Our Actions Can Erase -- or Highlight --Our Words

I rarely post something I didn't write, but I received this today via email. I don't know if the story is true, but the message is Biblical. I couldn't let it pass without sharing it:
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A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof -- and the horn --screaming in frustration because she missed her chance to get through the intersection. Still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.

After a couple of hours, a guard approached the cell, opened the door and escorted her back to the booking desk where the arresting officer waited with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do" bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."
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The Psalmist prayed: May those who wait for You not be ashamed through me, O Lord GOD of hosts; May those who seek You not be dishonored through me, O God of Israel (Psalm 69:6). Even so, let us pray: Lord, help us walk in a manner worthy of our calling, to honor our Lord, Savior, Redeemer and Friend.

Rich
rmaffeo@comcast.net

What Higher Duty?

I placed the last of my groceries on the conveyor belt and absently scanned the tabloid rack. When my gaze settled on Liz Taylor’s picture on the front page of one of the papers, I did a double-take. Before I realized it, I was staring.

I don’t remember seeing many movies starring Ms. Taylor, but one in particular stands out in my memory. She played Kate in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew,” with Richard Burton. Ms. Taylor was a remarkably beautiful woman in her younger years.

I picked up the paper and showed it to my wife. She nodded, understanding my unspoken surprise. Time and life-experiences take their toll even on the rich and famous.

That’s probably why, before I paid for my groceries, Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, returned to my thoughts:

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come . . . Remember Him - before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring . . . and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”

I placed the groceries in the trunk, snapped it shut and thought, I might never appear on the cover of a tabloid. But one day someone might find my photograph stuck away in a weathered photo album. Time and life-experiences will affect me, as they will everyone else. I hope I will have learned through time and experience to fear God and keep His commandments.

What higher duty have I?

Or you?

Rmaffeo@comcast.net

Let There Be . . . And It Is So

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And God said . . . ."

It's easy to move quickly past this text and miss the personal application. "In the beginning" takes us back to the time before there was a beginning of time, when chaos reigned. And darkness. And emptiness.

Perhaps you know the feeling -- Chaos. Darkness. Emptiness.

I sure do. I’ve looked often enough at my own private chaos swirl around me. I searched in vain to stand on something solid in the midst of a roiling cauldron. I desperately sought safety, but darkness overwhelmed me.

Yet, in retrospect, I now believe that’s a good place to be – surrounded by confusion and emptiness. Why? Because it is there, when our resources have shriveled up, we are more likely to do what we should have done in the beginning -- stand still, quiet ourselves and hear God say, “Let there be light. And peace. And fullness”

And it is so.

He has never failed me. He will never fail you who are His children, born through the Cross.

"Lord, your lovingkindness is new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness."

RNMaffeo@aol.com

Choices

Sometimes choices complicate life. Eating out is a case in point. When I was stationed at an overseas naval base, our choices were easy. Walk into a restaurant (one of three from which to choose) and the waitress handed you a menu. One page. Nothing on the back. Options included chicken, fish, and hamburger - grilled or fried. Thirsty? Select cola, ice tea or coffee. Like some dessert? Try some frozen yogurt or a fruit dish.

It never took long to decide what to have.

But that all changed when I transferred back to America. Walk into a restaurant (one of a thousand from which to choose) and the waitress hands you a menu. Dessert choices alone fill a page - front and back. Dinner and entre offerings fold out to three pages. A year after returning home I still felt paralyzed by all the choices. To keep my sanity I often simply ordered a hamburger and fries.

But if you think three pages of menu choices can complicate life, consider this: Jesus offers us only two choices -- serve Him or reject Him. You’d think it wouldn’t take long to decide. And for some, it doesn’t. But too many people, after years of staring at the menu, remain undecided. They still study the choices, front and back, looking for a better deal.

There isn’t any better deal. That’s why Scripture repeatedly warns us to choose -- today -- whom we will serve. One day the restaurant will suddenly close its doors. When that happens, the choice will have been made for those still trying to decide.

RNmaffeo@aol.com

Sunsets and Spreadsheets

I should have taken the few minutes to watch the soundless symphony of color unfold before my eyes. Gray cotton-candy clouds hugged the mountain range and billowed across the sky. A slowly setting sun fingerpainted the horizon in shimmering shades of gold, orange, lavender and velvet-blue.

I should have stopped. But I didn’t. More urgent matters demanded my attention. The fate of life on earth depended on finding the misplaced stack of paperwork. The symphony, I told myself, would be there when I returned.

You’d think I’d know better. As soon as I opened my office door, two other items of critical importance captured my attention. I forgot all about the sunset until I raced along the same glass-enclosed passageway 30 minutes later. When I glanced toward the horizon, I stopped short. The mountains had disappeared. Vibrant colors had mutated to black and invisible clouds obscured even a hint of stars in the distance.

Somehow preserving life on earth wasn’t worth what I missed that evening.

Sunsets are not the only things I’ve missed over the years in my frenzied rush through life’s passageways. One crisis or another -- more often perceived than real -- has robbed me of more time with those who are important to me than I care to remember. My wife, kids, parents -- even God -- too often fell into the “will-get-to-it-later” category while I ensured earth turned on its axis.

No one has to tell me what I missed is not worth what I gained. If I could do it over, I’d give it all back: awards, popularity among my peers, money, zealous dedication to my employers.

But I can’t give it back. Those calendar pages fell long ago into the cavern of the past.

