Marketing Strategies

I recently read a passage of scripture that I had read and heard quoted many times presented in a rather fearful manner, perhaps this was just coming from my own neurotic frame of reference, but this time the passage illuminated with fresh revelation that fed my soul a juicy morsel of sustenance. 

The passage is in 1 Corinthians 4:5 where Paul is addressing the idea of apostleship and confronting the Corinthians on following different leaders instead of Christ.  Paul says, ”Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time, wait till the Lord comes.  He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s heart”.  This has always made me kind of tremble in my boots, but there is more to this passage that somehow I failed to understand.  It continues to say that “At that time each will receive his PRAISE from God”. 

The idea behind this is that what we do in the secret to further the kingdom of God, those unnoticed acts of ministry that we don’t post on facebook and receive kudos for from our fellow peer Christians will receive praise from God.  Our true motives and our inner lives will be exposed and the result will be praise from God when the driving force behind our acts is obedience to God and not self affirmation.

This reminded me of one of my favorite passages of scripture that Jesus taught to His disciples when He presented the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew Chapter 6 where Jesus begins by warning against doing acts to be noticed by men.  He proceeds to proclaim three times in the chapter that what you do in secret will be seen by the Father and He will reward you.   The chapter exhorts us to consider that when our deeds are done for others to see, the praise from them will be our reward, but when our deeds are done as a secret with our Holy Father God, our reward will come from Him.

I’m trying to figure out how Jesus’ marketing strategy works into our 2011 technological world where every good deed is advertised.   I am sure there are times when advertising is necessary to further the kingdom of God, but I do think it can be a terrible pitfall for the feeding of our already over-indulged human nature and the stroking of our egos.   We can easily use the world’s technique and put a spiritual twist to it, but the result is still a worldly result…vanity.

Paul is writing to the Corinthians addressing the problem of boasting in the church and the kind of chaos that has been stirred up as a result....boasting in their wisdom and spiritual gifts, boasting in the certain leaders they are following.  Paul suggests that if we are going to boast to boast in our weakness.  I don’t see many fathers writing about their sons walking the “green mile” on facebook…that’s just not good marketing.

For Mature Women Only!!

Seriously—you might get mad when you read this—I am sorry.

I recently came across a current picture of a woman whom I have been an acquaintance for a number of years on facebook.  I was surprised to see her wearing a provocative dress and upon closer inspection realized there was evidence of some cosmetic surgery that the dress enhanced.  I knew the woman had struggled with body image issues for years and the picture was evidence to me that this was still a prevalent issue in her life.  I know that some of you are mentally accusing me of judging right now, but I want to challenge you to consider the evidence.   This is a woman who is a Christian leader not a woman in the world and I must confess that I was hugely disappointed.

I have worked with jr. high girls for a number of years discussing issues of modesty appropriate for women who are followers of Christ and discussing the problem with trying to use our body to draw attention to ourselves and wear things that send inappropriate messages only to find a Godly woman leader wearing something that broke all the rules that my jr. high girls had established for themselves.  I have to ask the question—is this spiritually mature for a leader?

I am not trying to be a prude, but what do you do what Peter writes to women in 1 Peter chapter 3?  “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.  Instead it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.  For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.  They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.  You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear”.

Are we not giving way to fear when we dress in the way the world does to try to affirm physical beauty in ways that are feeding our own selfish/fleshly desires to be attractive?   Is God glorified-- is it of great worth in God’s sight when we feed our fleshly desires and pursue vanity?

Every woman fights the battle to pursue beauty.  I recently watched a video that said that Americans spend 18 billion dollars annually on make-up when 10 billion dollars would bring clean water to the world.  I have to ask—is the pursuit of beauty a little out of balance?  I have read of people getting tattoos to try to bridge a gap between themselves and unbelievers, but have never heard of women giving up make-up to identify with women who are not up on the latest fashion trends.  I have never heard of women giving up shopping and wearing trendy clothes to identify with lower classes.  Maybe we just do what we really want to do and use it as an excuse to do something spiritual. 

