The Power of Change...

I think I was in high school the first time I heard the quote.  It’s often attributed to the formally named John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton.  Acton didn’t invent the idea though, he just happened to be the guy who articulated it in what would become its most popular form. 

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Of course as with all popular quotes, it wasn’t long before others were inventing spin-off quotes.  One of my favourites is attributed to a guy named Orrin.  Orrin’s response to Acton was, “Absolute power doesn’t corrupt, rather it reveals character.”  We would all sin more had we more means and opportunity.  Having more power gives us that additional means and opportunity.  It is why leaders of populist movements often become tyrants when they come to power… suddenly they have the means and the opportunity to become what they have always been (I think this is part of what the writer of Proverbs 30:8-9 was getting at).

I’m an ideas guy.  For me when I step into a new leadership role one of the first things I do is explain, “I’m going to be doing some things differently.  I’m going to try new ideas.  Some of them will work and some of them won’t.”  For me, power creates the opportunity to affect change.

Generally religious people love change… so long as they don’t have to change.  People love new leadership… so long as the leader leads in the direction that they want to go… or worse, so long as the leader has no intention of leading anywhere.

Jeremiah was proven prophet of God.  Everything he had prophesied in the name of the LORD came to pass.  So it’s not surprising that the people who had just experienced the brutality of Babylon, the destruction of their city and temple, the murder and captivity of their friends, families and countrymen would come to Jeremiah and say, “What now?  What do we do now?  Lead us!  Whatever you say God wants us to do we will obey!” See Jeremiah 42.

It is my contention that it is not power that corrupts so much as it is the lust for power.  It is also true that many a good leader has been accused of being corrupt simply because the people they were trying to lead did not want to be led.  It seems an almost universal and eternal truth that as soon as a leader identifies a direction, there will always be a contingent that will not want to go. “Lead us! Lead us!” they say… until you try…

Read Jeremiah 43… 

Just sayin’

Forgiveness

The small rural village of Idlesborough was blessed with the gift of two excellent bakers. 

The word was they had grown up together but had suffered a falling out in their teen years and become sworn enemies.  Both had developed a passion for baking, gone abroad to develop world class skills and returned home in the same year to start a bakery. 

The fact that they both wanted to start a bakery in the same town only furthered their hatred of each other.  They raced to set up set up their shop each before the other but as it turned out they opened on the same day.  Both first class bakers who, in the years that followed, kept the town more than satisfied with first rate pies and pastries, cakes and cookies, breads and buns, cupcakes and confections… you name it.

One day, so the story goes, God sent an angel to one of the bakers (Nadim was his name) with an offer, that at first, seemed too good to be true.

“Nadim,” the angel said, next week at this time I will return and give to you whatsoever you wish!”

“Anything?” Nadim asked.

“Anything.”  the angel replied.

Nadim could hardly breathe so great was his excitement and he spent several minutes lost in a fantasy world before he realized the angel still stood beside his rack of cooling pies.

“…and?”  Nadim hesitantly asked

“And,” the angel continued, “whatever you request will be doubled and given to your enemy.”

“Wait!  So if I ask for $1 million he gets two and if I ask for $10 million he gets twenty?”  Nadim asked slowly turning red with rage while shaking his finger towards the bakery across the way.

“Yes but you get the desire of your heart do you not?”  the angel replied.

Nadim spent the week in a frustrated tumble of emotions.  One moment he was ecstatic beyond words imagining what he might ask for… the next he would sink into a deep depression imagining what would be given to his sworn enemy…

When the angel returned the following week Nadim looked like a wreck.  He had hardly slept, he couldn’t focus at work and was often seem shouting through the window even when no one else was in the room.

They sat and stared at each other across the kitchen for what seemed like eternity.  The angel waiting, Nadim still fighting within himself.

Finally, with a look that belied an ancient evil he said, “make me blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.  Make my left hand useless and my right leg lame.  Make me a halfwit.”

The story is actually about forgiveness. 

I am a sinner...

I am a sinner…

That statement typically elicits two types of immediate responses. 

The first is a guilt response from those who hate being called “sinners”.  They launch into a rancorous barrage of arguments and accusations…

…sin is a construct made up by narrow-minded, religious bigots in an attempt to suppress joy and enslave the masses…etc…etc…  when they pause to take a breath I remind them that I did not say, “You are… I said “I am…”

The second response comes from the more religious folks who feel the need to loudly proclaim their “position in Christ” …

“…I’m a saint… I’m the righteousness of God in Christ… etc… etc…”

Of course both are true… in their own way and valid discussions to have in certain contexts but that’s not my point…

My point is that I am a sinner… 

What I mean by that is this:  Although I have been redeemed from the curse… I have been clothed in Christ… I died and my life is hidden with Christ… there is no therefore no condemnation… and on and on…  even with all this Biblically sound truth the fact of the matter is

…I still find myself struggling to submit certain areas of my life to the Holy Spirit

…I still try to keep God at arm’s length in certain areas of my life – and out of some areas altogether.

…I still find it easier to react in anger when hurt rather than the forgiving grace that Christ demonstrates and calls for.

