Selflessness

Japan pensioners volunteer to tackle nuclear crisis

I read this article today.  Basically these retired engineers have decided they need to step up and deal with the problems at the Fukushima reactor.  Their reason for doing so?  They're old and they don't feel the young need to be exposing themselves to the high levels of radiation at the plant.

The organizer, Yasuteru Yamada, said, "I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live. Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer."

Just to refresh our memories (in this day and age the media have about a 48-hour attention span)...  After one of the worst earthquakes in history Japan is in danger of a disaster that some (in the media) say could make Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like a bad ozone day.  Engineers have been working for weeks to contain multiple reactors before meltdowns occur.  And things aren't looking very good at present.

So these retirees are volunteering to take the place of younger engineers, to go into the high radiation areas and perform tasks that will probably end their lives early.  What's up with that??

Selflessness and self-sacrifice (along with honor and respect) are integral to the Japanese culture.  This is probably a result of the wide acceptance of Confucianism in Japan.  Unfortunately western cultural influence has begun to slowly change all that.

What is it that would motivate someone to voluntarily offer up their life to save the lives of people they've never met?

This Monday we celebrated Memorial Day... a day which we in the U.S. set aside to remember those who gave their lives in battle defending our country.  At the same time we honor and pray for those who are in various locations around the world doing so now.  I had two friends return last week from Afghanistan.  It was great to see them return safely.  I have others who are there now.  We pray for them daily... as is our duty.

However, in the case of the Japanese, these men aren't on foreign soil defending their country from those who wish to do it harm.  There are no guns and no tanks.  The enemy is unseen and the men really don't know why the problems are as bad as they appear to be.  No politics.  All they know is that if they don't act, younger citizens will be paying a great price for many years to come.  They are offering to place themselves in harm's way so that these younger men and women may live long and healthy lives.  They aren't spending time protesting nuclear power plants at the government buildings and they aren't busy blaming their government or the U.S. or whoever for their situation.  They are simply offering their lives to help.

So we sit in our air-conditioned, well-furnished homes and watch all this on the news networks.  We (myself included) talk about how stupid it was to build nuclear power plants in the most earthquake-prone country on the planet.  Then we turn to another network, listen to a news report about how Medicare is running out of money, how our income bracket is about to incur a tax increase or how our home value is going down the drain.  We promptly forget about Japan and get busy organizing protests, writing letters to our congressmen and complaining to everyone we meet because we might lose something.

I believe we've lost touch with what is important in life.  Our culture has changed the way we look at the world around us.  As a matter of fact it has caused us to stop looking at the world around us unless it might have some negative impact on our wellbeing.  We have become so self-absorbed we have forgotten about things like compassion and grace.  We don't know the meaning of words like altruism and sacrifice.

I read the article and thought about the man being interviewed.  Is he a Christian?  Odds are he isn't.  Christians comprise about 1% of the population of Japan.  But his attitude certainly is Christ-like.

As a Christian I have to say I am ashamed of myself.  A Christian, of all people on this planet, ought to understand the concept of sacrifice.  A Christian, of all people, ought to understand the concept of denying oneself and taking up a sacrificial cross.  And the hope of a Christian ought to be motivation enough to overcome any trepidation about taking up that sacrificial cross.

As a parent I realized I am not setting an example to my children.  Why?  Probably because I am not so filled with that hope as I ought to be.  That has to change!

My two teenage daughters are going to Missouri next week on a mission trip.  They will spend the week doing manual labor to help a ministry there with tasks it otherwise would cost them thousands of dollars to have done.  What am I going to do while they're gone?  I'll find something to do!

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends". John 15:13

Buster Keaton... Better Than Hanna Montana, Idol and DWTS Combined!

School is out for the girls.  Lindsey just finished her Jr. year.  She took the ACT for the first time and made a 23.  I have to say I'm proud of her.  I didn't do that well... on either attempt.  I expect she'll do much better on her second attempt.  Lacey finished K5.  She's reading and writing (We're not going to be able to spell words in front of her anymore) and loving every minute of it.  Watching her sisters do (home) school is a great motivation for her.  She loves her teacher ("Mrs. Wright") and "Mrs. Wright" says she's the best student in the class!  She especially loves it when her principal ("Mr. Wright") is at school (working from home).  Lauren finished her freshman year.  I guess it was uneventful.  She didn't have a brain meltdown.  She did very well on her SAT this year.

