I took four guys out to the "Man Cave" cabin last Sunday afternoon, since Monday was a public holiday and we could take our time leaving after breakfast. Of course, we took our arsenal with us and stayed out almost till dark shooting at bad guy targets and clay pigeons stuck in the snow. On the way back to the cabin from our designated firing range I was talking with one of the men about why we enjoy shooting guns so much, and we both decided that it's the feeling of Freedom (advertisement paid for by the NRA).
After eating way too many tacos, we went out to the bonfire and talked for a couple of hours - then retired to a night of jungle noises. After breakfast the next morning we somehow got into a conversation about Middle East politics - which in my experience almost never ends well. I talked about having spent a great deal of time in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and how my perspective on the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict changed as I got to know many Palestinian Christians and heard their side of the story. They would ask me why the church in America only cares about Israel, and why we turn out back on the thousands of born-again believers in the West Bank and Gaza strip who suffer so greatly under the sanctions imposed by Israel and the West? My feeble attempts to explain why American churches support Israel as God's "chosen people" somehow came across sounding hollow even to me, knowing first-hand how both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle are guilty of committing atrocities against one another. There is truly no "good guy" in this never-ending conflict of religion, land and power. "Don't they care that we're their brothers and sisters in Christ?" was the question I was most often asked, and for which I truly had no answer.
At this point one of the guys spoke up, and with great emotion explained to me in no uncertain terms how we are commanded by God to support Israel, how they are the innocent victims in this war against terror, and how the Arabs are under God's curse - which explains why they stay poor, uneducated and ignorant. Wow, did we get into it then! I won't bore you with the sordid details of our heated discussion, but what was very clear to everyone in the room was that neither of us was going to budge from our position. What I find so ironic (not necessarily for my friend) is that often our "position" is based on whatever our favorite televangelist teaches, irregardless of the fact that we have never actually visited the Middle East, that we do not personally know any Arabs (Muslim or Christian), and that we don't even study the Scriptures for ourselves to determine what God's heart is in all of this.
We kissed and made up by the end of the conversation, but there was one point from our debate that summed it all up for me. As believers in Jesus Christ, we don't have the luxury of being pro-Isreali or anti-Arab. We all have our own political bents, but I don't see Jesus rejecting any people group for any reason. He loved the Jews, the Romans, the Samaritans, the poor, the blind and the wretched. Yes, He often unashamedly chastised the religious "elect" for their arrogance and their partiality - all the while ready to respond to any of them who demonstrated an open heart (Zaccheus and Nicodemus being two great examples). What I was reacting to in the conversation at the cabin is our propensity as comfortable, wealthy, sometimes myopic, American Christians to cast our lot with Israel because of our particular view of end-times prophecy... all the while ignoring the context of thousands of Palestinians who daily suffer incredible hardships from Israeli sanctions. Don't get me wrong: I am adamantly against the use of terrorism as a tool for any people group to gain a voice. But I've sat in the homes of dear brothers and sisters in Christ in Bethlehem as they explained to me how they are forced to live separately from their wife and children because one happened to be born in Israel (and thus is privileged to have Israeli citizenship) and the other in the West Bank. Life for them is a constant gamble as the husband drives through Israeli checkpoints each day - knowing that the discovery of his "illicit" marriage could mean him being banned from ever seeing his wife and family again except when they can meet outside the country. I could not remain emotionally unmoved in the face of real-life stories that could be reproduced a thousand times over by other Christian Palestinians.
During the years I spent in North Africa and the Middle East I was fortunate enough to get to know Joel Rosenberg - best selling author of many books including "The Last Jihad", "The Copper Scroll" and "The Tehran Initiative". Joel is a born-again Jew who not only believes in all the prophecies related to end times and the nation of Israel, but who also has a deep, genuine love for the Arab people. As a Jew, Joel has often taken part in evangelistic outreaches to share the Gospel with Muslim North Africans, and he spends a great deal of time visiting and encouraging Arab believers in the Holy Land. I love Joel because he demonstrates the heart of Christ towards all men - while holding firmly to his own beliefs about God's plan for the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. This is a mark of true spiritual maturity.
