In the living years: settling accounts whilst we can so we leave with peace

In the beautiful movie, "The blind side", Lee Ann Touhy bemoans the fact that Michael, her adopted, black giant of a son, so struggles to remember his school work. Her husband then interrupts to say what will stay with me forever: "Michael's greatest gft is forgetting". After years of being rejected, forced to forage for food, facing cold and lonely nights or walking in the rain, Michael learnt to forget, let go and move on.

Today my own father told me of the reasons he wants to die and go. I told him stuff I can't fully share here, except to say that there are many outstanding accounts in his life. I urged him to call in each of his children, to forgve them and secure their forgiveness - as an act of release.

Read more ...

A taste of heaven ...

Is heaven a vacant cloud, where we will occupy time with harps and things and watch eternity go by?

In December we went for a drive that took us along a famous mountain pass. The pass hugs the coast, with precarious overhangs and steep cliffs. The sea below is one of the most treacherous on earth, having claimed many ships throughout history.

It is often very windy up there and engineering has had to be done to restrain rock falls, so it is not a safe place: neither is heaven.

We found a lookout point and took out our picnic baskets to enjoy the last of a perfect day. The sun was setting over the bay on a windless evening. Colors and hues reflected over the shimmering seas and two whales frolicked in the cold water. The air was still as though even heaven held its breath at the wonder before us.

I said to my family, “Right now, this is one of the ten most profound moments on the planet.” The sun slowly melted into the horizon, boiling the sea in a riot of colors until its orb slipped away: the day was done, but its glory lingered for a long while before the night came. We had seen something of the wonder of God.

A few nights later we returned, but the wind was up and so we could not relive the earlier moment. Instead we drove down to a beach which was sheltered from the wind. There we walked along sandy shore through icy water, whilst the shadows lengthened. Then we climbed some dunes that gave us a 360 degree view of the bay: town lights lay behind us, mountains flanked us and the sun-washed sea lay ahead. We played in the dunes and talked well beyond sunset and finally retreated in the darkness that followed.

That was one of the most memorable moments of my life. But more importantly, it was the greater picture of glory. For heaven is not a scene or vista, nor is it a place of imposing architecture and golden highways. It is that too, but the essence of heaven is relationship. Experiences will be rich in shared memories, stories of everyday heroism and a common destiny in the future of the kingdom. The fabric of the place will knit hearts into divine purpose, raising an army of priests that will be co-laborers and co-heirs with Jesus through the countless sunrises and sunsets, of eternities yet to come.

© Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com

Be a man my son: a poem on Godly manhood.

To God a sacrifice they made
as for Abel so for Cain,
Cain gave his sweat and toil,
proofs of man, fruits of soil.
Yet Abel turned not one sod,
but searched the heart of God …
and took one lamb from his flock
so burned his best upon a rock.

God would not accept the sweat,
soil and toil held no respect.
No such man is ever mine,
nor cares to even ponder why.
But Abel, he gave back to me
what was first entrust to him
that no work e’r would please
except first, it came from me …

Jacob turned from soil and toil
as Abel was, a pastoral boy …
cared for what to him was giv’n
gave up all, for His blessing.
For food, Esau forsook forever
what Jacob knew to be far better
God’s favour, as it was for Abel,
fell to him whose heart was able.

Jesse’s son so pastoral too,
sheep watcher, heart attuned
to what really makes a man
not in beauty, brawn or brain
but hearts that yield to Him.
All for Him, to live and give
and love all that He entrusts:
higher calls and greater loves.

So go, be thus a man in Him,
honest, true, wise, no sin.
As flies the arrow, so sure
keep your way true and pure ..
so account to Him alone
your life before eternal throne
to hear Him say “well done,
my servant, friend and son”.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

What defines men of value?

I recently heard a preacher speak of features like sweat, brawn, macho pursuits and other manly activities. It was an interesting treatise, but I must question the line of thinking.