…I still wear masks, even when around Christian brothers and sisters, fearful of what they will say or do if they see the real me – even though it doesn’t matter in the slightest given God’s overwhelming grace…

Here’s the truth.  Most of us think of salvation in terms of heaven and hell, not in terms of what to do with our money… or our Sunday morning… or our neighbour… or with our hurt, or anger, or joy…  For most of us salvation is a means of determining who is “in” and who is “out” rather than a source of empowered grace.

Why is it so hard to do… to offer what God in Christ has set us free to do and give?

Well basically because He calls me to offer it to you… and you to offer it to me… and while you’re pretty OK… I’m still struggling with this thing called sin…

…just sayin’

Renovations

I enjoy reading and watching legal-/detective- dramas/movies… though I must confess the formulaic tripe that gets churned out and aired these days is enough to make a body guelph.

We’ve all seen the scene where Bob and his wife Sara-Mae are arguing about their most recent project.  She’s wearing a tattered, once-colourful scarf wrapped around her dirty blond hair and telling him that on second thought maybe they shouldn’t take out that wall after all. He has curly brown hair a small paunch and is holding the handle of the sledge hammer he has just put through the wall they had agreed to remove.
     “You couldn’t have said that sooner?” He asks
     “ I dunno, I just thought that… I dunno…” (right hand lifts to brush a loose strand of hair from her face)
He yanks the hammer out of the wall and turns to face her. His face is covered with dust but you can still clearly tell by his expression he’s about to blow his top. He already has the big breath needed to support the diatribe he’s about to unleash but her expression stops him cold.

He slowly turns to see what we have already noticed over his shoulder... the limp decomposing arm of some poor dead soul has fallen through the hole in the wall.

(zoom in on the screaming wife... cue some edgy, hip music as the show begins...) 
We’ve all been there right… 

OK maybe you didn’t have an arm fall out of the wall but you know what I mean. You start work on a simple renovation but when the wall comes down there is black mold behind it and the $5000 renovation becomes $20 000. You decide to take the tile out of the bathroom (or kitchen) but when you have it down you discover that the tile was covering a massive hole in the wall.

Is there a point to all of this (That's why you read blogs right?) What's the lesson?
Well let me suggest some possibilities…

1. All of us need renovating.  That's why we do the "resolution thing" every year.  It's what keeps the diet industry in business and makes Dr. Oz-type shows so successful.

2.We all have secrets… holes...  hidden behind the "tile".  It's why we answer "fine" even when we aren't.

3. We all look good with our holes covered.  Some of us have better "tile" or "paper" or "paint" than others…

4. Some live their lives trying to do the renovations on their own, while others look to "professionals"

5. Some pros are shysters...

6. Before you decide to “renovate” make sure you're ready to pay the price...

...just sayin...

Sowing and Reaping

One of my significant financial regrets occurred a number of years ago when as a subscriber to the prairie agricultural newspaper the Western Producer I came across a classified advertisement for 120 acres.  The asking price was $39, 500 ( I’m under no illusions that this was a perfect patch of paradise so don’t get sidetracked by issues of whether the land was half under water or a former toxic dump). 

In my conversation with the fella who was selling he informed me that the land was currently being rented out to a nearby farmer who had already put in a crop.  For the sake of my example let’s say we work out all the legal stuff and I purchase the land complete with its growing crop of canola. 

Let’s say that, with the canola in full bloom, I discover I have severe allergies to canola and decide that I would prefer a field of barley instead.

What’s going to happen?  Will my crop change from canola to barley? 

What if I pray for it to change?

What if I claim it by faith and tell everyone it has changed?

What if I post signs saying “THIS IS BARLEY”?

I’ve seen this sort of thing happen too many times to believers, ministries and churches.  Well-meaning believers who have been convinced that renaming a crop, or claiming a change of crop will make it magically happen.  And I used the word “magically” intentionally. 

The Biblical principle is this:  You reap what you sow.

Now, I can auction off all my canola machinery and buy a whole new set of all the machinery and equipment I need to harvest barley, but that still won’t change what is in the field!

Too often churches and ministries discover this the hard way.  Their current leader or pastor leaves (jumped, pushed, dropped, sails) and when the new “machinery” arrives they expect him/her to change a crop of canola into barley.

It doesn’t work that way.

It is a soundly biblical and eternally consistent truth that you reap what you sow.  I like how utterly emphatic the Apostle Paul is in writing this truth to the first century believers in Galatia.

Galatians 6:7 (PNWiV)

⁷ Do not be duped:

God is not mocked,

Whatever you sow, that’s precisely what you will also reap.

I have no way of knowing what season you personally (or your family) may be entering.  But I sense in my own spirit that the I, my family and the ministry in which I am serving are entering a time of sowing.

If that’s true… if that’s also you… it requires… it demands that we be intensely vigilant.  It requires us to tune ourselves intentionally to the whisper of the Holy Spirit because what we do in this season is going to have ramifications not just for the present but from now until it is harvested.

What you “put in the ground now”…

·       relationally…

·       in time…

·       in energy…

·       in ministry…

·       in attitude…

·       in programming…

·       in finances…

…all of these and more – is going to “die” and then “multiply” (John 12:24)

Plant wisely

…just sayin’