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Land of the Living

Psalm 27

Of David.

1 The Lord is my light and my salvation—
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
    of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When the wicked advance against me
    to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes
    who will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me,
    my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
    even then I will be confident.

4 One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
    he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
    and set me high upon a rock.

6 Then my head will be exalted
    above the enemies who surround me;
at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;
    I will sing and make music to the Lord.

7 Hear my voice when I call, Lord;
    be merciful to me and answer me.
8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
    Your face, Lord, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me,
    do not turn your servant away in anger;
    you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
    God my Savior.
10 Though my father and mother forsake me,
    the Lord will receive me.
11 Teach me your way, Lord;
    lead me in a straight path
    because of my oppressors.
12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
    for false witnesses rise up against me,
    spouting malicious accusations.

13 I remain confident of this:
    I will see the goodness of the Lord
    in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
    be strong and take heart
    and wait for the Lord.

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Crazy World

I don’t often write about my children, out of respect for their preference for internet privacy, but this string of events is too strange not to share.

In the past few months one of my sons has been a firsthand witness to 1) a police sting, 2) armed road rage aimed at he and his girlfriend, 3) a drug bust and paddywagon-haul of a houseful of neighbors, 4) the discovery of a man’s body while walking a riverside trail, and just last week: 5) a swat team with drawn guns emerging from a black SUV in front of their home, moving quickly down the block to swarm another neighbor’s house.

Only some of this drama happened in his immediate neighborhood, which is (or was) a fine one. It’s only a two block walk to a beautiful, private college campus. There was no reason to expect trouble in their environment.

A few days ago he and his girlfriend moved to a small city in an adjacent state for new jobs. They have a nice apartment in a complex bordering a picturesque, wooded bike path.

In the early morning rain on their very first morning there, my son’s girlfriend took the dog outside to do his business, and came face to face with two men exiting the bike path. They seemed “off” to her. She remembers every detail of their appearance. They stood staring at her, then kicked down a trash container and went on their way. Soon after, despite a downpour, a fire broke out in the woods. Within minutes, multiple police and fire vehicles descended, and the two out-of-place men were forgotten.

I visited my son and his girlfriend yesterday. We took the dog for a walk, saw the burnt area in the woods, and wondered what caused it. Back at home last night, I heard on the TV news that a stolen car had been burned on that bike path, and two men had been seen from afar fleeing the area. The police asked for help from any other witnesses. I called my son — since their cable and internet had yet to be hooked up, they’re in a news void — and already this morning, his girlfriend has become a helpful witness in the police’s attempt to identify and apprehend two car thieves and arsonists. Welcome to your new town, kids.

The first drama was shocking, the second disconcerting, the third weird, the fourth surreal, the fifth causing detachment, and the sixth causing laughter! They’re young – most people outside of high crime areas don’t witness that much up-close-and-personal “TV drama” in a lifetime. Even I, a once worried and protective mom, am bewildered to the point of humor. Of course, they haven’t been hurt – that would change everything – but our takeaway to date is, it’s a bizarre, unpredictable world sometimes!

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

It makes me wonder what God has in store for them. Has he brought them close to events that were transpiring anyway (people have free will), to prepare them? To train them? To equip them with knowledge and wisdom for something ahead? To mold their temperaments to befit meaningful work, to be of help to others?

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

I don’t know, I just think so many incidences are too unprecedented to ignore — God may have His hand in it. And that gives me peace. Peace beyond understanding. Peace that comes from security, from confidence in God’s plan, and certainty in His great love.

Philippians 4:7 – And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

May this peace be true for you, too.

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Crazy Ambition

Some people just don’t get it. It’s like they were raised on “The Little Engine That Could”. They even generalize it to —

We think we can!

We think we can!

What do you do with people like that? I mean, check out this video. Who thought to expect a large high school class to put together a performance for graduation in just two school days? What about the students who never sing or dance? — who assumed they could do it? And the length of it! — how could all those kids remember almost ten minutes of choreography and lyrics when ceremony time came?

Someone should have realized the expectations were unreasonable. The whole thing was ridiculously over-ambitious.

It required solidarity — surely it was much too much to hope for.

Didn’t anybody tell them that?

The video is owned by MoStreet Productions. The following information was provided by videographer, David Niu:

Published on May 29, 2015

Class song & “Kaipahua Kura”

For those of you who messaged me for more info:

This is the senior class of 2015 at Kahuku High School located in Hawaii more specifically the North Shore of Oahu. The seniors learned this number in 2 days…they did a great job.