Life is interesting, to say the least.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
An author is born
My youngest daughter Jacqueline has suddenly discovered that she loves to write, and all it took was one creative writing assignment at school. And you know what? She's got a gift! Here's an excerpt from her latest blog entry (you can see her blog through the link on the left):
"We make our way to the dress store, the most magical place on earth. We step into what seems like another planet, with racks and racks of dresses as far as the eye can see, and we can smell that sweet aroma of perfume and new clothes. But that's not the best part, we melt when we see the shoe rack, just shelves and shelves of glorious high heels, screaming your name. We dive at them trying on every pair we see. We stride down the aisles in our fabulous shoes, trying not to fall down so we don't make a fool out of ourselves in front of many dignified women with credit cards. We grab a few dresses to go with our astonishing shoes. And running to the changing rooms we trip over some racks, then decide to take off the shoes while we run. We do a little fashion show for each other wearing our glamorous outfits."
This really describes Jacqueline to a T. She's all girl; life's all about high heels, and dresses, and make-up. And I love that about her. I suppose she picked some of it up from her two older sisters, but neither of them are nearly as into the whole glamor girl scene as their little sister. She's getting taller and more beautiful every day, and I can already tell that the braces on her teeth are correcting the confusing jumble of front teeth that began when she was just a tiny little thing. We were living in France, and Jacqueline was probably 9 or 10 months old - old enough to crawl around, and just starting to pull herself up by holding onto any stable object. I was on baby-duty that day (of course), and I got preoccupied with a project and took my eyes off her for a couple of minutes... just long enough for her to try to stand up by holding onto one of the french doors leading into the living room. She was almost up when the door swung away from her and she fell forward and hit her front tooth on the ledge under the glass pane. I heard the screams and rushed over to find her mouth covered in blood, and her one tooth sticking straight out at right angles from her mouth. Ouch! Man, did I feel like a slug! We rushed her to the pediatric dentist at the hospital, and he pushed the tooth back up into place - but he didn't think there was much of a chance that it would stay. Sure enough, within a few days the tooth turned a darker color and we had to pull it out. Since that time the rest of her front teeth have competed for first place to fill the gap, and they all ended up in a big mess with teeth at every angle and some stacked up behind others. I had to swallow a big pill the day I agreed to fork out another $4000, but Nicole's teeth turned out so beautiful that I can't wait to see the result for Jacqueline. I guess I only have myself to blame for not paying more attention that day 12 years ago.
"We make our way to the dress store, the most magical place on earth. We step into what seems like another planet, with racks and racks of dresses as far as the eye can see, and we can smell that sweet aroma of perfume and new clothes. But that's not the best part, we melt when we see the shoe rack, just shelves and shelves of glorious high heels, screaming your name. We dive at them trying on every pair we see. We stride down the aisles in our fabulous shoes, trying not to fall down so we don't make a fool out of ourselves in front of many dignified women with credit cards. We grab a few dresses to go with our astonishing shoes. And running to the changing rooms we trip over some racks, then decide to take off the shoes while we run. We do a little fashion show for each other wearing our glamorous outfits."
This really describes Jacqueline to a T. She's all girl; life's all about high heels, and dresses, and make-up. And I love that about her. I suppose she picked some of it up from her two older sisters, but neither of them are nearly as into the whole glamor girl scene as their little sister. She's getting taller and more beautiful every day, and I can already tell that the braces on her teeth are correcting the confusing jumble of front teeth that began when she was just a tiny little thing. We were living in France, and Jacqueline was probably 9 or 10 months old - old enough to crawl around, and just starting to pull herself up by holding onto any stable object. I was on baby-duty that day (of course), and I got preoccupied with a project and took my eyes off her for a couple of minutes... just long enough for her to try to stand up by holding onto one of the french doors leading into the living room. She was almost up when the door swung away from her and she fell forward and hit her front tooth on the ledge under the glass pane. I heard the screams and rushed over to find her mouth covered in blood, and her one tooth sticking straight out at right angles from her mouth. Ouch! Man, did I feel like a slug! We rushed her to the pediatric dentist at the hospital, and he pushed the tooth back up into place - but he didn't think there was much of a chance that it would stay. Sure enough, within a few days the tooth turned a darker color and we had to pull it out. Since that time the rest of her front teeth have competed for first place to fill the gap, and they all ended up in a big mess with teeth at every angle and some stacked up behind others. I had to swallow a big pill the day I agreed to fork out another $4000, but Nicole's teeth turned out so beautiful that I can't wait to see the result for Jacqueline. I guess I only have myself to blame for not paying more attention that day 12 years ago.