Tonight, since they can all stay up a bit later, my girls are currently in the living room watching a Buster Keaton movie... and loving every minute of it!  No innuendo. No foul language.  No graphic violence. No horrible dialog.  No fancy dialog.  In fact, no dialog at all!  Who would have thought kids in 2011 would be in love with silent films?  I was in the back and could hear them laughing.  It was mostly Lindsey but I could hear Lacey's cackle as well, and, once in awhile, Lauren.

Actually, I could have told you that.  Since they were tiny we've watched old movies.  Movies with Gene Kelley, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Ginger Rogers, Leslie Caron, Mitzi Gaynor (They aren't a big fan of Marilyn Monroe), Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello and so many more.  And now that our oldest are teens they would rather watch these classics than just about any new movie (well, they are  big Narnia fans).

So the question I have to ask is why?  Why would they rather watch these movies than the new ones?  And why do other kids their age have no patience for such wonderful movies while my kids will sit there glued to the screen even though that glass of KoolAid the drank is begging to be returned to the wild?  What is it that makes these movies so fun to watch... more fun than High School Musical or even Wipeout??

I think the answer is this... it's not the movies but it's the girls.  Dad always repeated something his uncle was known for saying... "It's all in what you're used to".  It's a very simple statement... almost stating the obvious.  But I think parents often forget this simple truth.

Now, I want to make myself clear.  I am not going to spend time here condoning or condemning any one movie or television show.  I want to make different point entirely.  We have always been very careful to monitor what our girls watch.  Foul language, sex, violence.  We've tried to keep those things at a minimum.  But our efforts have gone further than that.  We have also tried to eliminate seemingly benign programming in which the child repeatedly shows disrespect for others (but specifically elders) or repeatedly engages in wrongdoing with little or no consequences, knowing that allowing them to watch such things gives them the impression we believe the behavior exhibited is acceptable.  We introduced them to these classic movies since they give (for the most part) great examples of showing respect for elders, friends and members of the opposite sex.  They also display (for the most part) good moral values, something left behind years ago in Hollywood.  And they do it in a lighthearted, entertaining manner, something else left behind years ago in Hollywood.

You may be thinking that we're shielding our children from reality.  Based on the experiences we have with our children as we live out our daily lives in this world, I'm certain they know what reality is.  Plus, I hope you don't believe television is reality.  We certainly don't.  Our goal is to help them to understand how they are to conduct themselves no mater what the "real" situation is.  So if they were, for example, confronted with a situation in which they were disciplined or chastised by a superior (boss, instructor) they wouldn't behave like a teenage sitcom star and have an emotional breakdown, call all their friends and badmouth their superior or set out for revenge.  Instead they will be able to examine the situation and respond in the best way possible... a way that improves their situation and shows respect for those in authority.

The upside to this is they will be able to live a life that helps them to be the best witness for Christ they can be.  If they are consistently able to respond to situations in a Christ-like manner their lives become their witness.  If they behave like Drama Queens anytime things don't go their way then they essentially have no witness.

What have we learned over the past seventeen years?  It can be summed up in four letters.  GIGO!  That is, "garbage in, garbage out".  What goes in comes out... good or bad.  Yes, our girls watched Hanna Montana.  And one of them (she knows who she is) has a tendency to be a drama queen... although without Hanna's Tennessee accent.  She also knows how Buster Keaton responds when things don't go his way.  More importantly, she knows how Joseph responded when he was sold into slavery and when he was falsely accused and thrown into prison.

"It's all in what you're used to".  Let me ask you, what are your children "used to"?  I'm not asking you to boycott Disney... but just to consider whether the things going into your children via the television or the internet are the things you would like to see coming out of them.  Think about it.

I truly believe that when our girls set out on their own they're not going to be so desensitized to the world around them that they don't notice a thing.  They're going to take in the world around them and they're going to respond.  They're going to respond in a way that glorifies Christ and that benefits (blesses) those around them.  That is definitely my prayer.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

What is sin... to you?

Now, if you read the post title you probably thought I was asking for your opinion of what sin is.  Well, that's not exactly it.  This post is probably going to be a bit more personal than that.  In fact, that is precisely the intent of this post... to bring the concept of sin down to a personal level.

