Pleasing People

Posted by Jim Thornber on February 19, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ” Galatians 1:10

I’ll confess this right up front: I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to please people. However, I’m not really a people pleaser. Let me explain.

A people pleaser is one who does everything they can to make those around them feel comfortable and accepted. They go out of their way to serve others, smooth over difficulties and meet the expectations of those around them, even if those expectations are unwarranted, selfish or just plain silly. They habitually give in to those around them in fear of upsetting them, and constantly put their own needs aside to meet the needs of others, even if the others never show gratitude for the sacrifice.

No, I’m not a people pleaser.

However, I do try to please people. How? Through my writing and teaching. Let me try to explain what God has been trying to explain to me.

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On That Very Day

Posted by Jim Thornber on February 15, 2010
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“On that very day Abraham took . . . his entire household, and circumcised them, as God told him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old.” Genesis 17:23

How many of you are procrastinators? You know, someone who says, “Why put off until tomorrow something you can put off until the day after tomorrow?” I’m like that when it comes to certain chores around the house, like painting or raking leaves. But eventually, even the day after tomorrow comes and I have to do the chores.

However, this was not the attitude of Abraham. Genesis says after God visited with Abraham and established the covenant of circumcision, “On that very day,” Abraham circumcised every male in his entire household: Ishmael, all those born in his house or bought with money, and even himself. At ninety-nine years of age, Abraham believes that God will still bring him a family through Sarah and he has himself circumcised.

I’d have probably waited a lot longer than a day just to allow myself to imagine such a thing, much less obey it. Then I’d pray some more, ask God for a significant sign that it was really Him and not the devil, run it by my friends, my pastor, my wife and even the greeter at Wal-Mart. Continue Reading

Wrestling with Faith and God

Posted by Jim Thornber on February 9, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Worship. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

For four years I was an Assemblies of God monk with the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. This is an excerpt from my soon-to-be-published book Taking Off My Comfortable Clothes. The chapter is called When God Alone Is Enough (Isolation).

There were times at the monastery when I felt so alone I could hardly express it. I would often go to the chapel, find a dark corner to sit in, pull my hood over my head and mutter over and over, “It’s just You and me, Jesus. Just You and me.” I felt so very lonely, isolated, and separated from all that was familiar.

These were also times of questioning God–big, loud, bodacious, tear-filled questions that seemed to bounce off the ceiling of the chapel and slap me in the face. “Are You still with me? Did I miss Your will? Whose idea was this monk’s life, anyway? Does anybody care? Will I always feel so alone and without a friend? Do You hear me?” If you are interested, the answers to those questions were: yes, no, mine (I think), yes, sometimes, and always.

There will come a time in your life, if it hasn’t already, that you will sense all you have in the universe is God, and then you’ll wonder if even He is big enough to deliver you from your pain and the soul-wrenching questions no human being can answer. Continue Reading

Walking Among The Dead

Posted by Jim Thornber on February 4, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 8 Comments

“Meanwhile, a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead” – John 12:9

This passage encourages and challenges me at the same time. I’m encouraged because the masses are still attracted to Jesus, who remains the main event and primary crowd pleaser. That’s good. However, the people are also interested in seeing Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. That’s the challenging part.

This challenge leads me to a difficult question: If people are naturally attracted to a resurrected life, are they attracted to my life? Furthermore, if people are not attracted to me, I have to wonder if I’m living the resurrected life Jesus came to give. Maybe this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Philippians, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection . . . and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

The word resurrection literally means, to “place” or “stand up.” To the Greek mind of Paul’s day, the living people were standing up and the dead people were lying down. Perhaps Paul was giving his readers the image of a spiritually resurrected man walking among those who are spiritually dead and on their backs.

That’s a great image, but how do we do that? How do we live our Christian life in such an extreme manner that we appear as a living, walking body in a room full of corpses? Continue Reading

Scriptures That Bother Me — John 7:24

Posted by Jim Thornber on February 1, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

The Box

“Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment” – John 7:24

I was driving home from church the other morning when I noticed something in the road. The car in front of me swerved to miss the item, and when I got closer, I could see it was a large cardboard box. For some weird reason, I got this noble idea to pull into a nearby parking lot, go out onto the busy street, dodge some early morning traffic and get the box out of the road. If people continued to swerve to avoid the box, sooner than later it was going to cause an accident.

As I headed into the street, I noticed a car slowing down to let me get the box. At first I thought, What a nice man. Then this thought quickly entered my head: I bet this driver thinks I’m the one who lost the box. Little does he know I’m actually the one doing the good deed.

Here I was just trying to do the right thing and STILL my ego wants somebody to see me and say, “Hey! What a nice, gray-haired man to get that box out of the street. Hope he lives.” Or some such thing. I wanted to be known for the good I was doing, not be judged for being the one who littered the highway.

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Praying The Lord’s Name In Vain

Posted by Jim Thornber on January 28, 2010
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Ex. 20:7-“You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name” (NLT).

Just for the fun of it, I’ve been reading the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Covenant. I’ve been in Exodus the past few days, zooming right along and having a good time, right up until I got to Ex. 20:7, the third of the Ten Commandments. This one stopped me in my tracks. Like many of us, I’ve memorized this verse from the King James Version, which says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.” This commandment extends the idea of the second commandment, for just as God forbids us to show disrespect to Him by making a god out of something that is not God, it is also a disgrace to use His Name for no legitimate or valid reason.

