Character Building: Faithfulness

I want to have faithfulness to my God – and I have that through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God and the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

I strive to remain faithful to my wife – and have been for over 22 years.

I live with faithfulness to my three sons, being a father to them as God is a Father to me.

How do you live with faithfulness? One way that I have found is by learning from those who have been faithful in the past.

There has been at least 5000 years worth of men and women who have been faithful from whom we can learn faithfulness.

The Bible says

…[They], through faith, conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. – Hebrews 11:33-34

I’ve often wondered what it must have been like for men like my grandfather to return home from the war. I can imagine if felt like they were in the army forever, fighting forever, sleeping in the heat or cold and mud forever.

But by 1949 my grandfather had been home longer than he had been away. He would live another forty years! He would be a faithful husband and father and grandfather until his death in the late 80’s. I wish I could have known him better.

I recently watched the last episode of “Band of Brothers.” At the end the actor Daniel Lewis performs a voice-over that details what each of the men did after the war. When he got to Frank Perconte, a tear came to my eye. Perconte was from Chicago. And when he came home from the war, he became a mailman.

Just like my grandfather.

It is men like Perconte, Dick Winters, Shifty Powers, and my grandfather, that inspire me the most to be the man I try to be today.

They did extraordinary things a long time ago, then became regular men living regular lives.

But there was nothing regular about them, really.

They were called by their country to defend it from enemies without. They were faithful to their country.

Then they came home and faced being faithful to their families, their friends, and, for many of them, to God.

I wonder if it was hard to remain faithful after a war. I’m thinking about those who endure a war – whether it is a year or two or four or more.

I can imagine that someone who was in a war for two years would then take at least two years after it ends to recover. But how does one remain faithful when you live more of life in peacetime than you did in fighting a war?

It seems the best thing to do is to find someone who is doing that or has done that. Those who lived in the generations before us can teach us a lot about this. But we have to take the time to learn these lessons.

Because there will come a time when we are the generation someone is going to learn from.

A Christian remains faithful through the power of the Holy Spirit working through Word and Sacrament.

I start there, learning how to be faithful to my God. I will then have the means to live a life of faithfulness to my wife and children and, if called upon, to the next generation.

Character Building: Honesty

I talked about integrity as my favorite characteristic last time. Another characteristic that goes hand-in-hand with integrity is “honesty.”

To my humiliation, honesty was the hardest of the characteristics for me to muster when I was younger. I didn’t have to lie about myself and what I did or didn’t do, but I did.

I think it was because I was not happy with who I was. I was a somewhat overweight, shy, kid. I found it hard to make a lot of friends. But there I go again, not being completely honest! I have been blessed with a number of great, close, committed friends in my life. A handful of those I still count as my dearest friends. They had the insight to see through the tales I told of myself and love me anyway! Truly, they imitated God in this way.

So, to be honest, I felt like I couldn’t make friends unless I became someone I wasn’t. So I would invite stories about myself, thinking my real life was boring or ordinary. As I pause to look back over my life, it really has been anything but ordinary! But I couldn’t see the truth of that at the time.

As I strive to be a man of integrity, I know that honesty is going to have to be a huge part of this goal.

No more lies. No more dishonesty. I know (now) that lies catch up with you eventually. No matter how vociferous the denial, the truth always comes out in the end. Sometimes it is a relief. Because it is true that it is easier on the brain to tell the truth – because you don’t have to remember anything when you tell the truth! But sometimes when the truth comes to light, it is devastating. “I’m not hurting anyone but myself” is rarely – if ever – true, especially when being dishonest.

Now, having said “no more lies” I think something needs to be said about prudence and “speaking the truth in love.”

Can I be honest when my wife asks me “do these pants make my butt look fat?” (And for the record, she never asks me this question – it’s just a hypothetical here.) What if they really do? It wouldn’t be prudent to tell her that. For one reason, it would hurt her feelings. Another reason, she would probably hurt me!

While honesty is always the best policy, it is also important to remember that God’s Word tells that should speak the truth “in love” (Ephesians 4:15). I realize my hypothetical situation is wrought with danger. I realize that it would just be easier to “tell a white lie” in this situation. It will also spare my wife’s feelings (and my head). But remember “integrity”? It can be defined as “doing the right thing even when doing the wrong thing is easier.”

In situations like my hypothetical, it is going to take some effort to avoid hurting someone’s feelings while, at the same time, speaking the truth. Love has so much to do with it. How I talk to my wife – to anyone, really – should be deeply rooted in my relationship with them and with God. When I overlook that particular truth, then it will be very hard to speak the truth in love.

Being honest and living honestly will develop a person in a true man or woman of character as well as a true man or woman of God. It will almost never be easy. But it will be possible, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us through God’s Word. The more we immerse ourselves in the truth of God’s Word, the more we’ll be able to speak the language of truth and live a life of truth.

