian doesn’t make you different from a non-believer, then you are not a Christian. If you are not shaped, moulded, changed, and directed in every way by the Holy Spirit, then you are not a Christian. At least you are not holding up your end of the deal.

Let me explain to those of you who are dead in your tracks right now, ready to comment about what a narrow-minded, one-sided, holier-than-thou zealot I am.

God‘s grace is a gift for all people. That is a done deal, sealed by the blood and suffering of Jesus Christ. But where most of us fail – I know I did for many years – is by thinking we’ve got all aspects of our eternal salvation covered, when in fact, we do not. If our sin continues, while we boast about our faith, it is an important (and glaring) contradiction to the Word of God. We are the “clanging bell” and not really doing God’s will at all.

I am a Cristian.

I have spoken these words so many times that at one point I almost began to feel like a hypocrite for saying them. That was a joke, for those of you who may have failed to see the humor. I had not entered a church for twenty-six years (from late fall of 1981 until the spring of 2008), during this time I can count on one hand the times I bowed in prayer to the Almighty, but I was calling myself a Christian with beaming confidence that I had it all figured out.

Spoken like a true captive of the world – the prisoner of a scholarly ego built-in a lab at the university. I was a victim of relativism; “God is what I decide He is.” I could justify in my own head that I was a Christian in spite of the fact that I wasn’t exactly doing what God intended for me to do. If I even knew what that was outside of the Ten Commandments. I sure broke enough of those to put God’s patience to the test. Maybe even because I thought I knew what was best for me, did I go my own way and look at God’s will as something I could tamper with – adjust to fit my lifestyle.

It’s all about ME! After all, God gives us “free will” doesn’t He? That means He lays down the law, but I can interpret it and subject it to my own needs, wants, and desires any way I see fit. I can sin and sin again and He will forgive me. He’s God, right?

What do you mean no? 

I am a Christian.

“ Why?” would be the logical question, but I did not ever have the good sense to ask, let alone the guts to search for an answer. I was completely swindled by the adversary forever insisting that I stick to my guns and my own convictions. And I was convinced that I could go my own way and still maintain a Christian life in spite of so much evidence to the contrary throughout those passing years and seasons.

I love a good gangster film. I’m not talkin’ about the silly ghetto gangsters you see out there walking around at the mall nowadays, with boxers and butts sticking out of the back of their pants. I’m talkin’ real gangsters, the mob, Chicago style hoods, Al Capone, Bugs Moran (I played ball with his great-grandson growing up in the Windy City). I cannot get enough of legendary screen gangsters like Tony Montana (Al Pacino in Scarface) and Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino in The Godfather); these were two of my favorite on-screen characters of all time who were not played by Clint Eastwood.

In one scene from The Godfather, Don Michael Corleone attends the christening of his niece. The film cuts back-and-fourth from the cathedral’s highly religious setting to mafia hitmen doing the work that Don Corleone had ordered – the assassinations of all of the rival Dons in town. It was a blood bath carried out all the while the real executioner was in church.

Can we go on sinning willfully and still receive the Grace of God?

Martin Luther made it clear that we do not earn our salvation and most Christians correctly believe this, but the book of James certainly connects works to grace. A Luther apologists would probably argue the important points in the Book of James, but most misinterpret what James tells us. They put the cart in the wrong place in relationship to the horse. Works do not earn grace; works are a product of grace. They should be anyway! That you say you are a Christian is not enough unless the works that follow reflect the changes in you:

When the caterpillar is fully grown, it makes a button of silk which it uses to fasten its body to a leaf or a twig. Then the caterpillar’s skin comes off for the final time. Under this old skin is a hard skin called a chrysalis.

Because chrysalides are often showy and are formed in the open, they are the most familiar examples of pupae. Most chrysalides are attached to a surface by a Velcro-like arrangement of a silken pad spun by the caterpillar, usually cemented to the underside of a perch, and the cremaster, a hook-shaped protuberance from the rear of the chrysalis at the tip of the pupalabdomen by which the caterpillar fixes itself to the pad of silk.

Like other types of pupae, the chrysalis stage in most butterflies is one in which there is little movement. However, some butterfly pupae are capable of moving the abdominal segments to produce sounds or to scare away potential predators. Within the chrysalis, growth and differentiation occur. The adult butterfly emerges (ecloses) from this and expands its wings by pumpinghaemolymph into the wing veins. Although this sudden and rapid change from pupa to imago is often called metamorphosis, metamorphosis is really the whole series of changes that an insect undergoes from egg to adult.

Wikipedia

There is a true Christian metamorphosis. Like the butterfly, a Christian emerges free from sin that used to keep him from moving and bonded him to the adversary. I quit drinking alcohol cold turkey twelve years ago, I stopped smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigarettes per day, I severed a very unhealthy and sinful relationship after more than ten years of hiding in the shadows, I finally learned to control my cruel tongue and rarely let it shame me like it used to, I have been humbled in ways that I never thought possible, I have conquered evils I didn’t know were there, and I have done it all because God loves me and Jesus died for me. I’m a changed man because of my faith.

Good works are the product of grace. I would have never traveled that “right road” had I not seen first hand what God can do right here in this world – in spite of this world. I was at the bottom. I was at the end of a rope. I fell into a pit that only God could have pulled me out of a better person. I was in the grasp of demons that I let take hold of my life and control me. But I put my trust in the Lord. And now those demons are gone forever.

I found the narrow way to God and turned away from sin.

If being (or becoming) a Christian doesn’t make you different from a non-believer, than you are not a Christian. If you are not shaped, moulded, changed, and directed in every way by the Holy Spirit, then you are not a Christian. At least you are not holding up your end of the deal.

I wake up every morning and give thanks to the Lord: for one more day, for allowing me to serve Him, for having a purpose greater than self, and for His grace that washes over me and renews me every day. It is for this reason that I strive to do good works. His gift of grace makes me want to be a better man. His grace makes me look back at the “old me” with disgust and loathing.

Am I perfect now that I am a New Creation? Of course not! I am human and subject to judgement in this world and tempted by sin like everyone else. But when the time comes, and God calls me home, I can rest knowing that I finally saw His eternal light back in November 2007 and made a decision to walk hand-in-hand with Jesus towards it, rather than go my own way assuming I was right after all.

God’s grace is a gift for all people, but each of us must open it up and use it in order to reap the reward of salvation. It begins with a simple act of trust – by picking up your cross to follow Jesus. It begins right now, not in the next world. God is building that new era right now – in this life and time. We choose Heaven, or we choose hell. But salvation begins when we repent, when we reject sin, when we make that choice to Accept God’s purpose for our life – to go God’s way. And from that moment, good works will follow too.

Make that choice. The metamorphosis will change you forever. And never forget that eternity begins now for those who believe. Like a beautiful butterfly that once crawled as a caterpillar, the change will be evident. And don’t You know that it’s contagious too.

We are Christians!