@8:43 they performed the “Kaipahua Kura” which is their very own “Haka” or “war dance” from the Maori people of New Zealand.

Kahuku High is a very culturally diverse school with lots of school spirit and pride. Good luck to them!

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Boldness

28 May 2015 – by Dr. Eugene May

I was reading the Book of Proverbs and these words caught my attention: “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the RIGHTEOUS are BOLD AS A LION.” As I read these words again, I began to see how God wants us to live in this world. He not only called us “RIGHTEOUS” but He said that we are to be “…BOLD AS A LION.”

“BOLDNESS” is not something that we often think of when we consider ourselves. We are often reminded to “…walk HUMBLY with our God.” This is true, but often we confuse “HUMILITY” with “WEAKNESS.” In fact, I have often heard things said like this: “If you are a Christian, you will not stand in the face of opposition.”

God spoke of Moses with these words, “Now the man Moses was very HUMBLE, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” I am quoting from a more modern version but the older version (King James Version) calls him “MEEK.” Moses was not “WEAK.” He stood in the face of Pharaoh in Egypt and declared liberty for the people of God.

Child of God, you are living in difficult times and you may be living in difficult circumstances. God wants you to be “BOLD” in the face of your enemy Satan. You are to stand in the face of Satan and command him to get his hands off of your family, your health, your wealth, your business, your job, your ministry, and anything else he may be attacking. You have the power of the “NAME OF JESUS” at your disposal, USE IT!

“Behold, I give you the AUTHORITY to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

With gratitude to Dr. Eugene May, who has given permission to share his posts on my blog. May posts daily on Facebook in English, French, and Spanish – https://www.facebook.com/eltonemay. He also has a website, http://eugenemay.org/ , and has written a book – http://www.amazon.com/Dr.-Eugene-May/e/B00RPA33Z2  .

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Personal Landslide

cindigale's avatarCindi Gale

We all know people who don’t want to face the world on a given day. They are tired of being stepped on, and generally sick of the crap of life. Some are overwhelmed by the state of society—”The world is evil; there’s no point; evil is winning”—while some are direct targets of crushing injustice.

In either case, we hear it in their anger. It is evident in their depression. It has become personal. They’re buried under it.

To all those in a state of defeat, worry, frustration, reactive anger, or agony, know that hope is alive somewhere under the rubble. Love is in there too. Faith is recoverable beneath your personal landslide. We hear its life, its breath, its cry for mercy. 

It’s true that corruption and oppression are real, powerful, suffocating, and sometimes deadly. But it hasn’t won. You’re not done breathing. You’re not done with faith, hope, and love…

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When the Going Gets Tough, Part 1

This three-part post addresses parents of difficult children, but can be generalized to apply to anyone hoping to influence a person who is morally ambivalent.

When a child’s alarming behavior threatens to establish itself as permanent traits through repetition, someone who cares is desperately needed to intervene on behalf of the child’s character and future. Tragically, some parents are so minimally invested in their kids or their standards are so low for them, that they are nonchalant about their own child’s highly concerning character and behaviors.

Those parents who do intervene are often criticized by those who have no comprehension of the child’s willfulness. Some kids are determined to sabotage their own lives and the peace of their family. Their parents’ words might be anything but sweet, but appropriate and necessary in a situation worthy of disapproval.

To an outsider who gets only a snapshot of a committed parent and child in a struggle like this, it can be misinterpreted as the parent being hyper-critical or harsh. A longer look would reveal this is a worn but committed parent, dealing with a child determined to defy all that will benefit his life.

It depletes a parent emotionally and physically to uphold high hopes and expectations for their child. The temptation to take the path of least resistance is always present, offering gain of instant relief from the conflict. But also present is the knowledge that it will come at the price of lost long-term peace and diminished character development.

Our children’s potentials are before us, waiting to see if we will believe in them or give up on them. No matter how tired or frustrated parents become, a child’s life is significantly influenced by our expectations. Their full potential is theirs to apprehend, not ours to limit by mirroring to them a belief that mediocrity is the pinnacle of their potential.

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When the Going Gets Tough, Part 2

Parenting children leaves little to no room for selfishness or neglect. I don’t mean neglecting THINGS — a messy house is just a thing — I’m talking about neglecting kids. Children at every age need love; they also need us to tackle attitude and behavioral issues.