Come on—let’s be real.  None of us want to be ugly, but are we willing to be average in order to truly identify with where most of the world is at?  Perhaps we should consider finding a place of acceptance and grieving that we cannot identify with those of the world who pursue beauty in an ungodly way and that will cost us something that we really like. 

I like to “dress up” and look nice, but I also like to “dress down” and go without makeup. I have found that on days that I run around looking average, I find people much more engaging when I am in my unimpressive mode.   Perhaps that is why Jesus was not so very attractive.  Isaiah 53:2 tells us that “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire Him”.  God didn’t give Jesus a Miss America gene array—He designed Him in a way that He would not be intimidating.  Perhaps we as Godly women should model God’s pattern.

Am I dressing and using my physical appearance for myself and fulfilling the desires of my flesh to bring significance to myself or does my appearance and dress honor God? 

Cataracts

Definition of Cataracts:  A clouding that develops in the lens of the eye obstructing the passage of light.

As we walk in our Christian faith, sometimes the truth that the Holy Spirit wants to shed abroad in our hearts can be clouded by various things like our personal pride, worldly attachments, our grief that comes from experiencing losses at different levels of pain and our failure to look at our own sin honestly.

When truth is clouded, when we fail to see our circumstances through the relevance of scripture, our faith cannot be strong.  Psalms 19:8 says “the precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.  The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes”. 

During times where our faith may be prone to wander, seeking truth will keep us from having a clouded view.  When our thinking becomes clouded we may be tempted to rationalize things that we know are wrong.  Allowing a good source of light into our soul will require honestly seeking truth and loving the commands of the Lord.  I am amazed at the number of people who when going through a hard time seek intervention in ways other than turning to the radiance of scripture. 

A friend of mine once told me that when someone came to her with a problem the first thing that she asked them was how much time they had spent in God’s word seeking an answer before they came to her.  Faith believes that God can supply the answers and comfort we need when we are struggling.  It is good to seek advice from people we consider to have wisdom and ability to provide Godly counsel, but to fail to seek God for ourselves is to doubt His ability to speak into our hearts and bring clarity and greater faith.

One summer when I was camping by the lake, we put our tent in a place where the bridge over the lake was visible.  In the morning, a fog had risen up from the lake and the bridge was covered by the fog.  You could see car lights going across the bridge, but the bridge itself was invisible.  As the sun came out and the fog began to dissipate the bridge became visible again.

This is how faith works.  Sometimes we can’t see what is going on, what God is doing is clouded, but by faith we know the bridge is there.  We know that God is at work.  The more light that is let in, the more the fog begins to clear and we can see clearly.  Scripture is like the light shining into the cloudiness to clear away the fogginess of our thinking and it is imperative that we seek the truth of scripture during particularly blurry times.  

These are the lyrics from a song by The Afters entitled, “You Light Up the Sky” :

When I'm feeling all alone
With so far to go
The signs are no where on this road
Guiding me home
When the night is closing in
Is falling on my skin
Oh God will You come close?

Light,  light, light up the sky
You light up the sky to show me You are with me
I can't deny
No, I can't deny that You are right here with me
You've opened my eyes
So I can see You all around me
Light, light, light up the sky
You light up the sky to show me
That You are with me

When stars are hiding in the clouds
I don't feel them shining
When I can't see You beyond my doubt
The silver lining
When I've almost reached the end
Like a flood You're rushing in
Your love is rushing in

So I run straight into Your arms
You're the bright and morning sun
To show Your love there's nothing You won't do

I believe that God wants to shine His light into our cloudy situations and show His love for us.  When we turn to Him and allow Him to show His love for us and hide us in the shadow of His wings and sing over us, He will light up the sky and bring us to a truth that will increase our faith and raise us to new levels of strength in our faith.  Turning to other things and people robs us of intimacy with God that can come when we face trials and fail to find our strength from Him alone.

Psalm 89:15 says, “blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord”.  Practicing the presence of God will remove the cloudiness in our faith vision.  During times when we are weak and prone to rationalize our sin, or fall into a trap of pride, truth must be absorbed into our souls to give us the will power to resist and stay in the light.