Friday, January 6, 2012
XXX
Earlier this week, Michael, Sterling and I were checking out some potential locations for the driving school that we want to launch in the next couple of weeks. After visiting the first rental space Mike explained to Sterling and I that "Triple Net" is a term used in leasing commercial space that refers to the real estate taxes, insurance and building maintenance costs (garbage service etc), which are either included in the lease agreement, or added to it as an additional monthly expense. We drove to the second commercial property that we wanted to visit, and while we were discussing the monthly rental cost with the leasing agent - and wanting to appear like I knew what I was doing - I confidently asked him whether this amount included the Triple X costs. There was a long pause as the agent racked his brain to figure out what in the world I was talking about. After a few seconds Michael came to my rescue and said, "I think he means the triple net cost." Of course, there was no way that Mike and Sterling were going to let that one go, and the rest of the afternoon we laughed till we cried about what that guy must have thought about this church that wants to open a XXX video store. Somehow, I'm certain that "Triple X" will find its way into our staff meetings these next couple of weeks.
Yesterday, Daphne and I drove Karine to the airport for her flight back to Birmingham, and with mixed emotions said goodbye as she joined the line to go through security. I know every other parent goes through the same thing as their children one-by-one leave the nest; it just feels strange for us that we've reached this place in our parenting. I feel sorry for the eldest children in the family because they have the dubious honor of bearing the brunt of all our mistakes as they smooth the way for their younger siblings to follow. And we've made more than our share of mistakes with Karine.
After dropping her at the airport we went by the hospital to visit Cortland and Tiny and the newest addition to our team - Zeke Michael Coffey. He's a beautiful little boy - not a shriveled up pink version of Jimmy Durante like some babies I've seen. You know the awkward moment when you first peer into the crib and think, "wow, that's an ugly baby! I think he needs to go back into the oven to cook some more" But you say, "Ohhh, isn't he gorgeous!" We're all liars at some point. But, like I said, Zeke is a perfect little Gerber baby. He was born precisely on his due date, as was Emily's baby. Which proves, once again, that the women on our team like to do things on time. We bought some pastries for Cort and Tiny at a French bakery run by Americans, and then had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant where the waiter is from El Salvador, and the kitchen staff are all from Mexico. The food was great, but we missed the opportunity to speak French again and to share stories about Lebanon.
The last stop we made before heading back up the hill was to the home of an official scorer for Boone and Crockett - the designated keepers of all big-game hunting records - to have my bear skull measured and scored. And sure enough, it's big enough to get in the record book. B & C have two categories of records: Award level, and All-Time records. When it comes to black bears, anything over 20 inches (length plus width) is big enough to qualify for the award level and possibly as an all-time record. My bear was 20 9/16 inches, so I will get my picture and score in the next official record book that will come out two years from now. Pretty cool. My bear should rank somewhere around the 14th largest black bear ever harvested in Colorado (which isn't known for producing record-sized bears). I can't wait to see the bearskin rug when it's finished three or four months from now.
Yesterday, Daphne and I drove Karine to the airport for her flight back to Birmingham, and with mixed emotions said goodbye as she joined the line to go through security. I know every other parent goes through the same thing as their children one-by-one leave the nest; it just feels strange for us that we've reached this place in our parenting. I feel sorry for the eldest children in the family because they have the dubious honor of bearing the brunt of all our mistakes as they smooth the way for their younger siblings to follow. And we've made more than our share of mistakes with Karine.
After dropping her at the airport we went by the hospital to visit Cortland and Tiny and the newest addition to our team - Zeke Michael Coffey. He's a beautiful little boy - not a shriveled up pink version of Jimmy Durante like some babies I've seen. You know the awkward moment when you first peer into the crib and think, "wow, that's an ugly baby! I think he needs to go back into the oven to cook some more" But you say, "Ohhh, isn't he gorgeous!" We're all liars at some point. But, like I said, Zeke is a perfect little Gerber baby. He was born precisely on his due date, as was Emily's baby. Which proves, once again, that the women on our team like to do things on time. We bought some pastries for Cort and Tiny at a French bakery run by Americans, and then had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant where the waiter is from El Salvador, and the kitchen staff are all from Mexico. The food was great, but we missed the opportunity to speak French again and to share stories about Lebanon.
