Seeking to Find

There are sometimes when I have a fairly obsessive personality.  It mostly manifests itself when I lose something.  There are few things that frustrate me more than losing something.  In some ways, I consider it a disappointment that I would be so careless.  In other ways, it could just be my bucking against the busyness of life.  I generally lose things when I have a lot going on and I get overwhelmed with trying to keep everything straight.

If you would ask my wife, she would tell you that on more than one occasion, I have taken a ride late at night to go in search of something at my office that I was unable to find at home.  If I go to bed having lost something, I have had a hard time sleeping and usually get up to search for whatever is lost.  On the Myers-Briggs Type indicator, I am a fairly strong "J" which means that I need closure and resolution.

My wife, on the other hand, is not nearly as obsessive.  On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, she is a "P" which means that she can more easily float from one thing to another without feeling the need for closure.  We are different people and over the course of our 11 years of marriage, I'd like to think that we have come a little closer to center, her being more purposeful in seeking closure and me being a little less obsessive when searching for things.

While we were away at a family wedding last weekend, my wife received some very nice earrings from her mom.  She wore them to the wedding and in an attempt to keep them out of certain little hands, she put them somewhere safe.  The problem was, the hiding place was so safe that she couldn't find them when we got home.  A few days later, after we had gotten home, we were starting off our day and my wife informed me that she lost her earrings and may have left them at the hotel.  She told me that she was very disappointed, especially considering that she had only had them a few days.

Naturally, I sprung into action.  My obsessiveness can be an advantage at times.  When we go away, I check back in the rooms where we stayed 3 or 4 times before we leave to go home to make sure that we have not forgotten anything.  I knew that I had checked the hotel room in which we stayed to see if there was anything of ours lingering around.  I had not found anything and was able to announce that we had everything.  So, I knew that the earrings had to be somewhere.  Still, there was a doubt in me and I feared that maybe I had missed something.

I checked duffle bags, pocket books, shoe boxes, and a sundry of other bags that had gone with us on the trip.  All to no avail.  I asked her if she could think of any other place where she might have put it and she mentioned the diaper bag.  I went to the car to find the bag and began the arduous task of checking every nook and cranny within the diaper bag.  I shuffled things around, dug in each and every pocket until I finally found a little plastic baggy that contained the earrings.  Triumphant, I ran upstairs and held the bag up to her, asking, "Are these them?"

I sensed the relief and could read it on the face of my wife.  Her hiding spot had been so good that she was unable to find it herself.  Mostly, I was happy because she was happy.  While I might not hate other people losing things as much as I hate losing things myself, it could be a close second.

As I thought about the reckless pursuit of the earrings that I had undertaken, I couldn't help but think about Jesus' parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son.  Jesus used these stories to illustrate the value that individuals are to God.  As I recounted the storied, I wondered how often I placed the same value that I had placed on finding those earrings on people in my life.  How often had I chosen to put everything else aside to pursue something that was lost or in need of fixing?

As I thought it through, I wondered what made me obsess about certain things and not others.  Jesus did not indicate in his parables that there was anything particularly special about the things being pursued.  It wasn't that it was the favorite or special in some way, it was just that it was lost.  I really felt convicted about the value that I put in things outside of myself.  How much obsession do I put into pursing those who are lost?  The ones who I love and value the most?  How about the ones that don't necessarily hold a special place in my heart?  Does a pair of earrings really matter as much as people?

Conviction is a tough thing, but it's tougher if I don't let it do what needs to be done.  Its purpose isn't to guilt me into doing things, just to help me to think things through more, and that's exactly what I hope happens.  I hope and pray that I will value people more than things, that I would leave the 99 to pursue the one, and that the one that I pursue would know that they are valued by me, regardless of whether I think that they are the best, the brightest, or even my favorite.  I've got a long way to go in this area, thanks be to God that I don't have to do it by myself.

Literally

I have learned a lot over the last few weeks about how literal children are in their interpretation of words.  It's something that I think we often take advantage of until we really think through the need to explain metaphors and figures of speech to children and those whose first language is not the English language.

