Big Brothers and Newborns

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It’s always a slightly tense moment when the last child meets the new baby. The one who has been the apple of mama’s eye now has to scoot over and share the limelight with a new born.

Sounds like the scenario for an alley fight–the old guy defends his turf from that soft newcomer with the sweet, innocent look.

Recently one of our grandsons got his baptism into little sisters. Josh has been center stage for nearly five years, all by his lonesome, and everyone wondered how he would react to his little sister.

He acquitted himself rather well as he sat on mommy’s hospital bed and held the newborn. When he had enough, though, he told his parents, “Back in mommy’s tummy.”

Josh was simply expressing the desire of a lot of brothers through the ages (sisters, too). But there’s one little problem—it won’t work. Once they’re out there is no going back.

That’s why the old religious leader was so shocked when Jesus told him, “You must be born again.” (John 3) “What, go back into my mother’s womb?” the old man exclaimed. Jesus had a way of expressing himself that rattled people.

But He was talking about a second birth. The first one came with the rush of mom’s water and a run to the hospital—the second one comes with a touch of God’s Spirit and a changed heart. The revolution in the second circumstance is just as radical as the shake-up in the first circumstance.

The unborn baby spends most of his time sleeping, eating and getting bigger, and Bigger, and BIGGER. At the end of nine months his mother waddles like a duck with a back ache and spends more time groaning than talking.

And the little parasite just sucks up all the good things she sends him to eat.

Then suddenly our little prima donna is expelled into a harsh world. “What’s that light? And those funny creatures staring at me?” Abruptly he’s lying on mama’s stomach and something seems vaguely familiar. It’s the outside of what he’s been inside of.

But outside, everything is different.

It’s like that for those who are born of the Spirit. Before we live in a world where our desires are all that count. We follow our passions, or we comfort ourselves in our own goodness. Then Jesus comes and we see our sin and our need of a Savior. Something in us revolts and tries to shrivel back into our cocoon but Jesus challenges us to let Him change our center.

And by faith in Him we say, “Yes! I believe you, Lord Jesus. I believe You died on the Cross of Calvary for my sins. I believe you rose from the grave the third day. I believe you’re at the right hand of the Father and You hear me right now. Forgive my sins. Save me. Make me right in your Father’s eyes.”

And he does it. It’s like being born again but this time it’s a miracle of the Holy Spirit that God works in your heart—that center that is you.

“If any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things have become new.”

You don’t go back into your mother’s womb. If you had gray hair and you were dumpy before you prayed, you’re still gray-haired and dumpy after your prayer. You may or may not have an explosion of good feelings, but if you pray like that in faith, Jesus says you are “born again,”–you’re in a new world. It’s a world where Jesus is Lord and we no longer live to please ourselves but to please the One who died for us.

If you haven’t done it, why don’t you skip back up to the prayer which you read earlier in this Coffee Stain and pray it to God with all your heart. You can begin again, too. Today’s a good time to get a new start.
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Hmmm…
“Strong passions oppose strong consolations. By indulging ourselves in discontent and fretfulness, we deprive ourselves of the comfort we might have both from God’s word and from his providence, and must thank ourselves if we go comfortless.” Matthew Henry, commentary, Exodus 6.

The Revenge of the Yip Yip Dogs

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A little story that I told on a recent Sunday morning provoked a reaction among some dog owners, and for that I want to redeem myself by saying some nice things about said dogs.

The story spoke of one time when I was distributing invitations for our church in Esch sur Alzette, Luxembourg. There it’s legal to put things in mailboxes so I was inviting people in this way. Some of the houses didn’t have letter boxes but letter slots in the bottom of the door and here’s where the adventure came in.

At one particular house, I bent down to slide an invitation through the slot. I was thinking about, I don’t know what, when suddenly a little dog on the other side of the door exploded with a high-pitched, “Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! etc.!”

I nearly jumped over the roof of the apartment house! Afterwards, I imagined a little Yip Yip dog on the other side of the door, rubbing his paws together and giggling. “Chalk up another one,” he thought.

“Grrr…” I thought.

So, I was a little disparaging in my comments about Yip Yip dogs in my message and I had some good-natured responses afterward. For that reason I’ve decided to pontificate about the value of Yip Yip dogs.