The last stop we made before heading back up the hill was to the home of an official scorer for Boone and Crockett - the designated keepers of all big-game hunting records - to have my bear skull measured and scored. And sure enough, it's big enough to get in the record book. B & C have two categories of records: Award level, and All-Time records. When it comes to black bears, anything over 20 inches (length plus width) is big enough to qualify for the award level and possibly as an all-time record. My bear was 20 9/16 inches, so I will get my picture and score in the next official record book that will come out two years from now. Pretty cool. My bear should rank somewhere around the 14th largest black bear ever harvested in Colorado (which isn't known for producing record-sized bears). I can't wait to see the bearskin rug when it's finished three or four months from now.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Ephiphany
1. A sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
Strange, how a truth that you've known and even taught for years can suddenly, inexplicably, become real.
Restless Leg Syndrome and insomnia have been my (unwelcome) companions for many years now. According to some of my journals, as far back as eight or nine years now. I am grateful for the love and concern expressed by my family members and friends, many of whom have faithfully prayed for years that I would somehow be healed or released from this thorn in my flesh. And yet if I had to use one word to describe my feelings as I look back over these past years it would be loneliness. For hundreds, even thousands of nights I have been a walking zombie ("Night Walkers" as we are sometimes described in medical literature), wandering through our home or even around the neighborhood in the vain hope of finding relief from the demons that climb up and down my lower back and legs. While the world sleeps, I am engaged in a battle that, at times, I feared would end in my own insanity.
I function on a daily basis at around 50-60% of my mental and physical capacity, and there's no way for me to explain to those who've only known me over the past few years that this is not ME, that I wasn't always this way. For most of my life I was full of energy and creativity, with a great capacity to handle a multitude of tasks simultaneously. As the crisis manager for a large Christian organization in one of the most volatile regions of the world, I literally thrived in the intense, high-risk environment of international crisis management. Today, I'm not sure how well I could manage even a single crisis, knowing the level of mental and physical energy that is required for successful crisis resolution. Even a task as simple as writing this blog may take me four or five attempts over two days, as I find myself waking up to see ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff on the screen because I've dozed off with my finger pressing on a key. I have grieved the loss of what once was, and without even realizing it I had started a slow and steady decline into a world of negativity and skepticism.
Several days ago Daphne took the courageous step to confront the problem head-on as she described to me the affect that my negativity and anger were having on her and the girls. She explained to me how they all feel great sadness for my long-term struggle with RLS & insomnia, and they long for a remedy, healing, or some other miracle to deliver me. In the present, however, she had noticed my outlook on everything in life becoming increasingly dark. I couldn't deny it, as I'd felt the darkness closing in on m as well. I also knew that I was feeling intense anger towards God because I know He COULD heal me if He so chose... and he continues to NOT so choose. She challenged me to, in the midst of my battle, try to see the small, positive clues that God IS giving me every day. Later that day as I was working on a new wooden sign for our church I was listening to a podcast sermon on the topic of how to prepare a sermon. The pastor gave two key ingredients for a great sermon: first, to study and prepare well (duh!) and second, to embrace weakness (come again?). The statement that caused me to stop the podcast and rewind was this: " The Glory of God rests upon injured and weakened men; men who ask, 'How can I possibly go on?'" When I hear the same message twice in one day, I've learned to stop and pay attention because God may have entered the room to speak. The speaker went on to say that he believes that most current translations of the Bible mis-translate 2 Corinthians 12:10 : "Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." The word "Content with" should actually be translated as "delight in". God doesn't want us to simply survive our trials with a decent attitude; He wants us to actually delight in them. This concept came like a laser-beam straight into my soul, and I suddenly found myself both repenting and thanking God at the same time. I sensed God saying to me: "My son, you have fought me, blamed me and accused me of not loving you for years. It's time to lay down your anger and bitterness towards me, and learn how I want to use your pain to build myself in you. You say you want to hear my voice; well, this is the way."
My heart and soul have embraced this concept, and my body and mind are slowly coming along. Ironically, since I made the decision to thank God and delight in my sleeplessness I have had three of the best nights ever (5-6 hours of sleep). Last week on Tuesday Mike asked me to preach this last Sunday, to give him time to do some planning for the coming year. On Thursday night I went the entire night without sleep, and on Friday night only got 2-3 hours. I stood up there on Sunday and delivered what I thought was perhaps the most disorganized and disjointed sermon ever. Afterwards, Mike's comment was, "I think that was your best sermon ever!" Really? Seriously?
Well, perhaps there's something to this When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong idea after all.