This become readily apparent to me during my vacation while we were at Busch Gardens.  Yet another lesson learned from the amusement park.  Our family had spent the whole day at the park and we knew that the "witching hour" would be upon us soon and the children would start melting down if we tried to push our luck with them.  The weather outside was starting to become questionable and some of the rides were getting shut down.

Somehow, we were able to get on a river ride just after it had reopened and right before it closed for the second time.  My two boys and I rode and we were soaked by the time the ride was over.  So what better way to enter into a nice air-conditioned theater than soaking wet?  Right, but that's just what we did.  My wife and I really wanted to see the "Celtic Fyre" show.  The kids had responded pretty well to all of the shows that they had seen over the days that we were there, so we thought that we would give it another try.

One of the most important questions for any parent to ask prior to going into a theater or show is, "Do you have to go potty?"  I took the opportunity to ask just that and both of my boys said that they did not.  We may have already gone on the way to the theater, so I didn't think anything of it.  The show started and they seemed to be into the music and dancing.

About midway through the show, my 5 year old got up and was doing the "pee pee" dance.  I reluctantly grabbed him and we made our way to the back of the theater to find a bathroom.  As I was leaving, I asked my other son if he needed to go.  He told me that he didn't but I needed more assurance of that.  I kept pressing him, but he insisted that he didn't need to go.  There was no restroom in the theater, so we had to go outside the theater and through the park to find one.  By the time we got outside, it had started raining.  We ran to the bathroom and made our way back to the theater.

We both settled back into our seats to catch the last 10 minutes or so of the show.  Not 30 seconds later, my other son starts saying, "I have to go potty."  I am not a patient man, and this nearly sent me over the edge.  I knew that the show was almost over though, so I asked him if he could hold it.  In fact, my exact words were, "Can you hold it until this is over?"  He said that he could and crawled up on my lap to watch the rest of the show.

As the song played on and the performers danced, I thought that I was in the clear.  We could enjoy the last part of the show and then hit the bathroom prior to leaving the park.  Well, the music stopped and while the note was still hanging in the air and the audience was still applauding, I felt a sudden warmth on my lap.  I looked at my 3 year old and said, "I thought you were going to hold it."  He looked back at me and said, "It was over."  He had a point, I had never specifically told him to wait until the whole show was over, so to him, the ending of the song was reason enough to assume finality and unleash the fury that his bladder had been holding.

I teetered between frustration and amusement.  I told my wife what had happened as she was trying to figure it out as she looked at the constant banter between my son and I.  We laughed.  The show ended and I imagined myself walking around with a distinct smell of urine on me.  Thankfully, I had already been soaked from the ride that we had been on, otherwise, it may have been a "Billy Madison" moment when I tried to convince people that I had peed my pants to make my son feel better.

I will be very careful about my words with my children in the future.  Not that I already hadn't been, but my sensitivity has been heightened.  But it's not just with children, it's with everyone.  Our tendency in this digital age is to allow our communications to be abbreviated.  Abbreviated communications can easily lead to misunderstanding.  I don't know about you, but I hate to be misunderstood.

In this political season in which we find ourselves, it's hard to find people who say what they mean.  My intention with my son was to clearly communicate so that I could be understood, it seems that there are many out there who are trying to communicate in such a vague way that they can be easily misunderstood.  I wish that people would say what they mean and mean what they say.  It would make things much simpler in the understanding arena, trying to decipher the message would be a lot easier, not so much a detective game, but just a listening game.

As I sat and thought about this, I was reminded of James' words in James 5:12, "Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned."  Regardless of what others do, I have a responsibility to communicate as clearly as possible, to allow people to interpret my words as close to "face value" as possible.  I need to do all that is within my ability to eliminate the potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding, which means that I need to think through what I say before I say it.

Everyone hears things different, children aren't the only ones, we need to communicate with that in mind.  People will take us literally, they will take us figuratively, they will misunderstand, they will misinterpret.  All that we can do is be aware of the possibility and do our best to communicate as explicitly as possible.

(By the way, if you don't understand the picture, there was a scene in the movie "Spaceballs" where the soldiers were told to comb the desert.  They took the command very literally.)