It will also take courage, but that’s a whole new topic – one we’ll explore next time.

Making Treasure from Junk

Don is an older gentleman who I recently visited at his home. He’s the dad of one of my very best friends. Don and his wife Jane still live in the same house that I used to visit when hanging out with their son when we were in high school.

Don is in his 80’s now. He suffered a stroke a couple of years ago but has recovered pretty well. When I visited him, he and his lovely wife and I caught up on what was happening in our lives. I could tell, however, that Don was waiting to tell or show me something that meant a lot to him.

All through the first part of our visit he had a twinkle in his eyes and he could barely sit still because he was excited. I finally asked, “So, what are you doing these days?”

Don jumped up and said, “Let me show you!”

He led me down to the basement, to his workshop. In his workshop were table saws, lathes, power grinders, and tools. Hanging from the beams were old, big keys – like the kind that open dungeons. Old spoons, knives, and hand tools were displayed on boards, stored in open boxes and scattered on the work bench.

Don and Jane visit antique shops and events through the Midwest and collect rusted tools, knives, utensil and the like. Don then takes them back to his workshop, cleans them up, and re-sells them at antique shows. As Don was showing me his workshop, I could tell that he had a passion for this. As I thought about it later, I came to the realization that I wanted to have that kind of passion about something – and I do.

Cleaning up bits of junk and old tools isn’t something the world would find worthy of time or passion, and maybe in and of itself it isn’t. But for Don it is something that he can do with his time, his hands, and his mind. He can give himself to this activity. His reward is to see something beautiful come from something that had been rusted, dirty, and discarded. He makes treasure out of junk.

And, of course, this is exactly what God does with me. He took a broken, sinful man, and made me a husband and father and pastor. Not that I think I’m some kind of treasure, but I do treasure the calling God has given me in all three of those areas. I’m able to love – and be loved – by a beautiful woman. I’m able to love and share and cultivate three young men into men of God. I’m able to teach and preach about the love of Jesus Christ with people at my church and in my community.

When Don is able to grind and buff off the rust of a 100 year old hand tool, he makes it new and usable again. I’m thankful that God continues to do that to me, too!

The True Man - Warrior

The True Man goes through seasons in life.

I’ve posted about the Season of Boyhood and the Season of the Cowboy.

Now we come to the Season of the Warrior.

This doesn’t mean we all join the Army, Marines or any other branch of service. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Rather, this season reinforces the reality that we are at war in this life. We are made to be warriors, to fight for what is right, to protect our wives and families.

The rise of what is sometimes referred to as the “second wave feminist” movement in the 1960’s brought a change to this season in a man’s life by trying to eliminate it. Fighting for such rights as abortion, pushing an agenda that has at is foundation that there is no real difference between a man and a woman.

While I agree that in Christ there is no “male or female, slave or free,” that all are equally loved in the heart of God, I disagree that there is no difference between men and women. There’s huge differences, for which we should thank God!

Men, we were made to be warriors.

In Genesis it says we are created in the image of God. In Exodus it says, “The Lord is a Warrior, the Lord is his name.”

From Genesis chapter 3 on, we live in a world at war. All the wars that have happened since then have been pale comparisons to the War that is being waged against us. As Paul says in Ephesians

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

This we know. We are at war. But this war plays out in different ways.

Steve Farrar writes in Point Man, “Gentlemen, this is no imaginary situation. It is reality. If you are a husband/father, than you are in a war. War has been declared upon the family, on your family and mine. Leading a family through the chaos of American culture is like leading a small patrol through enemy-occupied territory. And the casualties in this war are as real as the names etched on the Vietnam Memorial.” (Point Man, page 22).

You see, Satan has moved his focus away from the church and to the family because if he can destroy the family, the Church is that much weaker! The first church a child will know about, the first place he will hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is at home from mom and dad. If Satan can destroy that, the Church has a much harder time getting the Gospel message out to the world.

Once we understand that we are at war and that his war’s battlefronts are all around us (and not just “out there” in the mission field or where Christians are persecuted), then we will be in a much better position to fight those battles.

Where are the battle lines? Everywhere!

There’s a great scene about this from a somewhat  unusual source – the movie “You’ve Got Mail” (click here to watch it).

Warriors are not just found on the battlefields of the world. We are at war every day! In every day life – at the office, in the bedroom, in front of the classroom, on the football field.

The Season of the Warrior is its own specific season. But there are elements of the Warrior in all seasons, starting with boyhood. Like I said before, it is because we are made in the image of God and the Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name.

All our movies that we love have a warrior theme to them. Even a movie like “You’ve Got Mail.” We fight in all areas of life because in all areas of life, there are still things worthy fighting for.

