Skip to main content

Take Me Literally

I am quite certain that my children have learned it from me. Whether I should be proud or not is a discussion for another day, but when my children choose sarcasm over a straight answer, I can’t get mad at them. They’ve seen it modeled and they are learning the trade. Because, to me, the only thing funnier than imagining what kids will say in response to outlandish statements is actually finding out. There’s only one way to find out.

Luke: How long until Mommy comes home?
Me: One week.
Luke: But…? How…? Why?
Me: She’ll be home in 5 minutes.

Jacie: Can I have earrings?
Me: Sure, anything for my little princess.
(But Jacie is catching on to how sarcasm works.)
Jacie: Really?
Me: No.

It goes both ways. When I ask Jacie how much homework she has, she may respond with ‘5 billion pages’ or a blank look as if she’s never heard the word before. And as I think about this, I realize that at times the Bible uses language that we’re not meant to take literally. Consider Hebrews 10:24.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

Can you picture this? If we took the Bible literally here, we’d have a lot more cowboys in Church. Plus, we’d have a whole lot of people with spur marks on their body.

Spurs hurt. That’s why we don’t just use them right away. Actually, we don’t use them on people. But maybe we should. We’re told to consider how to spur one another on. Let’s face it, sometimes we need to be jolted in order to get something done.

Love and good deeds don’t just happen. They have to be acted out. And they should be acted out by us. We should be loving and doing good deeds. This doesn’t make it about us. Rather we do good deeds to point others to God so that they can draw near and we can watch as God repeats the process of cleansing others so they can hold on and spur others on. So take some time and consider how a little pain now may cause some good later. It may hurt now, but pain produces action.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...
5 comments
Read more

Jury Duty

I was recently summoned to jury duty. I know, groan. Except I didn't. I had never experienced it before and was curious to see what it was like.   When the day to report arrives, they separate you into groups, asking various questions to decide if you will be selected to serve. Do you know the accused? Do you have conflicts that would keep you from serving? Can you stay focused?  I wanted to answer well, if only because my kids kept wishing me luck the day before, telling me they hoped I made the team. After all, who wants to be rejected? It occurred to me that there are things you probably shouldn’t say right away if you’re wanting to serve on a jury. I know, I know, people don’t typically want to serve on a jury. But that list didn’t seem nearly as humorous to me. Here are the things you probably shouldn’t say if you want to be selected for jury. I hold myself in contempt. You can’t handle the truth. We find the defendant guilty. I believe the judge looks pretty in his ...
Post a Comment
Read more