First of all, for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s those little dogs who must weigh about eight pounds. The weight is distributed like this: three pounds—hair; four pounds–vocal cords (tuned to a very high pitch); and one pound–dog.

Some people think that bulldogs and Dobermans (Dobermen?) are the best watchdogs, but give me a Yip Yip dog every time. First of all there is the obvious advantage of upkeep—they don’t eat nearly as much.

Bandit effrayé

But their value goes far beyond this. Let me illustrate. You’re soundly sleeping one night when an intruder sneaks through your kitchen. Suddenly he’s confronted by your bulldog, who growls ferociously and attacks. If the bandit is armed he starts firing, and it could end up like the shoot-out at the OK corral.

Imagine though, that our thief is sneaking through your kitchen when suddenly he steps on the tail of your Yip Yip dog in the dark. “Aeee! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! (times 1,000).”

You leap from the bed, run downstairs and turn on the light. The intruder lies on the floor, grasping his chest, wheezing. Your Yip Yip dog stands two feet away, barking furiously at the stranger. “Call the ambulance!” the miscreant croaks painfully.

Your possessions are safe, you are safe, and your Yip Yip dog is safe. You only have to pray for the thief.

There’s a little caveat here, though. Some dog owners allow their Yip Yip dogs to sleep on their bed. This is not good because if he’s on your bed when he goes off, you may be the one who suffers the heart attack instead of the intruder. And these little guys have sensitive triggers. It’s not always bad guys who make them explode. Sometimes it’s flies, mosquitoes, or who knows what?

Put the dog in the kitchen.

Though I’ve disparaged these cute (?) critters at times by my remarks, I suspect that if we were all changed into a breed of dogs, there would be more Yip Yip dogs among us than Bulldogs, Irish Setters, Collies, or other noble breeds.

You see, these small fellows get the job done. They don’t cut a fantastic figure like some of their more flashy counterparts, they just quietly go about their job (no, cross the quietly out); they just do their job.

In the Bible, Paul sometimes felt like a Yip Yip dog. He had some sort of weakness that should have limited his effectiveness. But the apostle just saw it as an opportunity for God to show up and help him do a job that he should have been too weak to do.

“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’”

Paul even came to rejoice in the small stature and squeaky voice of a Yip Yip person.

“Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.” (2 Cor. 12:7-12, The Message)

Truth of the matter is, when people see our inability, then consider what we’re able to accomplish, they often say, “That’s got to be God! He could never do that.” And so the glory goes right where it belongs—to the Lord.

So, if you feel like your just a Yip Yip dog in this life, don’t despair. Rejoice, that God can use little things.

And take advantage of your gifts to scare the socks off of someone every once in awhile. “Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!” (Hee, hee, hee!)

Strange Cows

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A cloud of dust rose around me as I followed the ploddin’ herd. Cowboying looks excitin’ when you’re watching John Wayne on tv, pardner, but real cowboys like me don’t think it’s so ro-mantic.

“Git along little dogie!” I yelled (I heard that on television too).

Suddenly I saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye as one of my cows bolted from the bunch. He ran as fast as his paws would take him but I was in front of him in a second and gradually, but with a whole lot of effort, nudged him back with the others.

Most of my animals behaved pretty well, just heading in the direction that I pointed them, but I had about eight furry little cows that gave me fits. They were constantly wandering off to the right and to the left. We could probably make 15 miles of progress in a day, but chasin’ these little guys cut me down to five miles.

Suddenly in the distance I saw a tall stranger, dressed in white on a white horse, gallopin’ my way. I heard music in the background. “Da dee dah da daaaah, da dah, tee da. Dah, dah dee tee dah, tee dah, ta daaah! Boom bah, boom bah.” (That’s the theme song of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in case you didn’t quite get it).

“Howdy stranger,” I drawled as he rode up. “You lost out here?”

“Nope. Saw you ridin’ off in all directions and thought I’d come give you a hand.”

“Mighty neighborly of you…” I had to stop in the middle of my sentence because another one of my furry cows tried to sneak out of the bunch. “Hey, you, git back in thar!” We’d never make it to Abilene at this rate!