Recently I was listening to a podcast of popular Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias.  He brought to my attention a quote from a letter Susanna Wesley wrote to her son John Wesley when he asked her what the considered sin to be. 

"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

Now, Susanna Wesley is certainly entitled to her opinion.  After all, that's what Christianity is about isn't it... our opinion of what the scripture is telling us?  If you attend bible study in many churches today you might be inclined to think that.  And opinions are fine... for what they are... opinions.  However, at some point you have to put aside opinion and look into the scripture.  Then, at this point there might be room for some interpretation (but if you're going to go into that you need to spend time with the original Greek/Hebrew) but by and large the scripture is pretty much black and white (and red and white depending on your translation). 

So lets look at this piece of advice Susanna gave her son and consider the scriptural relevance.   James addresses this thought very well.  In chapter three of the book of James he addresses the tongue... how double-edged it can be (v. 10).  Then he says "...this should not be" (Ouch)!  The rest of chapters three and four explain to us how our lives are driven from the inside... from our hearts.  If our hearts are on the things of this earth then our lives (and our tongues) will be likewise motivated.  In other words what we say (and how we say it) is pretty much what we are on the inside.

What James is communicating in these chapters is that every aspect of a Christian's life should be based on and come out from our submission to and our love for Christ.  And he gets a bit more personal than that.  He says that "friendship with the world is hatred toward God" (4:4).  What does that mean?  It means that putting on our "Jesus clothes" on Sunday morning for church and then hanging them up for the rest of the week is giving us exactly what we want... the appearance of Christanity without the substance (or without the effort).  It means that studying your bible for two hours a week and then looking at twenty hours a week of trash on television or the internet is doing absolutely nothing for our relationship with Christ.  In fact he says it's hatred (or hostility) toward God.  He even covers the heart in these matters in 4:3 when he says when we do ask we don't receive because our motives aren't pure.  Why are our motives not pure?  Because we are a friend to the world... and not to God (Ouch again).

Basically, we need to get real with our relationship with Christ.  If we want to be like Christ we need to be surrendered to Christ... completely. 

Lastly, James leaves us with a serious challenge.  In 4:17 (NIV) he says "anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins" .  Other translations say, "to him it is sin".  This makes it personal.  We can't point our fingers at anyone else now because James has shown us that the life we live is all up to us.  We either fully submit to Christ or we don't.  We're either a friend of God or we're hostile toward God.  

Now, go back and read again the answer Susanna Wesley gave her son.  Then ask yourself, "what is sin to me"?

"Little Miss Get Well Soon"

Do (or did) you ever find yourself in a situation with your child where you have to decide whether you are going to nurture or discourage a behavior?  Honestly, if you have children over 18 months and haven't come to that point you might need to reconsider your parenting approach.  In fact, we should be helping to guide our children from day one.  Show me a parent who isn't helping to guide their child's development and I'll show you a child the teacher (or daycare worker) dreads to see coming. 

Lacey, our four-year-old, is by far the most outspoken of our three girls.  I have told Dana more than once that she has the privilege of raising me all over again.  I see so much of myself in Lacey... the good and the bad.  Let's start with the bad.

Lacey isn't one to fall on the floor and throw a screaming fit... we have guided her away from that.  In fact, Lacey, like her sisters, is a very well behaved child.  However, Lacey does have some differences of personality from her sisters.  Lacey is very "high-strung" (at least that's what I was called.  Maybe that was just a nice way of saying I was hyperactive).  She is also a very determined little girl.  She has to have an explanation.  With the other girls a reply like "because I said so" worked very well... however, not so well with Lacey.  For instance, when we would tell Lacey to be quiet she would get very upset and say, "can't I just say something"?    So how do you guide someone who is so determined, inquisitive and insistent?  I'll let you know when I've figured it out.

On the good side, and this is the reason for this post, Lacey is one of the most sympathetic people I've ever known.  While most children her age are so involved in play or a meal or a television show, Lacey seems to always be acutely aware of what's going on around her.  My concern here is that as she gets older she, like me, becomes overwhelmed by all the stimuli around her.  And this does seem to come out often in the evening when she's begins to tire.  However, her acute awareness of her surroundings has shown us something wonderful about her.  Lacey is very concerned with other people's problems.  When someone is struggling you can see her struggling with them.  It shows on her face.  We've watched her comfort another child her age who is throwing a fit because they didn't get something.  She is not the least bit concerned with why they're crying (as we adults often are) but only that they are suffering and she wants so much to help make it better.

