family

Be Filled

One Another Project Encouragement Ephesians, family, spirit, Thanksgiving, turkey

be filled with turkey

Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:18-20

Being Filled

The Thanksgiving holiday is upon us. So, this is your annual public service announcement about tryptophan overdoses: it is for real. I am not a health care professional nor a nutritionist nor a biologist. I have neither supervised nor participated in any scientific studies. But I do have some real life credentials. Every year for the past 45 years of my adult life, I have stuffed myself to the point of gluttony with turkey and felt the resulting physical crash from the overdose of tryptophan. So, be warned. The struggle is real. In fact, it is so real (and, I suspect, so common) that Paul may well have chosen “being filled with turkey” as his illustration if he were to write his letter to “the church in America” around the Thanksgiving holiday. In his letter to the Ephesians, he spends considerable ink casting a vision of the Spirit-filled life. He employs numerous illustrations and metaphors to make his point, and none more poignant than in Ephesians 5:18-20. Instead of filling yourself with wine, fill yourself with the Holy Spirit (my paraphrase). Had he been writing to us today, might he have said, “Instead of filling yourself with turkey, fill yourself with the Holy Spirit?”

My Privilege

Before you begin flooding the comments with just how privileged I am to be “worried” about eating too much this Thanksgiving when there are so many here in my own community (not to mention around the world) who do not have nearly enough to eat, let me just acknowledge that reality. I am privileged indeed. But my privileges do not end there. My privilege includes having been reared by two parents who love me and who gave me this Thanksgiving tradition. I was privileged to have found the love of my life in high school and to have been faithfully loved by her for more than 40 years. And I am privileged to have fathered some amazing girls who have filled my life with joy. But my biggest privilege of all is that, this week, when our entire family gathers together for the Thanksgiving holiday, every adult will be filled with God’s Spirit as a follower of Christ. That brings me back to Paul’s encouragement to the Ephesians in 5:18-20.

Give Thanks

Paul didn’t end his “be filled with the Spirit” counsel with that illustration. He goes a little further. Since you are filled with the Spirit, you should “give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, if you are so privileged as to be surrounded by Spirit-filled Christ followers this week, then you should absolutely be thankful. And so I am. I am grateful for my entire family. And I am grateful that the Spirit of God indwells them. It is my greatest privilege.

© One Another Project

Permissions: We permit and encourage you to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, we prefer a link to this document on this website. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by One Another Project. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © One Another Project. Website: oneanotherproject.com.

A Cliffhanger: Where We Learn to Reconcile

One Another Project Conversations about what's hurt me, Conversations about what's hurt them, Reconciliation apologize, brothers, children, Egypt, Esau, family, forgiveness, Genesis 33, Jacob, Joseph, punish, reconciliation

One of the most important skills we can demonstrate to the children in our lives is how to reconcile in a way that actually transforms a relationship.

family forgiveness

The number one indicator of how I am most likely to respond to conflict in my adult life is how I saw conflict responded to by the adults in my childhood. While that statistic is interesting to us in terms of how we respond to conflict, it is also a little scary to us when we realize its application to the children in our lives. Their getting to watch how we confess and apologize and forgive, i.e., how we reconcile, is critical to their own relational health.

There is a terrific example of this in the story of Joseph in the Bible (the Old Testament Joseph, not the New Testament one). His brothers hate him, plot to kill him, and then opt to just sell him into slavery instead. They come home from that adventure and tell their father Joseph has been killed by a wild animal. Through a pretty amazing series of God-ordained circumstances, Joseph ends up in Egypt and, over time, rises in social status from slave all the way up to becoming one of the most powerful men in Egypt (second only to Pharaoh). The plot twist in the story is when Joseph’s brothers then find themselves kneeling before him, begging for food, and they don’t even recognize him. Joseph is then confronted with a whopper of a decision: to punish them or to reconcile with them.

If it were a television series, this would be the end of a season. The cliffhanger we would wait all Summer to resolve would be this question hanging in the air: will he punish or will he forgive? Indeed, even in the real life version, considerable time would pass before Joseph makes that decision. He actually sends most of them back home to retrieve their youngest brother, while Joseph keeps one of the brothers in his prison. Months, perhaps even years would pass (all during the offseason of our television series).

The new television season opens in an unexpected time and place. We are some 40 years earlier in time, and we are not in Egypt. We are at the scene of two other brothers who have been estranged due to hatred and are about to cross each other’s paths for the first time in 20 years. The scene is tense. Will it be battle or will it be something else? Here is the way the Bible describes it:

Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming with his four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah and Rachel and the two maidservants. He put the maidservants out in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. He led the way and, as he approached his brother, bowed seven times, honoring his brother. But Esau ran up and embraced him, held him tight and kissed him. And they both wept. Genesis 33:1-4 (The Message)

The scene is riveting. Jacob and his 12 children and their 4 different mothers all standing fearfully to see how Esau (and his 400 men) would react. But the Bible then does the literary equivalent of a camera zoom in on only one of the children. Only one is mentioned specifically by name: Joseph. And, in our television production, as the camera frames Joseph’s eager eyes watching his father reconcile with Uncle Esau, those child’s eyes morph into adult eyes of Joseph 40 years later, pondering how to respond to his long-estranged brothers.

