Forgotten Truths that Will Keep You Out of Prison

Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord~ Psalm 34:11

Last week I came across a story that perfectly illustrates virtually everything that’s wrong with our culture:

On November 30^th 2010, nineteen-year-old Nigel Sykes forced his way through the back door of a pizza restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware. Sykes proceeded to point his gun at store employees and demand that they hand over all the money in the store.

The store employees refused to submit to his demands. Instead they wrestled Sykes to the ground, commandeered his weapon and held him at gunpoint until police arrived on the scene. Sykes was arrested and charged with armed robbery. He is now serving a fifteen-year prison sentence.

 Good triumphed over evil. The bad guy got what he had coming to him and justice was served. Case closed. Or so I thought. There’s a twist.

Sykes has filed a sizable lawsuit against Seasons Pizza. He is alleging that the employees of Seasons Pizza used unnecessary force in the course of preventing his attempted robbery. Sykes asserts that he was punched, kicked and had hot soup poured on him as the employees attempted to take his gun from him. The brutes probably used some rough language too. All mocking aside, this situation is unsettling on many levels.

 First of all, it’s far from unique. There are hundreds of stories about an evil idiot who gets hurt in the course of doing something illegal and stupid, then has the audacity to sue the very people they were attempting to harm. We’ve become so accustomed to this brand of stupidity that we don’t even blink anymore. It’s not a good place to be.

 Additionally, it underscores the aimless nature of many young men in our culture. It also highlights a justice system dysfunctional enough to permit such an outlandish and senseless lawsuit to go forward.

But by far the most troubling aspect of this story is what it says about some of the very rudimentary truths parents, pastors and teachers are failing to impart to the children in our culture. The first truth we absolutely have to start communicating to the kids in our culture is:

If you don’t do bad stuff, bad stuff is less likely to happen to you- John 5:14

There are some who seem to think that bad stuff like being punched, kicked, and having hot soup poured on them just comes out of nowhere. They assume that bad stuff attacks people for no good reason. The truth is that the probabilities of something horrible occurring in a person’s life go up exponentially when that person is doing something horrible. If one wishes to avoid bad stuff happening to them, they should avoid sins like adultery or murder. Refuse to use or sell drugs, torment people for amusement, mistreat wait staff, steal, lie, drive like a jerk or attempt armed robbery. It doesn’t guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you, but it does diminish the chances significantly. 

It is possible to mess up your life so seriously that it just can’t be fixed- Hebrews 6:6

Everybody loves the concept of do-overs and second chances. Sometimes in our eagerness to teach kids about grace and second chances, we fail to inform them that a life can be ruined quickly and easily. One or two really bad choices at a young age will set a person on a course guaranteeing they never reach their full potential. We need to teach our kids that God forgives, but that doesn’t mean that the consequences of our choices just go away.    

When you do bad stuff, you should feel bad- Jeremiah 6:15  

There are some powerful lies that have been floating around our society for the last forty years or so. Like the lie that there are “no bad people just bad choices” and “it’s pointless to feel bad over something you can’t change.” There are bad people out there and one identifying mark of a bad person is that they don’t feel shame when they sin. Feeling bad about behavior is only pointless when those feelings don’t lead to change.

 It’s easy to forget that Nigel Sykes is a whole lot more than a reckless mess, a good bad example, and a sad statistic. Nigel Sykes is a real human being, made in the image of God, who was once a sweet little boy with hopes and dreams for his future. This past week I have found myself wondering what he dreamed about. Did he dream of becoming a carpenter, a teacher, or maybe a fireman? Did he dream of changing the world and making a difference?

  I’m certain Nigel never dreamed that at nineteen he would be serving a fifteen-year prison sentence for attempted robbery. Something went tragically wrong in his life to get him to where he is today.

Preventing sad statistics and helping little kids realize their dreams is at the heart of our mission as Christians. But it doesn’t happen by chance. It takes a concerted effort on the part of all Christian parents, teachers, and Pastors. It takes people who are willing to stand up and tell the truth about right, wrong and the value of feeling bad when we behave badly.    

Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name~ Psalm 86:11

   

  

    

         

Contentment 101

But godliness with contentment is great gain~ 1 Timothy 6:6

Last weekend was rough. It started Friday night right after dinner with the discovery that we had experienced a jailbreak. Max the hamster was on the loose. We quickly determined that Max did not escape due to his intellect or trickery.

Max the hamster was unintentionally set free in an act of negligence while in the care of Young One. While playing in her room earlier that week, she got distracted by a book, and went to bed when she was done reading. Max saw his opportunity, took full advantage of the situation and vanished into the dark recesses of our home.    

Things did not improve in the morning. We all woke up tired and cranky after searching for Max into the wee hours with no luck. Alan and I had some urgent tasks we had to take care of, so we left the kids to continue the search while we ran errands. Our afternoon of errands was interrupted with a phone call and some unsettling news concerning one of our aging parents. 

 When we arrived home shortly before dinnertime I was greeted by one of the most depressing messes I have ever encountered. Max was still missing in action and the house looked as if Vikings had plundered it. The frantic search for Max resulted in closets being emptied out; some of the contents had been put back, but many random items were left out in a sloppy and haphazard way. There was absolutely no logic or order to my formally clean and organized home.