“When Alexander the Great died, his massive empire was divided among several high-ranking officers in his cabinet. What we would refer to as the Middle East, including Israel, came under the rule of the Seluecids, who continued Alexander’s mission to Hellenize the locals, making all the world Greek in its customs and values. What began as the seemingly innocent importation of Greek culture became increasingly hostile, and eventually violent. The Seleucid overlords took a special hatred of the Jewish insistence on worshipping one God, seeing it—as so many dictatorships since—as a threat to their regime. In 165 BC a Greek officer holding command over the village of Modiin—not too far from Jerusalem—ordered the Jewish villagers to bow to an idol and eat the flesh of a slaughtered pig, acts that struck at the heart of Judaism, at the heart of the people for whom such a command was unthinkable. Blasphemy.

“The people refused, an argument ensued, and the Jewish high priest Mattathias killed the officer with a sword. The villagers—led by Mattathias’ five sons—took up arms against the rest of the soldiers and killed them as well. Mattathias and a growing number of his followers fled to the hills, from there launching a resistance movement against their Hellenistic oppressors. Meanwhile, Antiochus IV (current heir to the Seleucid Empire and a cruel enemy of the Jews) seized control of the temple in Jerusalem, set up in the Holy of Holies a satue of Zeus, and commanded the Jews to worship him. Those who refused to abandon God and his commands—included circumcision—were persecuted, mothers put to the sword with their infants hanging round their necks.

“Meanwhile, Mattathias had died, leaving command of his growing forces to his son Judah Maccabee, who led his outnumbered and outarmed troops against a far superior force (ten thousand Jews against more than sixty thousand Greeks and Hellenized Syrians) and eventually routed their enemies from Jerusalem. They cleansed the temple, tore down the desecrated altar (including the idol) and rebuilt one from uncut stones, after which they held a feast of worship and dedication. Of course, I am referring to the origin of the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah. Historian Thomas Cahill observed that ‘there are humiliations a proud people—even one oppressed for generations—cannot abide.’

“Indeed. It may take time, and require repeated provocation, but eventually a man must come to realize that there are certain things in life worth fighting for. Perhaps, when we appreciate the truth of this, we can better understand the heart of God.” [The Way of the Wild Heart, John Eldredge, pages 136-37]

It may take the battle hitting close to home to rouse the warrior in a man, but maybe that is exactly why God allows the battle to hit close to home.

True Man - Cowboy

When I was growing up, the quintessential cowboy was John Wayne. He was tough, he was rough, he was good (for the most part – only playing the bad guy in a handful of roles).

For American boys growing up in the 20th century, John Wayne was the role-model if they wanted to be tough, courageous, and especially if they wanted to be cowboys.

In John Eldredge’s The Way of the Wild Heart (modified and republished as Fathered by God) he notes five “seasons” that every man goes through in their life. The first season is “Boyhood,” which I wrote about in True Man – Wild Man. The second season is “The Cowboy.”

The cowboy season is full of adventure and excitement, just like in Boyhood. But now the stakes are higher. The danger is greater. But if Boyhood is lived successfully, the danger is not too high.

One of the most popular of “cowboy songs” is Don’t Fence Me In by Cole Porter and Bob Fletcher.

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in
“Don’t fence me in.” A characteristic of the settling of the “Old West” in America was the lure of it having no boundaries.

In the 1960’s – when Baby Boomers started to have children of their own, many of these parents decided to raise their children without boundaries. “We must give our kids freedom – freedom to explore their world, themselves. That way they can figure out who they are, decide for themselves what is right and wrong, make up their own minds about how they should live.” The epitome of this philosophy was Dharma Finkelstein on Chuck Lorre TV show “Dharma and Greg.”

The problem with this is that if there are no boundaries, then there is no safety.

“Boundaries” can be many things, rules, regulations, curfews, limited allowances, etc.

But boundaries are not fences to keep the cowboy in, but are fences to keep danger out.

Let’s be clear. We cannot shelter our kids, we cannot be sheltered ourselves, from the dangerous world. That isn’t the point of boundaries. The true “cowboy” stage is that we know our limitations. We are free to explore – without fear of dying – within the boundaries set up around us.

Being a cowboy means living in the world. Boundaries don’t keep us safe from the world, they help us learn how to be safe, how to live, in the world.

Jesus Christ came to free us from sin with his sacrificial death and glorious resurrection from the dead. Jesus freed us from the sin that enslaved us. Jesus freed us from the power of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature.

But this isn’t freedom in the sense that “we can do what we want, with no boundaries.”

The most famous set of boundaries in the history of the world is the Ten Commandments.

But when Jesus sets us free from sin through his blood and righteousness, the Ten Commandments become boundaries of safety for us. Through the freedom Jesus gives us, the Law of God becomes our trusty guide.

It is something like the railings around the observation areas on the rim of the Grand Canyon or at Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park (I wrote about this in a blog post called “For Your Safety”).

Rather than stifling adventure, they make the adventures we live as Cowboys safe while still being dangerous.