The story leaves little doubt about what forces must have come to play within Joseph as he pondered his choice. And it illustrates beautifully the impact it has on our children when they witness how we reconcile with one another.

We all have our own stories of broken relationships, especially within family. We all have cliffhangers where the miraculous potential for reconciliation hangs in the balance. And we have choices to make in the midst of those cliffhangers; choices that not only impact our relationships, but which impact relationships in future generations. This is true because little eyes are watching. And learning. From us. Always.

© Christian Unity Ministries

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Christian Unity Ministries. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Christian Unity Ministries. Website: oneanotherproject.com.

The Puzzle of “Who Am I?”

One Another Project Conversations about where our hope is David, family, hero, hope, identity, king, poet, Psalm 139, shepherd, writer

While the puzzle of “who am I?” is yours to piece together, don’t be fooled by friends, family, tribes or even your own feelings. There is a truer source for your identity than any of those.

who am I

His father told him he was a shepherd. And that had certainly become his reality…one in which he seemed destined to live out his life. It was how he spent his days, pretty much all of them up until now. It wasn’t his choice. It was his father’s choice for him. And he was a good son. So, a shepherd he became. He wasn’t bad at it. He practiced and developed all the necessary skills for it.

There were some exciting parts of shepherding, ones which would get any young man’s blood pumping. There was the occasional wild animal to scare away, or even to fight. He practiced flinging stones with his sling. He did enjoy that part. He could spend hours setting up pretend enemies out of sticks and logs and large leaves for target practice. He missed more than he hit, but that didn’t matter, because the occasional bullseye was all it took to send his imagination soaring with stories of villains and heroes. He was always the hero.

But it was that same imagination which caused him to resent this identity his father had chosen for him. That imagination had plenty of time to take over his thought life during all the peaceful hours when he would make his flock lie down in green pastures or graze by still waters. During those long, peaceful hours, he would sit and dream of a different calling…one that involved poetry and music and dance. His father told him he was a shepherd. But he knew differently. He did not feel like a shepherd. He felt like a poet, a painter of beautiful word pictures and a writer of songs. He felt like a creator of wonderful stories and music. That was how he identified. He could feel it in the deepest parts of him. He knew it irritated his father and he knew his brothers laughed at him for it behind his back, and sometimes to his face. But he thought he knew who he was, because he could feel it.

But he would go on to learn one of the most important lessons any of us can learn about our identity: that even our own feelings do not tell the whole story of who we are. Rather, when it comes to questions of our identity, there is only one source of truth: our creator. Here’s how he would eventually write it:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether… For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:1-4, 13-14

According to his creator, he was more than a shepherd, and even more than a poet or a writer. As his story unfolded, he did become all of those things, and much more. His father and his brothers identified him as a defender of sheep against lions, but God identified him as a defender of His people against giants. His king identified him as an enemy, but God identified him as a best friend, and as a servant. His wife identified him as a stoic leader, but God identified him as one who would dance in the streets and teach us to praise God with exuberance.

When those closest to him tried to identify David as other things, he resisted…because God identified him as a King. The greatest King Israel would ever know. His story was far less than perfect. His search for himself still included some poor choices and detours, even after God identified him as a king. When he should be going off to battle, he remained home and identified as a casual lover, a murderer and an adulterer. He would continue to make identity choices based on his own preferences and feelings, but thousands of years later, the reason we still tell his story is because of who God said he was: a king, and a man after God’s own heart.

We are living in a culture where identity is lost in a sea of chaos, confusion, anxieties, tribes and their respective worldviews. Our friends and families tell us who we are. Our “team colors” tell us who we are. And our feelings tell us who we are. But none of those sources are reliable. The only one who can tell us who we are is the one who formed us in the womb, who knows our every thought before it forms in our mind, and who loves us more than we will ever know or imagine. The critical question this raises for each of us is this: as you piece together the puzzle of your own identity, to whom or to what will you listen? To your family? To your tribe? To your feelings? Or will you listen to the only one who really knows?

© Christian Unity Ministries

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Christian Unity Ministries. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Christian Unity Ministries. Website: oneanotherproject.com.

Where is My Hope? Let Me Be Clear

One Another Project Conversations about where our hope is abortion, family, friends, God, government, guns, hope, immigration, politics, racism, same-sex, Samuel

Can’t we be good citizens without placing all our hope in political solutions? If you are my friend, won’t you let me be clear about where my hope really is?

hope out of rubble

From time to time, we all get sucked into conversations of which we would rather not be a part. Maybe it is about politics, or maybe it is about some pressing social issue like gun control or abortion or same-sex marriage or racism. And maybe the reason we don’t want to jump into the conversation is that, frankly, we don’t have any level of expertise or special knowledge in that area and therefore have little or nothing to add to the level of discourse. And, by the way, wouldn’t it be nice if more people knew that about themselves? 🙂 Or maybe the reason we don’t want to add to the noise of the conversation is that nobody involved in it really seems to be listening at all. Or maybe you have your own reasons for picking and choosing carefully when to join a conversation and when to stay out.