What does the bible reveal about the issue? Does a biblical man need to be big, hairy, strong, sweaty and manly? I don't think so. I won't refute that many biblical men were just that, but I cannot concede that it is either a prerequisite or a defining feature of biblical manhood.

I have met far too many big, mean guys who were also quite weak on matters of principle, decision making, leadership of their homes, defence of values or engagement of social issues - indeed often brawn is a cover-up for other inadequacies. Yet I have seen many less impressive and often softer-spoken men take on giants, fight for the truth and engage issues of concern to the world around us, whilst still finding time to lead their families with integrity and passion. Thus God too loks on the heart of a man, whilst men look on outward appearances and in doing often misjudge and overlook what God favors.

Jim Collins, in his great book on good to great leadership, sifted through all the leaders of America to arrive at just ten great leaders, all of whom were soft-spoken and self-deprecating, yet fiercely resolute. His level 10 leader is often obscure, never outshining of others, a team builder, an influencer.

We are always on dangerous ground when we stereotype people and that is no less true of male stereotypes. It would be as wrong for me to argue that a man should be big, hairy and brawny as it would be for me to exclude less physical or slighter men, purely on the basis of impressions.

So what are our biblical precedents?

Cain was a man of the earth, who bent his back to the hot sun, to sweat and toil every day. He was a man's man, maybe, but when He tried to foist his manliness on God, he was rejected and found wanting. God found no delight in the fruit of his toils, no pleasure in the produce of the earth. Abel on the other hand, was a pastoral man, given to the gentler pursuits of shepherding that which had been entrusted to him. His faithful stewardship enabled him to offer a better sacrifice to God and thus found God's approval, to the murderous chagrin of his foolish, weak-minded sibling. Just consider here that the essence of corporate leadership is about stewarding of shareholder value, not about carving one's one personal career or image - that ought to put some of my arguments into perspective.

Esau was another man's man. Hairy would be an understatement. His name alluded to his hairiness and he was red as well, not to mention strong, physical and given to manly pursuits like hunting. Yet he had no clue about his heritage and no inclination to fight for that heritage. He also felt he had a birthright to God's favor without any obligation to steward what would so be entrusted to him. God would have none of that. He had no inclination, as the Great Steward, to entrust a significant dynasty and all that it stood for, to a foolish airhead. Instead God turned to the lesser of the two brothers, the one that the men of that culture had maginalized in favor of beefy Esau.

Jacob never dropped the ball. He too was a pastoral man, caring for what was entrusted to him as he also did with the great heritage that Isaac reluctantly ceded to him.

David, the greatest of all Jewish kings, was also a shepherd, of sheep and men. He was a man of poetry and music (he must have been gay??), an immensely courageous fighter, a deeply principled man and a faithful friend. His love for Jonathon exceeded the love of woman (what have we here?), but theirs was a quintessentially manly relationship of a depth that I have rarely witnessed between real men.

So my definition of a man is that he should be pastoral first: caring for all that is entrusted to him, namely his own life, his family and the community. He should be a priestly intercessor of those in his care and place such things above his own ego or selfish needs. He should fight for his constituencies and lay down his life if need be. The same man should be able to stand before God at the end of his life and give a noble account of all that was entrusted to him.

Therein is the mark of a real man.

(c) peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

How much for your time?

A man came home late, to find his 5 year old son waiting for him at the door. "Dad, may I ask you how much money you make an hour?" "That's none of your business!" the man said angrily."Please tell me," pleaded the little boy."If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour."

"Oh," the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, "may I borrow $9.00 please?" The father was angry. "You just need my money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense. Think about why you're being so selfish. I work hard everyday and don't have time for childish games."

The boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The father soon regretted his harshness and went to his son. "I was too hard on you earlier," said the man. "I am just tired, but here's that $9.00 you asked for."

The little boy sat straight up, beaming. "Oh, thanks dad" he yelled.Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man.

"Why did you want more money if you already had some?" the father grumbled. "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do," the little boy replied. "Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?"

Ever wonder what God would have to do to get an hour of your time?

