Filled with Hope By an Empty Tomb

On Easter we celebrate Christ risen. The following thoughts tell why:*

1. The empty tomb fulfills God's promise to send his Son to defeat sin and death by his crucifixion and resurrection.
2. The empty tomb reveals God's power over death.
3. The empty tomb promises that God will receive us into a paradise free of sin and suffering.
4. The empty tomb demonstrates God's power to change us from sinners to saints.
5. The empty tomb guarantees that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
6. The empty tomb offers assurance that God is always with us.
7. The empty tomb proves that we are saved, not by works, but by the loving grace of God. 

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 

                                                                                                                              Ephesians 2: 8-9


*Adopted and modified from the words of Paul Tripp

A Basement of the Masculine Type

My friend has a masculine basement. Not the wimpy kind that you enter on a wide oak staircase. Not one with textured walls upon which hang Kenneth Wyatt and Thomas Kinkade paintings; nor are there tile floors softened with Turkish rugs. There is no media room, nor poolroom. No bathrooms or bedrooms with feminine froufrou; nor elaborate decoration.

No. His is a muscular basement. The kind you enter through a narrow doorway; squeeze, contort and bend down making careful not to miss the 8x2 steps resting unsteadily on cement blocks. The floor is damp, uneven limestone hewn out of the land. There is a small wood fireplace providing the only heat in the house and a naked 60-watt bulb unlit hanging from a ceiling not more than 6 ½ feet high.

At the bottom of the stairs lies a beautiful Labrador with glistening raven hair, unmoved breathing shallowly. It’s a big lab. Weighs over one hundred pounds. Actually it’s not a full lab. It is a part-something-or-other…that explains the size. My friend picks her up and carries her outside for toilet needs.

Three days and three long nights ago our Appalachia corner had an 8-inch snowfall that crushed power lines. The snow began melting saturating the land so that excess water began finding a home in my friend’s basement. With no electricity for the sump pump, he had been getting up every two hours to empty the basement water buckets.

That is how I met his dog. Hearing about his 72-hour Herculean task I had gone over to commiserate and perhaps lift a bucket or two.

He had taken her to the veterinarian a couple of weeks before where he found she had cancer of the terminal type. The vet offered to put her down, but he wanted time to savor the last few days and allow the children, now grown and moved far away, to say their last goodbyes. So now he picks her up and carries her outside when needed, and sits with her and occasionally reaches down to pet her and waits for the electricity to come back on.

Learned Happiness

Pretend you paid cash for your favorite vehicle—a Mercedes perhaps, or a Dodge Viper or maybe you favor a Jaguar. You included every accessory you ever imagined--leather seats, the best sound system, and a GPS. Hopping into your bright new car brings delightful happiness.

As you are driving out of the dealership, an out-of-control garbage truck crushes into the left side of your car, spilling smelly trash all over your shining exterior. Suddenly you are shocked, angry, and decidedly unhappy. In a nanosecond, your mood changes from elation to dejection.

This thought experiment tells us that happiness depends to a certain extent on happenings. When your life glides on silky waters as smoothly as a sailboat in a soft, summer breeze, you radiate happiness. When your life resembles a leaky vessel, you exude unhappiness.

Behavior scientists have shown that happiness is determined by three factors:

1. Genetics--studies of twins and adoptees show that our happiness/unhappiness response can be explained by the way Mother Nature mixes the chromosomes we inherit from our parents.
2. Life circumstances--our income, marriage, children, occupation, physical health and where we live contributes to our overall chance to experience happiness.
3. Intentional activity--learned emotional and behavioral factors. How we act and how we respond to circumstances contributes to our overall chance to experience happiness Mental and behavior changes can enable us to rise above our chromosomes and circumstances. Those who cultivate love, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control and faith in God can learn to live a joyful, contented life no matter what circumstances occur. 

A Hellofa Fight

Squabbling over money leads to fierce and friendless fights. Because the greedy are always seeking more, they pound the life out of relationships. A miserly attitude that prevents generosity and kindness drains the life-blood out of an alliance. 

Given these two contrasts, I began to wonder what hell would be like for these character types. Here’s what I imagined: 

Descending into hell we find a boxing ring made extra small to insure constant battle. In the ring are two tanker-like bruisers pounding each other with piteous ferocity. 

One fighter eyes blackened, ears thickened into cauliflowers has Miser tattooed on his chest. He fights in a plodding, machine-like style grinding away at his opponent whose nose and mouth drip copiously with blood that pours down her face riddled with violet scars. With Greed branded on her right breast and Bleed on the other, she dances and bangs combinations into Misers bruised and battered face.

      

The monsters at ringside sit on spiked chairs and clamor for more blood. The bell rings and the fighters return to their corner. Greed spits blood into a bucket and sneers across to Miser who gestures defiantly spewing expletives.

      

An impish figure—short, round, balding with a broad gnomic face and wearing a blooded referee uniform comes over. He points down a huge corridor. As far as the eye can see cramped boxing rings crowd the hall, each with accursed fighters flailing away at each other. 

The referee explains in a granular, rumbling voice that he assures continuous fighting except for a one-minute rest between rounds to allow the fighters to feel the lacerations of their pain. 

Thus the greedy and the miserly suffer the anguish of their sins forever.

This blog has been formulated to offer encouragement, optimism and hope. How does this entry fit with these goals? Well...perhaps the message will encourage all of us to be more generous to those in need: to not continue to want more and more and to be less stingy with our resources, to be benevolent, charitable, unselfish and to help those less fortunate.

In Defense of Idealism

If you are flying in a propeller airplane from west to east and a cross wind is blowing from the north you have to point the plane in a northerly direction to get to where you are going. 

If you point the plane at the exact destination you are heading for the north wind will cause the plane to land south of the direction you are aiming for. 

Mankind is like the airplane: if we treat a child, a man, a woman as if they are normal, they will drift southward and become less than they could be. 

If you treat a child, a man, a woman expecting them to be better than they can be they will become what they could be. 

Who first suggested this? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: 

When we treat man as he is we make him worse than he is. 

When we treat him as if he already was what he potentially could be 

we make him what he should be.