Whatever your circumstances, there is one very good reason to be careful about these conversations with the family and friends who matter most to you. In relationships that really matter to us, it is important to be clear about where our hope is. And many of these “heated” topics of conversation quickly devolve into a level of debate which may well mislead someone as to where our hope really lies.

Let me give a specific example from my own life. I have some pretty clear feelings about abortion. They stem from some pretty clear feelings about precisely when “personhood” attaches to biological life. And, yes, I would favor laws which agree with my worldview in that regard. However, let me be very clear about this: my hope for the unborn is not in those laws, nor in the political systems which create them nor in the Courts which uphold them. Ultimately, my hope for the unborn is in who God is, what God does, who we are, and what we should do in response to God. So, I am hesitant to jump with both feet into political debates over the issue if there is a chance it will mislead you as to where my hope lies. Oh, I will vote. And I will no doubt favor candidates who share my worldview. But, my hope in politics to heal our land is a little like my hope in band-aids to revolutionize the world’s emergency rooms. So, you’ll understand if I don’t want to spend hours upon hours filling Facebook comments on the political solutions to this problem.

There’s a great story in the Bible that illustrates what I am saying here. In 1 Samuel, the nation of Israel has been spiraling downward and away from God for centuries. They have suffered invasion after invasion by neighboring enemy nations. They are looking for solutions. And they are looking in the wrong place. They decide their solution is to have a king, just like all their neighboring enemies have. The thinking is, “If we only had a king who would go and fight our battles for us, we would be safe from our enemies.” Their hope, it seemed, was in a political, governmental solution. Their hope was NOT in God. So, speaking through the prophet, Samuel, here is what God said:

“I brought Israel up out of Egypt. I delivered you from Egyptian oppression—yes, from all the bullying governments that made your life miserable. And now you want nothing to do with your God, the very God who has a history of getting you out of troubles of all sorts. And now you say, ‘No! We want a king; give us a king!’ Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get!” 1 Samuel 10:18-19 (The Message paraphrase)

Their hope was misplaced. I never want my hope to be misplaced. And I never want to lead any of my friends or family to believe that my hope is in the manmade solutions of politics. I have come to understand that conversations about where our hope really lies are among the most important conversations in our life. They are the conversations that nurture the deepest and most meaningful relationships life has to offer. They are the conversations we want to get right.

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Christian Unity Ministries. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Christian Unity Ministries. Website: oneanotherproject.com.

Confession and the Importance of Being Right

One Another Project Conversations about what's hurt them, Reconciliation brother, confession, family, father, Jesus, luke 15, pain, reconciliation, relationship, son

Nothing says, “I value this relationship” quite like confession and surrender.

We are living in a culture of advocacy and tribal contention. If watching the news or listening to talk radio or reading through your social media feeds makes you angry or frustrated, that is probably the reason. We are literally inundated with voices screaming for their tribe and advocating for their issue. Among the fatalities in such a culture are meaningful relationships, both old and new. For you see, having the kinds of conversations that actually make relationship meaningful is completely counter-cultural in this setting. And among those conversations that actually make relationships healthy, none is more counter-intuitive than honestly and genuinely dealing with how we have hurt someone. We call that “confession”. And, oh boy, do we struggle with it.

Jesus told a story about a rebellious son who left home abruptly, breaking his father’s heart. After that son came to the end of his rope (and came to his senses), he decided to go back home and salvage whatever he could salvage of his relationship with his father. He prepared to have a conversation about the pain he knew he had caused the father. His “confession” is a model way to start such a conversation:

When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again. Luke 15:20-21 (The Message)

Notice some of the key elements of his confession. First, he worked to see the truth about what he had done, seeing it the same way God saw it. Second, he also worked to see the pain through the eyes of the person he had hurt. Third, he fully accepted whatever the consequences of his wrongdoing might be, no matter how harsh or unfair they might have seemed: I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again. But, most importantly, he demonstrated from his heart that it was more important to him to be in a right relationship with his father than to be right. This rebellious son had a complete change of heart and chose to surrender completely to the relationship rather than to hold onto any notion of being right or of winning.

The model for us is clear. When the time comes for us to have a hard conversation about what has hurt the other person in our relationship, we have a hard decision to make. Ultimately, we have to decide what is more important: being right or being in right relationship. Choosing the relationship over our prideful needs proves to the other person how important they are to us. Think about how different our culture would be with just a hint of this kind of attitude toward our relationships with one another. More importantly, think about how different our families would be if this were both valued and taught.

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Christian Unity Ministries. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Christian Unity Ministries. Website: oneanotherproject.com.