By faith we enter into a quiet place to seek God and have Him speak truth that will lift us from our cloudiness and bring comfort and healing.  We find an unexplained healing take place in us and the practice of coming to Him becomes more and more exciting.  We love the way He “lights up the sky” and heals our souls.  The hunger for His presence becomes more powerful than our pain.  We change—we will never see things the way we used to see them.  The cloudiness is clearer and why would we go back to the old dull vision of desiring lesser things?

Hang Loose

As I was driving home from my mom and dad’s from my weekly visit a few weeks ago, I was driving leisurely behind a pickup enjoying the journey through the winding roads and bluffs heading down the hill toward the beautiful Gasconade River when a black SUV drove up behind me and rode right on my tailgate totally interrupting my special, tranquil moment.  Before I knew what was happening, I stuck my hand out the window and waved a Hawaiian “hang loose” hand signal to him to let him know that I was not happy about him invading my personal space.  I DO NOT know where that came from.  I have never even waved the “hang loose” sign even while visiting in Hawaii and here’s the really sad part—as I was bringing my hand in the window, I thought—I hope he doesn’t think that I am saying “I love you” in sign language.   Before I even got that bubble thought out of my brain, I believe that I heard the voice of God speak to me, saying—“YOU need to hang loose, Annette”. 

I immediately had a mental picture—I am pretty sure that it was only a mental picture and not a vision considering the heathen state that I was in—of God in a Hawaiian shirt waving the hang loose sign at me.  I knew that His one sentence admonishment was not just about my losing my temper at the tailgater, but it was in reference to my behavior earlier that morning.

I had spent the first forty-five minutes of my drive to my mom and dad’s that morning venting to my husband about the injustices of my life and then spent the last forty-five minutes of my drive feeling guilty for my attitude in the wake of the Joplin disaster.  I was in an emotional funk.

I called my husband the next morning to apologize for my discouraging behavior, though not directed at him, yet still discouraging.  He questioned me about my emotional state and I shared with him my frustration over not having any flowers or garden put out, the house projects being incomplete, the garage being a mess and just feeling like life was chaos and I don’t do chaos well.  He asked me why things were in such chaos and I said, “Because I’m incompetent”.  He suggested to me that the reason things were chaotic were because I had made choices to do things that were more important rather than lesser things that make me feel good.

He was right.  I had chosen kingdom things over worldly things, but it still made me feel uncomfortable.  I felt uncomfortable when people talked about getting their gardens out and their new landscaping adventures, I felt uncomfortable when people were getting their lives more organized while I was not getting anywhere.  I like visible stuff—I’m a visual person, but sometimes doing God’s work is uncomfortable and visually it isn’t pretty.

A few days later, I read in Ephesians 1:18:  “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has call you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints”.  That was it—I needed the eyes of my heart opened to “see” the riches of my inheritance for choosing the kingdom things over lesser things, because their eternal beauty is prettier than any garden, flowers, or organized garage.

The understanding I gained was this—sometimes when I am in the moment and I make choices to lay down my life for things that are more important in the kingdom than my personal life, it feels right and I sense the joy of knowing that I sacrificed for a greater cause, it is a secret between God and me which draws me into a deeper intimacy that is rewarding. The problem is that later when the cost of the choice I made becomes evident, I become discouraged.  When I can’t get my car in the garage and there are no organic fruits to partake of from my garden or I have the ugliest yard on the block, this is when my faith waivers.

So I have created a plan of action—not that my plans always work, but at least I have one.  My plan is to pray the Ephesians verse when I am feeling discontentment over decisions that I made that were right, but have cost me something that makes me uncomfortable and the discomfort has taken me down the path of discouragement.  I will pray that the eyes of my heart will be opened so that I can see the beauty of my eternal inheritance and that I will know the hope that He has called me.   I will try to fantasize about eternal things which are a true reality though not easily comprehended and hang loose till they materialize for eternity not just one summer.