Until now, I’ve mostly thought of taking the Lord’s name is vain as cursing. When I was barely a teenager, I’d often get frustrated and say, “Jeee-sus Chrii-st,” as if it was His fault I wasn’t getting my way. My dad heard me say that once and he shot me a look that has stayed with me for 35 years, and I’ve (mostly) succeeded in not saying it again.

Other times, I’ve heard people vainly use His name to express surprise or disappointment, or even fill in the gaps in prayer. This last one I find especially irritating. Continue Reading

Jesus Is Looking At Me!

Posted by Jim Thornber on January 26, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” – Mark Twain

Raphael, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, c. 1513-14

I’ve been thinking about Luke 5:1-11 for some time now. Jesus has finished teaching and decides to bless Simon, the owner of the boat He’s been using as a platform. Simon puts up a bit of an argument with the Lord but obeys in the end (Simon argues and finally obeys. This is not my point, but it does sound a bit like me!). The result is a tremendous catch of fish that almost swamps his boat – and this after a night in which Simon and his buddies caught nothing.

It is Peter’s response to this is tremendous catch of fish that I find disturbing. “Oh, Lord, please leave me – I’m too much of a sinner to be around you” (NLT). At first, I thought Peter said this because he had never been around a miracle or the power of God before, but this is not true. In Luke 4 Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and prior to that, Jesus cast a demon out of a man, and Simon was more than likely a witness to that miracle, too. Simon was accustomed to seeing the power of God, but still I wondered, Why did Simon react so strangely when God’s power was focused upon him?

I believe the answer is in Peter’s response: “I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” When the power of God is pointed at our neighbor, or even our mother-in-law, we don’t have to react or deal with the results – we just observe. But when God’s power comes into our lives – and in Peter’s case, his business – then we must make a decision: Am I going to continue to allow this power to remain, or am I going to send it away, because if the power stays, then there is no more room for myself.

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Gnawing on God

Posted by Jim Thornber on January 21, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

I like the word “meditation.” Although some Christians are truly scared to meditate – thinking it is something done by cultic Eastern religions while forgetting that Judaism and Christianity ARE Eastern religions! – Scripture is full of injunctions to meditate upon the Word and Law of God. Joshua 1:8 says, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

The word for “meditation” in this passage comes from the Hebrew haghah, meaning to murmur, to mutter, to sigh, to moan, to roar, to meditate, to muse, to speak, to whisper. The word also describes the low moaning sound of a dove (Isa. 38:14) or the “growl” of a lion (Isaiah 31:4). Eugene Peterson uses the analogy of a dog gnawing on a bone, getting everything it can out of it.

This got me wondering: what is my heart gnawing on? Continue Reading

Scriptures That Bother Me — Genesis 18:6-8

Posted by Jim Thornber on January 15, 2010
Posted in: Christian Spirituality, Religion, Worship. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Presenting My Best

“So Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, ‘Hurry . . . and bake some bread.’ Then Abraham ran out to the herd and chose a tender calf and gave it to his servant, who quickly prepared it. When the food was ready . . . he served it to the men. ” – Genesis 18:6-8

After reading this passage about Abraham’s hospitality to the Lord and the two angels, it occurred to me that sometimes I am either too lazy or too impatient to give to the Lord in the manner of this marvelous man.

Here’s the scene. One day Abe is sitting in front of his tent during the hottest part of the afternoon, sipping sweet tea and listening to the tree frogs, when he looks up and notices three men standing nearby. He must have figured they weren’t normal beings since one moment no one is there and the next moment they’re standing nearby. Since he didn’t see them approaching from the distance, their appearance is Abe’s first clue to be nice.

Realizing he has heavenly guests in his front yard, Abraham goes into high gear and asks if He may treat them to a chair in the shade, a foot bath and a fresh meal. They say “Okay,” and Abraham rushes off to arrange a nice lunch for his guests.

As I was reading this, I wondered why Abraham would go to all this trouble. Continue Reading

Just Jesus

Posted by Jim Thornber on January 11, 2010
Posted in: Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” – John 4:10

A few years back, a popular Christian tee shirt compared Jesus to Coke. It said, “Jesus: He’s the real thing.” It was cute, as far as it goes. Not life changing, but cute.

Then I heard a minister compare the life-giving  water of Jesus to a can of Coke, or any soft drink. He said Jesus was a pure relationship with God, while a soft drink was a relationship with man-made additives. One was pure relationship and one was mostly religious. Well, he had my attention.

Water, as opposed to your favorite soft drink, is necessary for life. We must have water in order to live. We drink it and wash with it. Water is a lubricant, dispels heat and sustains life, supports digestion, makes things soft and aids in eliminating waste. All life on this planet needs water to live. Water is indispensable, and the need for water has been the force behind more than one war.

A soft drink, however, with all its fancy ingredients, is necessary for nothing. We cannot bathe in it, use it to brush our teeth or add it to our radiator to displace heat. We can’t water the lawn with it and no one would use it wipe down a dirty table or wash their clothes. A soft drink is mostly water with various additives; and none of these additives is necessary for an efficient and effective life.

Here’s the part that bothers me. Instead of focusing my life on the pure, life-giving living water of Jesus, I’ve often focused too much of my time on the additives. And when we add stuff to Jesus, we limit His effectiveness.

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