The kitchen was an authentic tragedy. I could tell exactly what every single person had eaten in the course of the day because nothing had been put away. There was nearly as much food burnt onto the stovetop as in our refrigerator. The sink was overflowing with soiled dishes, probably because no one had bothered to run the dishwasher and I’m reasonably sure that new life forms were beginning to emerge on my countertops.

My frustration was heightened by the fact that those responsible for the mayhem were all gone for the evening. I couldn’t growl at the guilty parties or ask them to clean it up. My only options were to sit in the mess for the next twenty-four hours or clean it up myself and stew in my own bitterness. I don’t deal well with chaos so I chose the latter and felt less than gracious about my choice.

Later, as we were finally getting the house back in order, my darling husband looked at me wistfully said something that made me want to punch him:

We really are going to miss all of this someday.

At that point I was too tired and too irritated with too many people to respond to my husband in a civil manner. So I gave him a withering glare and headed off to bed.

Conviction typically hits me hard around four o’clock in the morning, and that night was no different. As I was struggling to go back to sleep it occurred to me (much to my chagrin) that my husband had a valid point.  

It’s true that I will likely never miss late-night hamster hunts or cleaning up messes I wasn’t involved in making. No matter how hard I try I cannot imagine myself missing the prospect of lecturing a ten-year-old on responsible hamster ownership. And I can say for absolute certain that even if I live to be a thousand I will not miss stress-inducing phone calls.

However, the day is coming when I will most definitely miss having a house full of messy people to love and a Father to worry about.

As I tossed and turned that night I was hit hard with the truth that one cannot have the joy of life without the chaos of living. The late-night hamster hunts and lectures on responsibility are just one small piece of having a child who brings joy and laughter into my life. An occasional kitchen catastrophe is an unpleasant but small piece of having college students who choose to live at home. And worry is just the dark side of being lucky enough to have another person to love in this life.

The misadventures of this past weekend were a much-needed reminder of the truth that the key to being content in every situation is living in and choosing to love the moments in life we are given. I was reminded that the Lord ordains each and every moment of our lives for a reason. 

Some moments are intended to bless us and help us to understand exactly how passionately God loves us. Other moments are meant to benefit us in another equally important way.  The moments that feel most unpleasant at the time are meant to grow us, to change us, to produce in us an image more like the image of Jesus.

Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is~ Psalm 39:4 RSV

Five Habits that will Wreck Your Marriage

 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ~ Ephesians 5:21

I have observed that there are many diverse issues on which good people disagree, sometimes vehemently.

There’s the whole chocolate vs. vanilla debate and the age-old argument over cats vs. dogs. And just the other day I overheard a rather feisty discussion regarding the merits of deep dish vs. thin crust pizza.

Marriage is another subject over which good people disagree. For a happy few marriage is the pinnacle of bliss. Advocates of marriage argue passionately that marriage is such a splendid state that everyone should be happily married. Their feelings on the subject can be summed up with the following quote:

“A happy marriage is a long conversation, which always seems too short.”- Andre Maurois

Throughout Western society the majority holds a much less positive outlook on marriage. For many, wedlock is viewed as a state of misery to be avoided at all costs. It’s depressingly easy to find quotes that reflect the commonly held belief that marriage is a bad deal:  

“Call no man unhappy until he is married.” – Socrates

“If marriage isn’t a prison, why do they call it wedlock?” – Unknown

Both views of marriage are flawed, because both views assume that marriage is something that it is not. Marriage is not an institution, a place or an entity. Marriage is a contract—a legal, moral and spiritual contract—and every contract eventually becomes a situation involving people.

The pleasantness or unpleasantness of any situation involving people depends entirely on the attitude and behavior of the people in it. Edwin Louis Cole recognized this truth and penned this quote:

“Marriage may be the closest thing to Heaven or Hell any of us will know on this earth.”

Mr. Cole understood that we all build our own little version of heaven or hell with the choices we make in our relationships. If you want a marriage that looks and feels more like heaven than hell there are five missteps you should avoid like an infectious disease:   

Dodging conflict-Ephesians 4:26

Communication really is the key to making marriage work. Some couples find that communication increases conflict before it solves it. So they stop communicating. Declining to deal with issues that make you uncomfortable or stir up conflict does not make them go away. Denial simply drives problems underground, causing them to fester and grow. Dodging conflict by declining to communicate will eventually put an insurmountable amount of emotional distance between spouses. The trick to resolving conflict is to attack the problem—not the other person—and to keep talking until the issue is resolved.

Unfettered Criticism-1^st Thessalonians 5:11

 There is nothing less loving or more toxic to a relationship than constant criticism. There are times when issues need to be addressed. It’s okay to tell the truth in a loving way. It’s not okay to attack the character of the other person, name call or use your spouse as a verbal punching bag.  

Putting sex on the back burner-1^st Corinthians 7:3-5

God designed sex for more than just baby making and as a guilty pleasure for single sinners. Sex helps married people stay emotionally connected. I am shocked at the number of Christian couples who have sex once or twice a month and then wonder why they struggle with communication and intimacy. If you aren’t having sex regularly, figure out why and change things. “It” will do wonders for your relationship.