Parenting difficult and oppositional children is especially demanding. Those who have done it know it is brutal. They can be a Parent Extraordinaire, but if their child applies his strong will to foolishness, they will often be measured not by their herculean parenting efforts but by the behavior of their child. The best of parents can be deemed a “bad parent”. It’s one of those horrible injustices inflicted on undeserving parents, because … well, people can be stupid.

Those who have been mistreated this way … Ignore the critics. Carry on. Your child’s excellent future depends on it.

Parents of obstinate, rebellious, or insolent children need support and encouragement from their friends, family, community, and teachers to not give up on their child. They need to hear others want the best for their difficult child.

For parents whose child has chosen terribly despite your commendable efforts, you have my empathy, as well as my encouragement to not take the easy route by giving up on your child. Be righteous yourself, but stay the course, expecting integrity, excellent character, and respectful behavior from your child. The more extreme your child’s choices, the more intense your battle. The more intense your battle, the more marvelous you and your child’s victory.

I know the prolonged, frustrating effort is extremely hard and others may not understand or help. People may even heap unfair and hurtful judgment on you, based on what they see or hear about your child’s behavior. It’s painful. It’s adding insult to injury. It’s unjust. All of it is. You didn’t raise your child to be doing what he or she is doing. And you’re exhausted. You don’t need public disapproval on top of all you’re dealing with at home. Rest and recover when you need to, but please, please, please don’t give up on your child.

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When the Going Gets Tough, Part 3

If you know your position is righteous, you’ve made your point and your opinion is clear, but your child simply won’t accept it, you may have to let him have his way. Let him suffer the consequences, within reason. That’s still not giving up on him. There’s still hope going on there. Suffering consequences can be convincing where nothing else is.

It was not what you wanted to do and it pains you to know that trouble could have been averted, but he (or she) has insisted on his way. If you don’t give up the effort, the more you try, the more he will fight you. Some will fight to extremes you don’t want to go to, and will not give in to you. Some will become a worse person simply to win, so to give up the fight eliminates the conditions for his unrighteousness to become firmly established.

It is a good outcome if the willful person ends up gaining wisdom from the consequences. It may be accomplished the hard way, but it is a positive result just the same. And may I point out: Good for him for overcoming the odds, even if he created his own odds. I still respect him, maybe more so, because he had to swallow his pride to make a fresh start to live righteously.

May God keep you strong and capable. May he help you be flexible, so that you are what your child needs you to be over time. May you allow God to parent THROUGH you. I pray God protects your child as his life unfolds. May you have the wisdom to let him learn and grow. May his highest potential outlast the difficult, troublesome stages of his life. I pray you are rewarded with a deeply loving relationship with your child in the end — lifelong trust, joy, laughter and love beyond measure.

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When Fight Is Right

speaking head for blog

The idiom, “it takes two to tango”, is often used to imply that if a relationship is rocky, both parties are to blame. That sweeping assumption is false in many circumstances. Apply logic to it and it falls apart.

In some relationships, one party chooses to dominate, bully, deceive, betray or manipulate the other. Must the responsibility for the resultant rocky relationship also rest on the innocent party? If the victim raises objections, is his or her “fight” deserving of outsiders concluding, “it takes two … “?

Not when this is happening … (I’m going to use “she”, which is statistically more likely to be a victim of abuse, but know that “he” can also be the case.)

A person on the receiving end of mistreatment finds herself alone, judged, confused and wounded. Beyond the clear wrongs done to her, she is up against mind games. She is being indulged by the person she is deeply committed to. That person is just nice enough, giving enough, seemingly-essential enough, to keep her from leaving. Once her ongoing presence is secured, they knowingly, willingly, unconscionably return to mistreating her. They repeatedly sabotage the relationship, while she amps up her desperate efforts to salvage it.

Simply put, one person brings destruction to the relationship and the other puts all her efforts into cleanup and rebuilding. Devotion to the relationship in those conditions is difficult to comprehend for those who would walk at the first swing of the destructive hammer.

A highly tolerant and committed person understands it. She doesn’t give up quickly. She truly cares. She wants the relationship to work, and knows if some things change, it can work. If only a few right choices are made; if only a changed mindset occurs; if only the wrongs stop, all could be well together.

She hears of others’ success stories: Sometimes destructive ways are replaced by righteousness. Sometimes staying in an ignoble situation someone else caused, is made right by staying — the wrongdoer is influenced to choose righteously. Or the person reaping havoc is her child — she won’t walk away from her child. Just as often, it is a “friend”, work “family”, extended family, etc. who is the user and abuser, and there is history together. There can be significant personal loss if she simply leaves.