It’s taken a few decades (I’m a really slow learner), but I’m beginning to learn life on earth can progress quite well without me. And far from being a thorn to my ego, that knowledge is surprisingly liberating. It means it’s alright to close the spreadsheet and take my wife for a walk. It’s OK to turn the telephone off and play chess with my son. It’s good to push my keyboard aside and spend time with God. And it won’t hurt a thing if I stop in the hallway at work to watch the sunset.

I don’t know how many calendar pages I have left. But I don’t want to waste any more of them earning awards, money or praise at the expense of what really matters.


Rich
RNmaffeo@aol.com

Dirty Pennies, Spotless Crowns

I’m not sure why I bothered to pick up the penny from the dirt along the curb. I don’t usually waste energy troubling myself for pennies. Perhaps I stopped because I needed to catch my breath. Heat shimmered off the asphalt in the mid-day sun and my sweat-soaked T-shirt clung like a second skin. Only 20 minutes into my daily jogging routine and I felt like falling onto the nearest shaded lawn.

Whatever the reason, I held the coin until I returned home and tossed it onto the table by the front door. By the time I’d pulled off my running shoes, it had slipped from my mind. I didn’t know God was about to use that near-valueless coin to teach me a valuable lesson in spiritual investments.

That evening I opened the Scriptures and turned to the place I’d left off the day before. My eyes skimmed the familiar verses of 1 Corinthians 5 and moved across the page to chapter 6. Then verse 9:

“Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Talk about dirty pennies. Some of the men and women living in Corinth were rolling around in the dung-heap of life. It would be easy to conclude no one -- especially
God -- would waste the energy to pick them out of the muck.

That would be a wrong conclusion. The next verse continues, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

God is in the business of transforming dirty coins into spotless crowns, and history overflows with examples. Saul is one. The first century religious zealot burned with murderous rage against Christians. He hated their worship, loathed their gatherings and despised their Messiah. He dragged followers of Christ from their homes and tossed them into rat-infested dungeons. When a mob gathered to murder one of Christ’s disciples, Saul stood by and watched with approval.

Then Saul -- better known as Paul -- met Christ, and the persecutor became the apostle. The one who tried to destroy the Christian faith now proclaimed it as mankind’s only hope for peace, forgiveness and eternal life. Nearly one half of the New Testament came from his pen and untold millions of men and women have experienced life-transformation because of his letters of challenge, comfort, warning and exhortation.

John Newton is another example. An 18th century slave-trader, Newton packed human cargo into the bowels of his ship bound for the Americas. Many of the slaves, half-starved and surrounded by human waste and disease, died en route. Newton, however, considered the loss merely an unfortunate business expense.

Then Christ grabbed hold of him and Newton devoted himself to serve the One he’d so long rejected. Christians around the world -- many of whom are descendants of Newton’s slaves -- still sing hymns the former slave-trader wrote to honor Christ. You might recognize the words to one of those hymns:

“Amazing grace/how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me/I once was lost, but now am found/was blind, but now I see.”

Dr. Bernard Nathanson is one more illustration of God’s mercy. Perhaps the most infamous champion of abortion rights during the 1960's and early 1970's, Nathanson co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League in 1968 and performed or supervised more than 60,000 abortions. Nearly single-handedly, he helped shape the political and social landscape that made the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision possible.

But even he was not so deeply mired in sin’s quagmire that God did not reach into the gutter and pick him up. Nathanson turned his life over to Christ and, though he can never undo the horror he helped create, he now devotes himself to protect the unborn from the fate he brought to others.

I doubt I will ever understand the richness of God’s unfailing and unconditional love. Like the Prodigal’s Father in Luke 15, God scans the horizon and looks for those lost in life’s decay. No sparrow is so fallen, no coin so lost, no sheep so wayward that the heavenly Father won’t bend down, pick them up and carry them in his hand. Murderers, drunkards, adulterers, blasphemers . . . . the Church is full of the evidence of changed lives.

But that should surprise no one. Where else but in God’s hands can dirty pennies become spotless crowns?

End
RNmaffeo@aol.com

Oh, How He Loves Me . . . and You

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name . . . "

The first two words of the Lord’s Prayer mean a lot to me.

I never had a father. At least, I never had one who cared about me. My biological father left when I was five. That was 50 years ago. I still remember when Mom told me he was not coming home anymore. I sat next to her on our black couch. It had silver specks and was covered with plastic slipcovers. I didn’t like how the plastic felt against my skin.

We saw Al only a time or two during the next several years. I met him once again when I was eighteen. When I asked him why he abandoned me, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Because I wanted to.”

Mom married Tom when I was 12. I never remember him taking me into his arms and hugging me. He never told me he loved me. Never told me I was ok.

Our Father . . . .

In recent years my Father in heaven has become for me much more than an intellectual concept. I suppose I’ve had kind of an epiphany. He has revealed Himself to me as really, really, really my father. At times I can almost sense Him take me into His arms and embrace me. I can almost hear His voice telling me, “I love you. You’re doing ok.”

How I need that.

And I imagine so do you.

Our Father in heaven is not only my father. He is as much yours as well. Whoever you are, whatever your family background, whether your earthly father was like mine, or your dad was and is someone special to you. As much as our Father in heaven wants to embrace me, He wants to embrace you, love you, hold you, tell you how much He loves you.

Quiet yourself. Get alone with Him, someplace where you can put aside all distractions and listen for His voice. It takes practice. It takes persistence. But He will not disappoint you.

End
RNMaffeo@aol.com