Source: world bible school
Image: fountains of time by Lorado Tuft

Keep your eye on the ball ... in sport and life. Focus on what you are called to be, not on pleasing others ....

Despite identical rations, our two dogs would always suspect that the other got a better deal and so fight over their food … until the smaller one, having climbed into its bowl, was itself suspected of being a better meal – they don’t compete any more. But dogs have always competed this way, for status in the pack.

My son was 3 when he learnt to fight back – “Mom, he hit me”. In reply she said: “We don’t tell on our brother unless he is danger”. 5 minutes later he was back: “Mom my brother’s in danger”. “Why is he in danger, son?” - “Because he hit me”. Now my two sons play other games, like “He has been on that video game at least one whole lifetime longer than I have”. Soon they may need sneakers, shades and a cell-phone just to qualify for the game of life.

Of course we “grow up” and our games become more subtle - we usually replace conflict with cosmetic or symbolic things to enhance our actual or perceived status.

The $trillion cosmetics industry proves how desperately we need to be more than we are. We enlarge breasts … well women do anyway, but barely has the silicon set before they complain that men are looking at them.

Others go to great lengths to shorten their skirts and then work as hard to keep them down to their knees. Men have their ups and downs too … a colleague recently bought a costly BMW X5, so I asked him “if you drive your house, what do you live in?” … “In a shack” he answered.

Confucius pondered these things and observed how "men will lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health. They will think anxiously about the future and forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future and live as if they will never die, and then die as if they had never lived..... "

Nowhere is this more true, than for those who get to the top to find that someone else has done better than them – reducing their success to no success at all, partly because they can’t recognize success for what it is, but mainly because they had no objective measure of success to start with.

The key is to have an internal frame of reference.

Customer value is a valid yardstick or frame of reference for business success, yet firms still tend to measure their successes in terms of competitors’ achievements. “We have 25% market share … so hey, hey” … as though that’s enough. And the competitor then gets to define what we should be doing, not our customers.

Similarly individuals use their neighbors as a frame of reference – they feel okay as long as another seems worse off - or they compare themselves negatively and slip into a slavish pattern of living to everyone else’s standards … a dead-end.

Without a reference point, many will even become “technically successful” but miss the moment as it passes – rather becoming sick, psychotic or suicidal – another dead-end.

And then there are those who succeed by all external measures – but having conquered everything, they die of stress anyway and pass it all to their children to stress about … and in that one brief moment they finally achieve an elusive sense of family unity and purpose – their children even remember them and find something nice to say … but it’s a dead end anyway.

Okay … So how can you develop an internal frame of reference or homing mechanism?

In terms of sport I have taught my boys, two things. Keep your eye on the ball and don’t try too hard. As soon as someone is watching them, they try too hard, lift their heads and beat the air, so I take them back to basics and in no time they are fine again. In the same way you need to keep your eye on your personal values, priorities and objectives – so you can have a point of reference to guide your decisions and measure your achievements.

Peter’s idea of keeping his eye on the ball amounted to fixing his eyes on Jesus so that he did not sink beneath the waves. Jacob had a longer view. He anchored his soul to a stone, which he called the “house of God”: it helped him find his way back home and to escape oppression.

The writer to the Hebrews spoke of an anchor of the soul that extends beyond the veil. A life so anchored on a rock that cannot be moved and a beacon that rises above the clamor of life, is a sure stone, a precious cornerstone. Within the security of such an anchor, we just don’t need to try so hard and so can play our natural game, being what God purposed us to be, to hit without beating the air. That is a vital key to our own effectiveness.

When we look around, we sink, wallow, succumb to my own self-criticism and negatively compare my performance against others. But when we allow Jesus to be our compass, He leads us along paths we have not been before (Joshua 1) to bring us back to the Father. The Father will cast off our rags, clothe us as sons, place His ring on our finger (seal of approval) and anoint us for effective living within His house: to close the wounds opened by our natural fathers and enable us to live abundant lives.