Duplicity- John 8:32

Dishonesty comes in many forms, some subtle, others less so. There’s out-and out-dishonesty, half-truths, cheating, omitting specifics, hiding details, misrepresenting situations and embellishing. It’s all deadly to a marriage. Make a practice of being honest with your spouse about how you spend money, your habits, and whom you spend time with. It will save your marriage. 

Refusing to forgive-

One in truth life you can always count on is that people do stupid stuff. Marriage does not change that fact. At some point your spouse will hurt your feelings, forget to do something they promised to do, say something dumb, overlook an important date, offend your parents or fail to understand a critical need you have. The good news is they probably won’t do those things on purpose. If couples do not make a daily habit of forgiving offenses, the hurt piles up. Hurt slowly morphs into anger and if something isn’t done to change the course, society will have one more gloomy divorce statistic to contend with.  

The marriage covenant is one aspect of God’s plan that enables us to grow beyond our original programing and become better people. In order for marriage to work as God intended, we must cooperate with God by being honest and willing to give when we feel like taking, encourage and exhort rather than criticize, and forgive as we’ve been forgiven.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit~ 2^nd Corinthians 3:18

How to Wreck a Boy

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of~ Luke 6:45

 My husband Alan is my favorite person on Earth. He is funny, clever, kind and extraordinarily perceptive. He is a fantastic father, a loyal friend and an all-around awesome human being. He is also one of my most faithful and honest readers. I know that I can always count on him for a gentle but candid appraisal of my efforts, so when Alan makes a comment or raises a concern about a post, I take him seriously. 

 Alan read last week’s “How to Wreck a Girl” and asked:

“What about boys? Seriously, there are at least as many wrecked men as women out there.”

My husband’s insight stopped me in my tracks. There are an alarming number of messed-up men and boys in this world. Little attention is paid to their problems, or the reasons for their problems. The evidence is overwhelming:

 80 percent of high school dropouts are boys

One out of every three children in America lives in a home without a Father  

 90 percent of all discipline referrals are given to boys

Many men are delaying marriage and parenthood until well into their third decade of life

Boys under 18 are responsible for close to one-fifth of violent crime in the United States.

One would think that an epidemic of messed-up men would spawn some amusing reality television centered on narcissistic men and their issues. There are no such shows because narcissistic, self-absorbed men are far less amusing and fun to watch than narcissistic, self-absorbed women.

Sadly, mean, spiteful, selfish women are entertaining to watch. Bad girls break hearts, spew vitriol, hurt feelings and shipwreck relationships; but in the end they mostly hurt themselves with their foolishness. Mean women are not much fun to deal with on a personal level, but they are interesting to watch on television.

When men go bad, they become selfish and mean in a way that devastates families, wreaks social destruction and is much less amusing to witness. Bad boys are unfocused, aggressive, and sexually exploitive of women. No one wants to watch that on television.

It’s easier to wreck boys than girls. I don’t recommend it, but if you wish to raise a brutal, out of control man who is a deficit to our society all you have to do is:

Fail to teach him to control his impulses

Boys will be boys and that means if your boy wants something you should let him have it. He should never have to wait or work for something he wants. Allow him to curse and backtalk and give full vent to his anger whenever he wishes. If he destroys something in a fit of rage, make excuses for him. When he gets older and becomes sexually aggressive, breaks the law and disrespects authority figures, ensure that he never has to deal with the consequences for his actions.

Communicate through your actions that “no” is a meaningless word   

 When you tell your boy “no,” don’t ever mean it. It’s best if he believes that “no” is a word devoid of consequence. Boys should believe “no” is nothing more than a jumping off place for negotiations. Never give consequences for broken rules or boundaries. When he’s a teenager he will know that no one is really serious when they ask him to stop.

Shame him for not embracing girlish behavior 

Boys should never be given appropriate outlets for their energy and passion. They should not be allowed to get dirty, play rough or enjoy traditionally male pastimes such as hunting, rough sports, fishing and other outdoor activities. Instead boys should be encouraged to play quietly, read books about relationships and talk about their feelings. If your boy does not wish to act like a girl, ask him repeatedly why he can’t be more like his sister or the girl next door.

Encourage him to be disdainful of women

Boys need to learn early on that boys really are better than girls and that women are only useful for what they can provide a man sexually. A boy should never be made to obey his Mother or treat her with respect. A boy is most likely to be contemptuous of women if Mom is either very passive or very controlling and Dad is disrespectful and demanding of his wife.

Expose him to pornography at an early age

Pornography is highly addictive. With any luck your boy will get hooked. A robust porn addiction is certain to produce a poor self-image and a low view of women.

It’s painfully clear that Western civilization is crashing down around us. One reason for our moral and political free-fall is a lack of strong, godly men who are willing and able to act as examples for the next generation. If you want to do the world a favor, raise a boy who fears God, respects proper authority, exercises self-control and respects women. That is the kind of man God can bless and people can follow.   

The Lord makes firm the steps of the man who delights in Him~ Psalm 37:23