New Addition: Follow me via Email
The Blogging program I use has now added a feature that allows you to receive an email message every time there's a new posting to my blog. Just look in the column to the left where it says "Follow the Juniper Tree by Email!", enter your Email address, and (hopefully) PRESTO! No need to look it up on the web anymore. Try it out and leave a comment after this blog entry to tell me if it worked.
Strange, how a truth that you've known and even taught for years can suddenly, inexplicably, become real.
Restless Leg Syndrome and insomnia have been my (unwelcome) companions for many years now. According to some of my journals, as far back as eight or nine years now. I am grateful for the love and concern expressed by my family members and friends, many of whom have faithfully prayed for years that I would somehow be healed or released from this thorn in my flesh. And yet if I had to use one word to describe my feelings as I look back over these past years it would be loneliness. For hundreds, even thousands of nights I have been a walking zombie ("Night Walkers" as we are sometimes described in medical literature), wandering through our home or even around the neighborhood in the vain hope of finding relief from the demons that climb up and down my lower back and legs. While the world sleeps, I am engaged in a battle that, at times, I feared would end in my own insanity.
I function on a daily basis at around 50-60% of my mental and physical capacity, and there's no way for me to explain to those who've only known me over the past few years that this is not ME, that I wasn't always this way. For most of my life I was full of energy and creativity, with a great capacity to handle a multitude of tasks simultaneously. As the crisis manager for a large Christian organization in one of the most volatile regions of the world, I literally thrived in the intense, high-risk environment of international crisis management. Today, I'm not sure how well I could manage even a single crisis, knowing the level of mental and physical energy that is required for successful crisis resolution. Even a task as simple as writing this blog may take me four or five attempts over two days, as I find myself waking up to see ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff on the screen because I've dozed off with my finger pressing on a key. I have grieved the loss of what once was, and without even realizing it I had started a slow and steady decline into a world of negativity and skepticism.
Several days ago Daphne took the courageous step to confront the problem head-on as she described to me the affect that my negativity and anger were having on her and the girls. She explained to me how they all feel great sadness for my long-term struggle with RLS & insomnia, and they long for a remedy, healing, or some other miracle to deliver me. In the present, however, she had noticed my outlook on everything in life becoming increasingly dark. I couldn't deny it, as I'd felt the darkness closing in on m as well. I also knew that I was feeling intense anger towards God because I know He COULD heal me if He so chose... and he continues to NOT so choose. She challenged me to, in the midst of my battle, try to see the small, positive clues that God IS giving me every day. Later that day as I was working on a new wooden sign for our church I was listening to a podcast sermon on the topic of how to prepare a sermon. The pastor gave two key ingredients for a great sermon: first, to study and prepare well (duh!) and second, to embrace weakness (come again?). The statement that caused me to stop the podcast and rewind was this: " The Glory of God rests upon injured and weakened men; men who ask, 'How can I possibly go on?'" When I hear the same message twice in one day, I've learned to stop and pay attention because God may have entered the room to speak. The speaker went on to say that he believes that most current translations of the Bible mis-translate 2 Corinthians 12:10 : "Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." The word "Content with" should actually be translated as "delight in". God doesn't want us to simply survive our trials with a decent attitude; He wants us to actually delight in them. This concept came like a laser-beam straight into my soul, and I suddenly found myself both repenting and thanking God at the same time. I sensed God saying to me: "My son, you have fought me, blamed me and accused me of not loving you for years. It's time to lay down your anger and bitterness towards me, and learn how I want to use your pain to build myself in you. You say you want to hear my voice; well, this is the way."
My heart and soul have embraced this concept, and my body and mind are slowly coming along. Ironically, since I made the decision to thank God and delight in my sleeplessness I have had three of the best nights ever (5-6 hours of sleep). Last week on Tuesday Mike asked me to preach this last Sunday, to give him time to do some planning for the coming year. On Thursday night I went the entire night without sleep, and on Friday night only got 2-3 hours. I stood up there on Sunday and delivered what I thought was perhaps the most disorganized and disjointed sermon ever. Afterwards, Mike's comment was, "I think that was your best sermon ever!" Really? Seriously?
Well, perhaps there's something to this When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong idea after all.
New Addition: Follow me via Email
The Blogging program I use has now added a feature that allows you to receive an email message every time there's a new posting to my blog. Just look in the column to the left where it says "Follow the Juniper Tree by Email!", enter your Email address, and (hopefully) PRESTO! No need to look it up on the web anymore. Try it out and leave a comment after this blog entry to tell me if it worked.
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