Looking Good on the Outside

I posted a blog about ironing on Monday and this post follows a similar theme.  It's interesting to me how we can sometimes change things on the outside and expect that it really makes a difference to the inside.  It's kind of like "My Fair Lady," where a disheveled and common girl is turned into a proper lady by Professor Henry Higgins.  But the fact of the matter is, unless something changes on the inside, it's just behavior management on the outside.

I was reminded of this when my family was on vacation and we visited another church.  From the outside, everything looked great.  In fact, I may have even been a little envious of the facility that they had.  The worship space was great.  They had state-of-the-art equipment.  They had a nice little cafe out in the foyer where people could watch the service on flat screen televisions.  It seemed like they had all of the pieces to make everything work well.

But good equipment and fancy stuff doesn't necessarily change things.  You can dress things up, but it doesn't always cover over the fact of who or what someone or something really is.  At the end of the day, it felt like there was a lot of "cool" stuff but not a whole lot of depth.

I am sure that the people at the church are nice people.  I expect they love God and enjoy serving Him.  But the experience was really just a reminder to me that you can get everything "right" on the outside and if you don't let God do the difficult work on your heart, it's all for naught.  I can pretend to be something that I'm not, but eventually, the pretending will be too hard for me to handle. 

I don't really think that it's a matter of keep trying to look different and eventually you will act different.  I believe that the only way that we can change is through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.  I can do my best to make all the changes that I think I can, but I really don't think that they will last.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is 1 Samuel 16.  The Lord sends Samuel to anoint David as the new king and he looks at David's brother and thought, "This guy must be the future king, the Lord's choice for Israel."  Instead, we read in verse 7, God says to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

It's easy to get caught up with how things look on the outside, but we need to remember that it's what's inside that matters most.  Behavior management is one thing, a changed heart is something completely different.  May my heart be changed.

We've Lost Your Child!

A funny thing happened at church while we were on vacation.  They lost one of our kids.  Yup, you read that right.  We dropped him off at the children’s area and when the service was over, he wasn’t where we had left him, nor did anyone seem to have a clue where he was.

So, let me start from the beginning.  For pastors, it’s not often that they get a chance to visit other churches.  It’s actually something that I want to incorporate into my schedule on a more consistent basis, but overall, it just doesn’t happen that often.  It especially doesn’t happen with new and different places that we have not experienced before.  Usually, we attend the churches our families or friends go to while we are visiting them, we don’t often go to places where we’ve never been.

With that in mind, as we drove to the place where we were staying that Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, we were on the lookout for places where we might consider going to worship the following morning.  As we drew closer to our destination, we spotted a larger church that seemed like it might be a good fit.  Once we got to the house where we were staying, I went to the church website and got some pertinent information and we agreed that we would check it out the next day.

We arrived a little bit early and came to the children’s area where there was a check-in desk.  It seemed to be fairly secure as the children were all registered and given name tags.  We also, as the parents, were given name tags so that they would be sure to allow us back into this area later when it was time to pick up our children.  My daughter, who is the youngest, has been experiencing some separation anxiety whenever my wife leaves, so we thought it best to just keep her with us.  My oldest son would come into the service with us and leave midway to go to a special program.

So, I tried to drop off my younger son, the middle child.  I walked into the classroom with him but he couldn’t be convinced that it was a good idea for him to stay.  This wasn’t going exactly as I had hoped and planned.  We rushed into the auditorium and found a set of chairs in the back so that we could make a quick escape should we have any issues with the kids.  A little way into the service, my daughter started fussing and I took her out into the foyer where there were audio and video feeds.

Not too long after that, the doors of the auditorium opened and a steady stream of children and parents came rushing out.  I watched my wife take my boys.  A few minutes later, she returned and let me know that the boys were together and would stay together until we picked them up.  We settled in and did our best to pay attention to the rest of the service, but my daughter was not so content to simply be held or stay in a stroller.

As time rolled on, it seemed that we were fighting a losing battle and the service was drawing to a close.  We decided to get a jump on things and pick up our boys early.  So, we got through all security measures to get back into the children’s area and I followed my wife to the room where she dropped our boys off.  As we walked into the room, we saw our oldest, but our youngest was nowhere to be found.  We asked our older son where his brother was to which he replied, “I dunno.”  Well, did he know where he was?  No.  Did you see where he went?  No.