And so she stays, committed, fighting to help the wrongdoer, and determined to salvage the relationship the other is hellbent on destroying.

Do her efforts always look sweet? Hardly. If a loved one is throwing himself in the fire, so to speak, she will bring out every tool she has to object to their choices. Because she cares. She is invested. She wants them to live righteously and have an outstanding character. The more committed she is, the more tools she’ll use, even the fiery ones if forced to, to discourage a person determined to harm himself or others.

But this is critical: The communication tools you use must always be in truth, acceptable to God, and justifiable for the situation. If there is no certainty of your safety, or of God’s approval of your behavior, abstain from confrontation. Get close to God; know his will; learn his heart; let him have yours. There will be no righteous “win” for the relationship if that doesn’t happen. Don’t go near wrath unless you’re so yielded to God that his Holy Spirit is doing it through you.

Some people can commit such extreme wrongs, that those in their lives who are still committed to them are forced to respond with equal strength. And when she does, even though her actions may be blameless before God, and of God, others may catch a glimpse and wrongfully presume, “It takes two … Both are arguing, so both are wrong.”

She knows better. Optimally, she’s secure enough to disregard the ignorance of those who judge without knowing.

For those on the outside who briefly witness his battle, consider this: How can she deal with cruelty, rebellion, deception, betrayal, theft, or abuse with sugary “Jello and pudding” encouraging words?

Ponder this extreme example: What a tragedy that Hitler was approved of by those in his life, when he might have been stopped early on had he been met with vehement disapproval. Should support and encouragement have fueled that fire?

Sweet support is for fueling what is good. Fiery vehemence is for stopping what is evil.

A committed, caring person doesn’t give up on relationships quickly. That’s a good thing. Even if, in the end, the relationship dissolves and each goes their separate ways, she will always know she did everything she could to salvage it.

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Letting People Go

DSCN2009, blogPride is an insurmountable obstacle to correction for many. We have all witnessed people who have destroyed their own and their family’s lives. Others can see who needs to take ownership of their actions and work to mend the relationships they shattered, but they won’t do it. They prefer becoming insensible mental contortionists to owning up to the harm they did. They will further develop their fabricated story by claiming they were driven to their destructive actions. They deny any choices were involved. They even claim to be the victims. People and circumstances, or whatever they can scapegoat, are blamed for the origin of the destruction. Certainly it wasn’t them! Aw, the lunacy.

It’s a tough situation to be in the life of one of these people. Regardless of your innocence, a person like this will spread lies about you to deflect attention from him as the perpetrator. He targets you because you had the misfortune of being a witness to his sequence of destructive events. You’re the one on the inside who knows the truth. Truth is the enemy to people relying on lies.

Depending on what the perpetrator does in the aftermath of the trauma he created, you need to decide what you are then going to do. You’re an equal in every relationship you’re in. You matter, too. When a relationship suffers from one person’s choices, you have to reassess the status of you (and any children, for parents) as it relates to that relationship. Stay the course? Will that be fruitful? Repeat this cycle endlessly knowing it is back to the same place with no change at all, after each crisis settles?

Committed people put up with so much. But one committed person can’t ensure a good relationship. We never will have control over another individual’s will. Should we be surprised at that? It’s the same for God; he allows us free will.

As a highly-committed type person, I’ve tolerated too much for too long with so many people. Finally, I became so depleted and frustrated that I had to stop and let them proceed, knowing they were headed straight for a metaphorical fire to get burned. Afterward, I realized that in many cases I tried for too long, to the point that I was unable to go on anymore. I learned from my errors the importance of making wiser, optimally-timed decisions in the future.

I also learned how God is with people: Yes, of course He cares. Yes, he exerts much energy on people’s behalf while there is potential for payoff for those efforts. But when a person’s will becomes set, and no amount of effort will change anything, he allows their choices. We should learn to do the same. If we don’t and apply effort too long, at that point forward it becomes an enabling, co-dependent, creepy-wrong thing that is not healthy and very harmful to both of you.

Sometimes you have to release others to their own wills, and accept what happens. It is agonizing to watch a preventable crisis or relationship-collapse happen, it really is. But you need to be released from bearing more of the burden than is yours to carry. Others have to own full responsibility for the choices they make.

If you keep fighting battles for people who won’t fight them for themselves, they will fight YOU. Your life ends up embroiled in an impossible battle. When you identify someone is aware but still insists on their destructive modus operandi, you may have to walk from the battle and put your energies elsewhere. Within collaborative and healthy relationships, your efforts can then be unhindered, meaningful, and productive.