It’s the day following New Year’s Day of 1970 and my buddy and I are hitchhiking through Maine after spending a week in Connecticut.  A somewhat-compassionate state trooper had put us off the interstate and we had to make it on secondary roads where there was little traffic. The temperature was below minus twenty and no one was stopping to pick up two half-frozen, young men.

Finally, in desperation I said to him, “It must be your face; let me be the first one they see.” He agreed, but my face didn’t improve our luck. One hundred thirty miles from home, broke, cold and in the dark we humbled ourselves and called his mother to come to our rescue. We literally had two cents left after the phone call.

I can’t remember thanking her for her love for her son or my reprimanding him for getting us into such a precarious situation. That was over fifty-one years ago and we are both doing well.

Now back to the benefits of humility.

Proverbs 22:4

By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.

1 Peter 5:5

Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Humility is a hard thing for a proud people, but God knows how to get it out of us.

Give it some thought.

Gary

Vladimir John Ondrasik III, known by his stage name Five for Fighting, sang the song Superman.  It is far from a Christian hymn but reveals the inner feelings of many a man. My son introduced it to me saying it was really funny but meaningful. He was right.

The song is about a man who feels as though he is unable to live up to others’ expectations. He can’t possibly be all that other people want him to be. He comes up short of expectations placed on him and believes, at times, he looks absolutely ridiculous. Knowing that society says, “Don’t bleed,” he grapples with the human need to do so. He misses something called home that doesn’t exist on earth. The battle rages inside of him and the relief valve doesn’t seem to want to function.

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
The better part of me

I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane
I’m more than some pretty face beside a train
And it’s not easy to be me

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
‘Bout a home I’ll never see

It may sound absurd, but don’t be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed, but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
And it’s not easy to be me

Up, up and away, away from me
Well it’s all right
You can all sleep sound tonight
I’m not crazy or anything

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
Men weren’t meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I’m only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me

Inside of me, inside of me, yeah
Inside of me, inside of me
I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
I’m only a man looking for a dream
I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
And it’s not easy
Oh, it’s not easy to be me

Once you give up on the idea that you’re not superman but a mere man, there is hope. God created us to be men and not supermen.

Genesis 1:27 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Give it some thought, take your place, and please don’t try to fly.

Gary

In preparing for my MRI, I had to answer a series of questions posed by the technician. It seems like if you have any metal on you or in you, it can create serious complications when they hit the switch. When he asked if I had had any abdominal surgeries, I replied, “No.” Everything stopped halfway through the banging process of the machine. Through the earphones I had on, the tech asked, “Gary, did you have gallbladder surgery?”

Oops, I forgot about that. I would have been the first person ever born that was missing a gallbladder.

I have always had a problem with half-listening when answering uninteresting questions. This defect in personality can be an embarrassment when the truth is revealed. We should always focus when others are trying to communicate with us, especially about our future role on the planet.

John 4:24

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

A lie is still a lie even though it is said unintentionally. If you caught me in one, I’m sorry; it is just the way I am.

Romans 3:14

Let God be true and every man a liar.

Think about it.

Gary

Isaiah 41:28-29 is about the futility of idols. You might say, “I don’t worship idols.” However, do you really know what an idol is? Augustine defined it over 1600 years ago.  “Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used or using anything that ought to be worshiped.” Take some time to digest that statement.

The only difference between the idolatry of a tribesman ascribing power to a fetish and the idolatry of a professor attributing the wonder of the natural world to evolutionary forces is one of degrees. The professor has one and the tribesman does not.

God made it clear to Israel:

Isaiah 41:28-29

 For I looked, and there was no man;
I looked among them, but there was no counselor,
Who, when I asked of them, could answer a word.
 Indeed they are all worthless;
Their works are nothing;
Their molded images are wind and confusion.

Examine your life carefully about this business of idolatry. If it’s in there somewhere, then deal with it before it deals with you.

Give it some thought.

Gary

“The Snake” is a song written and first recorded by civil-rights activist Oscar Brown in 1963, which became a hit single by American singer Al Wilson in 1968.

This certainly is not a hymn, but teaches tremendous spiritual truth. There are principles from the secular world that mimic what is taught in Scripture, and this song is certainly one of them.

On her way to work one morning
Down the path alongside the lake
A tender-hearted woman saw a poor half-frozen snake
His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew
“Oh well,” she cried, “I’ll take you in and I’ll take care of you”

Now she wrapped him up all cozy in a coverture of silk
And laid him by the fireside with some honey and some milk
Now she hurried home from work that night, as soon she arrived
Now she found that pretty snake she’d taken in had been revived

Now she clutched him to her bosom, “You’re so beautiful,” she cried
“But if I hadn’t brought you in by now you might have died”
Now she stroked his pretty skin again and then kissed and held him tight
But instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite (ooh)

“I saved you,” cried that woman
“And you’ve bitten me, even why?
And you know your bite is poisonous and now I’m gonna die”
“Oh, shut up, silly woman,” said that reptile with a grin
“Now you knew darn well I was a snake before you brought me in”

Galatians 6:7

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Genesis 3:13

And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The old serpent is still using his crafty and deadly methods today because the human race hasn’t changed in susceptibility to his schemes.

Have you ever been bitten because you brought him in?

Think about it.

Good

Some gods just can’t stand up to the occasion. We find this record of the uselessness of the gods we create in 1 Samuel 5.

1 Sam 5:2-4

When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon.  And when the people of Ashdod arose early in the morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set it in its place again.  And when they arose early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and both the palms of its hands were broken off on the threshold; only Dagon’s torso was left of it.

Dagon disappeared from history because he was only a figment of the Philistine imagination. However, of the manufacture of deities, there will be no end.

One of my college professors once stated, “And then man made god in his image.” I wrote that down because I thought it was a brilliant statement. Years later I discovered how lacking I was in the knowledge of the true and living God.

Have you ever created one and found him useless?

Think about it.

Gary

It was the spring of sixty-five and a high-school junior asked me a favor. He wanted to pedal my bike over to my cousin’s house a mile away with me sitting on the handle bars. I thought it would be great listening to these two old guys talk.

My cousin was doing some homework in his room when we arrived. They chatted, not paying any attention to me because I wasn’t worth bothering with. Then this relative looked at me and asked, “What year will you graduate?” I replied, “1970.” His reply was something in the neighborhood of, “That’s a thousand years from now.”

I had a hard time with that revelation from such an educated and experienced member of the senior class. However, sitting here looking back fifty-six years, I realize an eighteen-year-old really should be careful with his advice.

Proverbs 12:18 

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Be careful what you say to a kid.  He might believe it and become discouraged.

Think about it.

Gary