Uhhhhhh.  We went to the teacher who did not know where our son was either.  At this point, my wife exits the room with my oldest son and scans the crowds for a familiar face, particularly the person who had been responsible for our boys when she dropped them off.  The maternal instinct of some of the other children’s workers kicked in and they could sense that there was a mother who was concerned.  As they saw the concerned look on the face of my wife, they asked if they could help.  As the story was unfolded to them, they began heading off in every direction, seeking someone who could locate our son.

By now it’s been about 10 or 15 minutes which, when you are full of anxiety bordering on panic, seems like an eternity.  I was experiencing a whole onslaught of emotions, not the least of which was anger.  Divinely, my salivary glands seemed to have gone completely dry, ensuring that I was not able to say anything, which for anyone who knows me, probably was a good thing.

I went into every single room in the children’s area in search of my son while my wife kept my other two children and constantly told the next person who came her way what we were looking for.  At one point, I looked at my wife and mouthed the words, “Keystone Cops.”  I was doing my best to keep a positive perspective in the midst of this.  Fortunately for me, I did not stop anywhere long enough to engage in conversation with anyone.  Unfortunately for my wife, she did.  So, she heard the endlessly long list of stupid things that people say to you when you are in the midst of a moment of panic.  She heard comments like, “This has never happened before” and, “He can’t have gone far” and better yet, “He has to be safe.”  While those things may all have been true, they were definitely not what she needed to hear at the moment.

Meanwhile, I went back towards the auditorium to see if I caught a glimpse of my son.  I scanned the crowds to no avail.  As I headed back towards the children’s area, I noticed a single door just outside of the children’s area.  As I approached, I heard the sound of children inside.  As I came closer to the door, I looked through the window and caught a glimpse of my son on the window sill, surrounded by girls, and looking outside at the pouring rain.  I took a deep breath and opened the door.

I called his name and he ran to me.  That embrace can’t be described by thousands of words.  I looked up at the teacher and told her that we had been looking everywhere for him.  She said that he had been there the whole time.  Well, thank you, Captain Obvious, so glad that you let the rest of the world know that as well.  Chalk it up to one more comment that would have been better left unspoken.

I picked my son up and walked out the door to find the rest of my family.  Turns out they put my 3 year old in a First and Second Grade class.  Not quite sure how that happened, and neither was he.  As I approached them, I could see the relief in my wife’s eyes.  As we were all reunited, we quickly began making our way towards the exit as some of the children’s workers followed us, attempting to do “damage control.”  To be honest, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Pretty crummy way to start our vacation, but we were grateful that our child had only been misplaced for a time.  While it may seem insignificant to most people, it was a pretty big deal to us in the 25-30 minutes that we were searching for our son.  It certainly felt like an eternity and I can’t even begin to imagine how parents feel who lose their children public places.  It certainly left me anxious and agitated for the rest of the week every time that we went out into a public place with lots of kids like the beach or an amusement park.

The Wednesday following this Sunday, I got a phone call on my cell phone.  It was the associate pastor from the church.  I think the senior pastor must have been on vacation because this associate pastor was the one who had preached while we were there.  He called to apologize and see how everyone was doing.  I expressed my appreciation for his concern and he told me that they were taking the incident as an opportunity for a learning experience.  I said that I was going to do the same.  I assured him that we were not in danger of being turned off to God because of the experience, though I did let him know that I was thankful that it happened to us and not someone who was simply coming to check out the church for the first time.

Not sure if we will find our way back to that church in the future.  I am a firm believer in grace, but I also believe that first impressions go a long way.  While I don’t hold any bitter feelings, I don’t know that I would easily go back to a place where my child seemingly disappeared for half an hour.

The afternoon after the incident, we made our way through the torrential rain to our destination which was Plan B for us.  We were incredibly grateful to be together as a family, despite the rain.  All afternoon, my 3 year old continued to say, “Why did they put me in First Grade?”  We just kept reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault.  Finally, after about the 10^th time of him asking the question, his 5 year old brother looked over at him and said, “Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it?”  Yup, buddy, that sure is the mystery!