The stranger kind of rared back on his horse and tilted his hat up off his forehead. “Think I know what your problem is thar,” he said slowly. I looked up with interest. “Them ain’t cows that keep runnin’ away from the herd. Them thar is CATS! And you just cain’t herd cats!”

“Da dee dah da daaaah, da dah, tee da. Dah, dah dee tee dah, tee dah, ta daaah! Boom bah, boom bah.”

Herdin’ cats

Life is like that, ain’t it? You wanna go somewheres and you keep getting distracted. Like this new-fangled internet thing people tell me about. You search for a word and see something else that interests you, so you gallop off after it, then something else gets you interested. At the end of the day you’ve looked at a dozen things and never found the first one you’re lookin’ for.

Had an old hunting dog like that once. We’d be off deer huntin’ and he be hot on the trail of a big buck when all of a sudden he’d cross a rabbit trail. We’ll I’ll be, if he wouldn’t leave off trailin’ that deer and lite out after that little cotton tail. I’d holler at him but it wouldn’t do no good.

Spect a lotta Christians are like that. They’re followin’ the Lord with their whole heart then suddenly somethin’ hops up—cat or rabbit, I don’t know. Then they’re off. Quit readin’ their Bible ever day like before; quit prayin’ so much because they don’t wanna be legalistic, you know. Even quit goin to church so much. They can worship the Lord under the big sky, they say, all the while usin’ the Lord’s day to catch fish or have a lot of fun doing somethin’ or other.

And they got plenty of time to make money and go do stuff they want to do. Guess it’s true, there’s only so much time in a life and if you want to fill it with as much fun as you can it’s more interestin’ chasin’ cats than it is to herd cattle.

I don’t know though. I figger that one of these days I’m gonna meet up with the Owner up there and he’s gonna ask me how I spent my time. Did I win others to Him? Did I serve them and help them? Did I live the way He told me to in the Bible?

Or did I spend most of my time chasin’ cats?

I know how I wanna be able to answer. And you, pardner? Why don’t you leave them cats alone and get busy doin’ what the Lord put you here to do?

You just cain’t herd cats.
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If It Had Been A Snake It Would Have Bitten You

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I’ve been “awareness-challenged” most of my life. For instance, mama would send me to look for something and I would look everywhere without finding it when finally she would point it out to me—right under my nose.

“If it had been a snake it would have bitten you,” she would opine. “Thanks mama. I needed that encouragement.”

With age, things seem to get worse. I notice buildings going up as we travel somewhere but my wife assures me that workers have been working on it for months and I just haven’t noticed it.

I still look for things that are right in front of me and it seems that since I’ve begun to wear glasses all the time, I’m even less aware.

“If it had been a snake it would have bitten you!” Thanks dear, I needed that.

My theory is that when you’re concentrating so hard on solving the great problems of the world, it’s hard to pay attention to minor details of life around you. Or something …

Sometimes though, I wonder if there aren’t a lot of “awareness-challenged” people around me. These folks say that they see no evidence for God.

What!

For those who are aware, it’s really no challenge to see God. Heaven and earth declare His existence! Lord Kelvin, a noted British scientist asserted, “If you study science deep enough and long enough it will force you to believe in God.”

Of course if you don’t want to believe, all you have to do is squeeze your eyes shut and clamp your hands over your ears. Atheist Richard Dawkins says in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”

Huh? I think mama would say, “If it had been a snake it would have bitten you, Mr. Dawkins.”

A blind man cried out to Jesus one day as the Lord passed near him,

“Son of David, Jesus! Mercy, have mercy on me!” Many tried to hush him up, but he yelled all the louder, “Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped in his tracks. “Call him over.”

They called him. “It’s your lucky day! Get up! He’s calling you to come!” Throwing off his coat, he was on his feet at once and came to Jesus.

Jesus said, “What can I do for you?”

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“On your way,” said Jesus. “Your faith has saved and healed you.”

In that very instant he recovered his sight and followed Jesus down the road. (Mark 10:49, 50, The Message)

The blind man didn’t say to Him, “I know it seems like you’re here Jesus but this is just a natural process set in action by forces unleashed–we’re not sure yet how–billions of years ago and blah, blah, blah.”