“However, as it is written, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him—But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.  The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”  1 Corinthians 3:8-10

Beauty From Ashes

So, I have been processing the whole Joplin disaster and doing some personal grieving myself—though my grief is minuscule compared to others, but grief is grief.  My mother-in-law lived in Joplin for thirty-five years in a house with St. John’s hospital in her backyard.  We lived in Joplin for two years, our children attended Cecil Floyd School, so I do have some connection even though it is very small.

The church my father-in-law pastored for many years was destroyed and many landmarks that stir up fond memories for my husband’s entire family are gone.  Much of their community decimated in one swift whirling blow along with the even more intense grief of the loss of lives.  Although it appears at this time that there were no fatalities of close friends or family that they are aware of, there are other friends who have lost loved ones and neighbors and the grief from the loss of lives is more of a blow than the massive heap of ruins.  I can’t imagine having the community where I grew up blown away with many of the places that I connect happy memories destroyed and looking into hundreds of grief-stricken eyes of people with whom I have a long-standing connection.

But in the ashes there is beauty.  People are coming out of the woodwork to offer whatever consolation they can to ease the pain and they are giving of their resources and doing many benevolent acts to try to provide for those who are without the necessities to exist.  It’s beautiful!  It’s how we were designed by God to be and to see this kind of philanthropy is emotionally elevating.  This invisible beauty is not evident when we view the photos of the mass destruction, but it is still real.

Mostly on a day to day existence, we speak to our neighbors on our way to our caves and we come out to make our way to perform our usual daily tasks, complete the list of tasks on our schedule, and seldom look into the eyes of people to try to see if we can detect any grief or take time to offer whatever consolation we can; but when tragedy of this magnitude happens, the best in human kind comes out.  What if we lived our lives at our best everyday, not just when tragedy has struck?

I hate it that God takes the brunt of so many tragedies, somehow He always gets put on the stand for failing to do what He should and He seldom gets credit for the way He designed our souls to reach out and show compassion and live outside of ourselves for something greater—now that is amazing and beautiful.  I worship God today for His design though it doesn’t shine through as well as it always should, when we get a glimpse of it, it is truly breathtaking.

Perhaps as we consider the beauty arising from the ruins, we could purpose to live our lives more in accordance to God’s design everyday, to bring beauty into ashes on a more regular basis.  We will have to sacrifice and be willing to alter our lives to accommodate the commitment and take up the cross that this new priority will establish, but isn’t the beauty of obedience worth it?   Isn’t the beauty of seeing grief-stricken eyes light up worth it?  Isn’t that what Jesus did?  The joy He must have felt as He saw eyes not only healed, but lit up by the healing that came from the grief of the ashes of people He touched.

Making A Comeback

Baseball is the theme of our children’s church curriculum we recently started for the summer months at the church where I am children’s pastor.  The curriculum is a study based on the lives of the twelve disciples.  I am amazed at how God speaks to me through my preparations and search for material to make the lessons both interesting and relevant for the kids.

This week our study was about Peter—the “Comeback Kid”.  In the curriculum there was a brief write up about Dave Dravecky, a former pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, who had to give up pitching due to complications from a cancerous tumor in his pitching arm.

I went to youtube and found a video of an interview with Dave where he shared his testimony.  He shared about his desire to be a baseball player from the age of eight years old and his journey to finding himself a pitcher in Major League Baseball.  His life was a dream come true finding himself pitching in the World Series and having the “woman of his dreams” for a wife then finding he had cancer in the deltoid muscle of his pitching arm.

Dave made a baseball comeback though and found himself once again pitching in the major leagues even though he had been told that outside a miracle he would never pitch again.  One day while having lunch with teammate, Bob Knapper, Bob said to Dave that it was not the miracle of the comeback that was so important, but the miracle of his  salvation and what God was doing in providing a platform through major league baseball for him to share God’s love with those who were hurting,   

It was right after that Dave’s career ended when his arm broke while delivering a pitch and after two surgeries and staff infection, they had to remove part of his shoulder and pitching arm, but the true comeback for Dave was that he embraced the platform given to him through his painful trial and used it to bring glory to God and minister to those facing painful circumstances.

What a novel view of “miracle” Bob Knapper had, that the true miracle was what God did in Dave’s life about eight years previously through salvation and then presenting Dave with a platform to share his faith to an audience given to him through baseball.  