Lacey is our "Little Miss Get Well Soon".  When someone is sick she is going to do something to help them feel better.  Her first task is to draw them a picture.  She always decides the topic of the drawing.  Then she will get with someone to help her write a letter.  Just last night Dana was sitting on our bed resting with a heating pad on her knees (long story).  And during our bedtime prayer time Lacey informed her mother that she was "going to do something special for you tomorrow to help you feel better".   She is always making something special for some of our Senior church members who have been in the hospital.  She has a genuine desire to do anything she can to help people in their suffering.

The best word for Lacey's feelings is compassion.  Websters defines compassion as "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it".  And we want to encourage that virtue.  But we want to do it correctly... there is a fine line between being compassionate and being a busy-body.  That fine line is self and we want to make sure that, for Lacey, self is in the right place.

When a person sees someone in distress they respond in a number of ways, but they're all pretty much defined by where one sees oneself in relation to another person's distress.  Lacey sees herself in a position to do something to help.  What does that mean?  Well, it means she thinks less of herself in this situation and more of the other person.  She is willing to sacrifice of herself to help the other person feel better... to the point that she acts on it.  This begs another question.  Is compassion really compassion if you don't act?  Notice the definition above says nothing about acting on it.  It simply conveys a desire to act.  Think about that.

The flip side would be Lacey seeing a person in distress and first considering how their situation affects Lacey.  It doesn't seem like much but there is a vast difference between the two responses.  It's about priorities.  If self is first then the other person is last.  If the other person is first then self is last.

So in considering how to guide Lacey in this area I realized that I really need more guidance than Lacey.  Lacey is doing what she can while I often do nothing.  How do I become more compassionate (and act on it)?  James 14:7 says "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins".  I guess this means I just have to man up!  If I don't know what to do to help someone in distress maybe I should just go up and ask them!  At the very least I should stop right there and ask God to show me what to do.  In fact, before I ever arrive at this point I should be praying for insight and looking for opportunities!  After all, we do have everything we need to be prepared for a situation like this, don't we?  It's actually a little shameful when I think about it.  My four-year-old is teaching me a lesson straight out of scripture. 

Be Prepared!! 

James 1:22-24 (NIV) - Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

How Quickly Does God Answer Prayer?

This may seem insignificant to some, but something amazing happened at our house last night and I had to put it up here as a great example of answered prayer.

Our cat Junior disappeared two days ago.  He is one to stay out all night but he is always at the door the next morning dying for something to eat.  However, yesterday he wasn't there.  He was gone all day yesterday and at bedtime last night Lauren was pretty upset.  Lauren always puts the cats up at night (if she can find them) and was hoping Junior would show up. 

So Dana said, "Let's pray about it". She gathered the girls in Lauren's room and they said a prayer asking God to help Junior find his way back home.

In the meantime while I was sitting in the living room watching the news (I had no idea what was going on in Lauren's room) I heard the familiar deep "meow" from Junior outside so I opened the front door and let him in.  And there was much rejoicing!

What I didn't realize until later was that the "meow" I had heard came at precisely the time (almost to the second) the girls ended their prayer.  So, in a mater of a few seconds after the prayer, the girls were able to hear Junior meowing as he came in the front door.

Again, this may not seem like a significant thing to many.  However, I'm convinced that we don't often consider God's work in our lives as something significant.  In fact I believe most of His work goes completely unnoticed by us because we say a prayer and then go off and shortly forget about it.  But this time was different.  There wasn't time to forget.  What a teaching moment for the girls (and for their parents)! 

I have to consider... if we were more diligent in our prayer lives, not just praying once for someone or something but repeatedly and often, and if we were more observant in our daily lives, we would probably be able to see more of God's work in our lives.  And if we were able to see more of God's work, how much more faith might we have? 

"Pray without ceasing." 1Th 5:17
 
God help me to be diligent in my prayer life and to be observant in my daily life, looking for and expecting to see Your work done!