“There is a green hill far away, upon a lonely hill, where the dear son of God was crucified, who died to save us all”. I point you back to a lonely, windswept, forgotten hill – there you will find your soul and the healing that you so need. Everything else is sinking sand.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Time advances, never retreats. We live, we die, we laugh, we cry and learn too late how small we are, how little we know ...

Clocks are progressive … they only go forward … well maybe sometimes they stand still when they run down or have no power left in them … depending on whether they are wind up or electronic gadgets. Like odometers they can be reset, and thereby made to effectively go backwards .. but that is cheating … whether you are male or female.

Okay so lets get more specific … time is progressive … it only advances, never retreats.

The courtiers of King Canute of England believed he could command the waves of the sea to retreat, but though he sat in his throne on a beach, the waves ignored him and the tide came in anyway. Kings cannot command the waves, any more than we can. Though engineers, like Dutch dyke builders succeeded in restraining the tides, they never stopped them.

And, no one, not even those who have used cosmetics, vitamins and oxygen tents to extend their lives have succeeded … not even old Methuselah who lived for about 970 years.

Okay, so much for the science lesson … so what now. Well actually you just aged by 2 minutes that’s what … if my “timeous” message has not yet added value to your life … well then you also just wasted 2 minutes of your short life.

A wise man put pebbles in a jar, with a pebble for each year of his expected 3 score and 10 year life. And then on each birthday he removed one, accepting that he might have some left when he eventually died … which would be unfortunate … or he might be able to put some pebbles back for each year he overshot his expected sell-by date. Then he made goals to ensure that each moment was well spent.

A less wise man was told by the doctor that he was going to die in 10 …. The patient appealed. “10 what?” he cried “Years, months ….” : “9, 8, 7 …..”

Generally we never see the time go by and we often wish it away. When my youngest was too young to be in grade 1, he yearned to be in grade 1, so he could do homework just like his brother, whilst his brother had actually moved on to the stage of wishing he could just reach the age where he could be allowed to watch Lord of the Rings. Both could not wait for their next birthdays … just the way I did as I ticked off the time to that moment when I would become a teen or an adult and then not have to do homework anymore. But when I arrived I just needed to wait for a car, a wife or something else.

I remember waiting 9 months, then 9 hours, then 9 minutes and finally 9 seconds for the triumphal shout “it’s a boy”.But whilst I was willing time on … I lost so many precious moments where I should have paused, slowed down and drunk in every experience. Now, I am trying to hold back time … but that seems to make it go faster … when we were kids it was too slow, now its too fast.

Recently I met someone I had worked with years before. We reminisced and commented on ageing … and we compared our time in the organization. 15 years for her. “If only that were my age” was her closing remark. But I closed by saying “its only a problem that you were once 15, if you also one day regret the loss of this very moment which you can still spend” (sounds like a pick up line – it wasn’t it was a put down line).

When I was at school, a teacher, wanting to teach a lesson about paying attention, gave us a little test … it said at the top “read all the questions before answering” – so we answered all the questions before reading.

The second last question, had we read it first, said, “only answer the last question”. Life is like that … we fail to get the point and then get presented with the only critical requirement at the end of life, when we will hear the words “the journey is more important than the destination”.

So for me I do find myself pushing back the one thing I can still manage … the invasion of my life priorities. Everyone demands my time … my job, my community, my club, my church … and all have merit. But I redraw my boundaries often to ensure that I do not miss moments of laughter and pleasure with my wife and children. And I also jealously guard my private moments, when I seek to be alone with God restoring my priorities. These are important.

As for my money … well bills must be paid, but I never regret “investing” money in memories and time with those I love. I can’t take it with me, so rather than let the taxman have it, why not buy some eternal memories … that I can take with me.

Well, now I have added another five minutes to your age …. I only hope you spent these moments well.

I leave you with a challenge from Confucius and I hope you will use it well, to add meaning to the times you have left: "What surprises you most about mankind?" Confucius answered, "They lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health. By thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future and they live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived..... "

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/