Same story with Bethany Hamilton, the young Hawaiian surfer girl who was given a platform to share her faith when a tiger shark attacked her and she faced the loss of her arm but came back to become a professional surfer.  Her faith has been given a platform through the movie “Soul Surfer”, the story of her faith journey after losing her arm, and through many interviews on national television as well as a devotional book she has written.

These aren’t exactly the kind of platforms we usually look for to step into, but God works mysteriously and usually through tough stuff.  The kind of faith it takes to fill these callings isn’t for the weak of faith, but it’s these kinds of circumstances that give authority to the words spoken from the “platforms” that have the power to truly minister.

It was extreme circumstances like these that give credence to the words of Paul when he writes “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong”.  2 Corinthians 12:9 & 10

There are a number of recorded errors on Peter recorded in the Gospels, but on the Day of Pentecost, Peter embraced the platform and raised his voice to share a powerful message resulting in three thousand accepting his message and being baptized--now that's a comeback.

So what is your “platform”?  Where has God given you a place to speak out of your personal difficulty to inspire others to have faith despite their circumstances.  Have you stepped up to the plate and used your voice to speak courage into people’s fears?  It doesn't have to be a public platform, but embrace the opportunities that present themselves to share how God has given you the grace to bear the trials life has thrown to you.

How has God broken through with His truth, love and grace into your crisis and given you something to share with others from the platform that he prepared for you?  Don’t miss out on the comeback!

Separation Issues

Humor me for one more blog as I write about my dog and my experience at the vet’s office.  If God can send Jeremiah to the Potter’s house for a message, I guess He can send me to the vet’s.

So—I take Panther in for his laser treatment on his foot and as we entered the room where he gets the treatment, Panther and I hear the dogs that are boarded by the vet barking incessantly—they barked persistently during the time we waited for the vet raising Panther’s already abnormally high anxiety level even greater.

When the vet came in, he noticed that Panther had been chewing on his splint and I told him that I had used the anti-lick gel that he had given to me, but it wasn’t working and I shared with him some other naughty things Panther had started doing since the accident during times when I would I leave him alone at home.  He said something like this—Panther’s anxiety level is high because of the trauma of being hit and that makes his separation/abandonment issues worse.  My first thought was that I have already raised my kids and I don’t need to be dealing with this from my PET, but I love Panther so I kept an open mind to what he was saying.

He told me that he had a sample of some anti-lick gel that actually had an anxiety-relieving drug in it.  I thought—I wish I would have had that when my daughter bit her nails.  Anyway, it was free so I took it.

On the way home I was processing the whole experience and it hit me—I have separation issues too.  When I think that God has forsaken me, I do naughty things as well—not so very different from Panther.  Sometimes I withhold praise from God and instead of ministering to needs of others that I am aware of, I spend too much time watching TV or I focus too much on my own needs and allow myself to think thoughts that raise my anxiety level instead of practicing spiritual exercises that I know will decrease that level of fear.

I know that God does not ever leave or forsake us, but we are in a world that is broken and it is not our home.  We are kind of like the dogs in the boarding pen although we do have the spirit of God living in and through us, we are still aliens and foreigners in a place that is only temporary.  We are supposed to be anxiously awaiting our Master’s return to take us to our eternal home—so maybe while I am here I am going to just have to live with this longing to be home and suffering from “separation” issues is just part of the whole picture.

I keep doing things to settle in here in my boarding pen to try to ease the pain of separation and sometimes I bark persistently, but I am smarter than the boarded dogs.  I know that I have a promise from my faithful Savior.

In Jesus final words to His disciples before His crucifixion in John Chapter 14, He said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (vs. 27) and in verses 1 and 2 of Chapter 14, He says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am”.

For now I have to live with my struggle to have faith and not have a “troubled heart”  because I’m stuck here for a temporary time, but I’m not stuck in a pen and I can use my time to accomplish God’s will for me and continue to do good.  My heart and soul still long to not be separated though, but that's okay—you can’t love somebody and be okay with separation.