He just wanted to see and He believed that Jesus could do something about it. So many people think, “If it’s all true about God and His Son Jesus, why didn’t God reveal himself more clearly?”

Could it be that God has revealed Himself very clearly in the creation, in His Word, by His Spirit and in His Son Jesus? Maybe instead of praying, “Lord, reveal yourself!” We ought to pray, “Lord, open my eyes so that I can see! I’m ‘awareness-challenged’”

That’s what this man did. And those blind eyes opened and he saw–and followed Jesus with his whole heart!

Are questions, doubts, and anxiety blurring your vision? Cry out to Jesus so that you can see the truth—right in front of you.

If it was a snake it would bite you.

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Change does not come until someone gets mad. Those trying to bring change will make mad those who do not want change.

~Myles Monroe~

Snopes.com

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What did kids do to protect themselves from parents before Snopes.com? This website, which exposes urban legends and crazy emails purporting all kinds of untrue things, would be death on some of the stories my parents told me.

“You see, there’s this big fat guy in a red suit, riding in a sleigh filled with toys, who squeezes down the chimney and brings you great presents on Christmas morning,” my parents would say to little wide-eyed David, Wanda, and Charley.

And for a while we believed them!

Snopes would have fixed that. I could have checked it out and Snopes would probably have said something like, “False. Urban legend started many centuries ago … blah, blah, blah … and Santa Claus is really daddy.” Aha! I suspected that.

Or did you ever hear the story about how a great way to pull a loose tooth from an innocent little kid’s mouth is to tie a string around the tooth and the other end to a doorknob? The you slam the door.

I used to hear that story when I was losing my baby teeth. We discussed it in school, though I’m not sure I ever knew anyone who had it done to them. Parents always suggested it. In my heart it seemed possible, but I wasn’t ready to try it. Can you imagine the pain at the moment the door pulled the tooth?

Gives me the willies just thinking about it.

Probably Snopes would have said: “Usually false. A story invented to scare little kids into letting fathers or mothers yank the dangling tooth (so they wouldn’t swallow it in their sleep and cause great internal damage).”

How is it that we’ll put up with pain or inconvenience when we know there is a solution—it’s just that for a moment the solution hurts and we’re afraid of that pain more than the pain that dogs us each day?

Dangling Tooth

Pride reminds me of that dangling tooth. Have you ever had something that hurt you and the Holy Spirit whispered, “You’re pain comes from pride and an attitude that revels in feeling sorry for yourself and defending yourself. Let me yank that pride from your life.”

You’re tempted, because frankly, there’s nothing much more miserable than offended conceit, but it also feels good to blubber awhile. “Poor old me. They don’t appreciate me. I should have gotten that place, or they don’t respect me, or they just chose that person because he’s the son of someone important, or ‘God, why do you promote that person and leave me here in such a little, insignificant spot?’”

Sure it’s miserable but you find that you’ve developed a pride reaction lifestyle. I had a friend once, who was one of the nicest guys around. I didn’t see him for awhile then when I got to know him again, he was different. “I don’t let people run over me anymore!” he said.

Actually, I don’t think I had ever seen anyone try to run over him.

But now they sure didn’t disrespect him. Running over him was difficult because you could hardly get around him without him blowing up. It was like he was surrounded by a minefield and his pride was constantly going off. I like the old fellow much better.

We have an awful time admitting that pride inspires our reactions and we call it all kinds of other names to camouflage it, but when we’re honest with ourselves, we know.

Proud people don’t realize it but they don’t win respect by fighting for it. They end up with an opponent that they didn’t even know was against them.

“”God opposes the proud…” (1 Pi. 5:4)

Whoa! You mean if I get lifted up and act in pride that God Himself becomes my opponent? Yup. That’s what it says.

But read the rest of the verse:

“… but gives grace to the humble.”

Boy, if there’s anything I want and need, it’s God’s grace.

Getting that pride pulled out hurts terribly but oh, how good it feels afterwards! The pain is gone.

Probably our number one sin battle—if you go to the root—is waged against pride. And it’s a daily fight, not just a one- time affair. Just like you constantly have to trim the grass, and your hair, nails–and nose hairs–you constantly have to battle against the nasty intruder of pride.

But it better than looking up to see God opposing you, isn’t it?