May 2005

I’ve heard it said that if you only teach your kids one thing, teach them to tell the truth, because if they will lie, they will be willing to commit any other sin. And why not? They could easily cover up their misdeeds with a lie and no one would be the wiser.

We really don’t take honesty seriously these days. It used to be that if a man gave you his word, he kept it without fail. There was no need for contracts – a handshake was as good as gold. I dare say there are few living today who even remember times like that.

It’s gotten particularly difficult in the business world. How do we know if a product is what it says on the label? Sure there are government regulations on some things, but people have learned to skirt around the law so well that they might fall under the technical aspect of truth and still be far from the reality of truth.

In Proverbs 6:16-19, God lists seven things that He hates. A lying tongue comes up twice – number two and number six. (We’ll explore the others next time.)

Since it can be difficult to tell whether a merchant is telling the truth these days, I’ve taken to praying about new or bigger buying decisions, and I will often check with people I trust or research reputable sources to be sure what I’m getting is truly a good thing.

But even then, it is possible to run into shysters. This is one of the downfalls of living in a fallen world. Perhaps that’s why David prayed to be rescued and delivered from the hands of foriegners who speak lying words. He knew the sting of their betrayal, their ability to deceive. And he wanted to deal with those who spoke truth.

As should we.

Over the years I’ve come to discover that people lie. Some lies are the point blank to your face kind that are meant to deceive. Others are less intentional, more along the lines of not keeping one’s word. To say one thing and do another. Still others are almost innocent, words said nearly without a conscious thought. Like the guy who says, “I’ll call you”, and never does. They are words to say to make polite conversation but hold no meaning whatsoever.

I was faced with the first kind of lying, the intended to deceive kind, when I worked for a sales rep. company many years ago. These people made their living wining and dining executives at big companies in order to garner their business. To look good was the name of the game. Part of looking good meant having the appearance of being honest salesmen. Honest and available.

Except for those times when they were neither. It was then that they asked me to lie.

“Just tell them the boss isn’t in.”

“But he’s sitting right there in his office. Can’t I just say he’s not available?”

“No. Tell them he’s not in.”

They even asked one of their supposed “Christian” salesmen to explain to me the difference between a “lie” and a “little white lie”. Obviously, they were following some code of conduct other than the Scriptures. My refusal to comply cost me my job.

Maybe that’s why lying is such a sensitive subject with me today. But I take seriously the verses in the Bible that tell us to put away a lying tongue.

I read yesterday in Psalm 144:11 where David writes: “Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners, whose mouth speaks lying words…”

Everyone is capable of lying to us. Our family, friends, business associates…even foreigners. Foreigners, you say?

David was probably speaking of literal foreign people, Gentiles not Jews. I would apply that thought to people we do not personally know, people who might want to sell us something from afar. Which brings up another point to this thought.

But I’ll save that for next time…

Have you ever over analyzed something? Tried to figure something out that was simply beyond your ability to comprehend? I have.

I remember as a kid trying to figure out how God could have always existed. My finite little mind went back as far as it possibly could until my brain hurt! But try as I might, I could not understand how God could have no beginning and no end.

People don’t always like that kind of God. We tend to want to put Him in a box and form Him into a figment of our own making. The Old Testament speaks of the foolishish of men who would cut down a tree and then start a fire with some of that wood to cook their meal. Then from that same tree, they would carve an idol to bow down to. What kind of god is that?

Psalm 145 verse 3 states: “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable (beyond our understanding).”

There are a lot of things that I personally don’t get. Take a car’s engine, for instance. My husband can tell you all about pistons and rotors and intake valves and spark plugs, whereas I’m just happy if I can get behind the wheel and the thing runs. He understands about changing the oil every 3000 miles. If he hadn’t told me that, I would run the car until the engine died, never knowing the difference.

My inability to understand the inner workings of a car’s engine does not mean that engine does not exist or that someone else doesn’t understand it better than I do. It simply means that I don’t know everything, and there are things out there that are bigger than I am.

In a similar way, a lot of people don’t get that God is truly great, that He created the heavens and the earth, that His Word (the Bible) is truly His Word and He intends to keep it. Rather than accepting what He says about Himself (and He’s the only one who truly knows), and believing in the many wondrous works He’s done, they want to pretend the He doesn’t exist.

But just because something is beyond our understanding, does not mean we should toss it out as either nonexistent or unworthy of our attention.

It just means that human beings don’t know as much as they’d like to think.

To continue my Inhibitions thread…we left off with David leaping and whirling in a worshipful dance before the Lord. His wife, Michal, looked down from one of the palace windows and despised him for acting so undignified. He was the king! Kings weren’t supposed to act like common men or worse!

I imagine her upbringing had something to do with her reaction. After all, she’d been raised as a princess, and as her father’s kingdom progressed, his pride in the office of king and opinion of himself as greatest in the land escalated. Some of this likely rubbed off on Michal.

During Michal’s childhood, there had been no true worship in Israel. It wasn’t until this moment during David’s reign that the focus on God was given its rightful place in the land. Michal’s bitter heart could not accept the change or the actions of her husband.

David wasn’t thinking about other people as he leapt and whirled, dancing before the Lord. His mind was God-centered and his worship was uninhibited.

I admire David for that, but I’m not sure I could be like him. Over the years I’ve learned not to feel awkward if I raise my hands during a church service, but dancing in the aisles isn’t likely to be something I will do this side of heaven. A certain sense of unacceptance holds me back (though I’ve been known to sway a bit and tap my toe). :)

Our American culture is more prone to a less exuberant worship than David’s Middle Eastern culture. Even today our Middle Eastern neighbors show a greater exuberance, a more physcial display of emotion than their European or Asian counterparts.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t be creative in our worship of the one true God.

For me, creativity in worship comes more in the form of a new song. I grow easily weary of repetition. I’m old enough to remember the days when we held worship hymnals in our hands and sang different songs from it each week. There were no screens on the wall with the words put up for all to read. There were no repetitive phrases and songs were not sung week after week with little change.

The Psalms tell us to “sing to the Lord with a new song”. For me that means new in a week by week way and new in a brand new, never been done before way. Give me some of the richness of the old hymns and give me a song someone in the congregation has written. But don’t let our music grow repetitive and stale.

After all, we’re singing to the King!

Happy Monday!

My 28th Wedding Anniversary! :)

I can’t believe how fast time has flown since that long ago day when I was a young bride. Three kids, a mortgage, and a lot of life in between and here we are, older and still happily married.

This brings up something that came to mind the other day. The longer Randy and I are married, the more routine life can become. We get used to each other and comfortable with the status quo. That’s not bad, of course, but I think everyone needs to dip into their creativity once in a while and come up with ways to creatively love.

For instance, I have a friend who has been married a bit longer than we have, and she and her husband take turns planning monthly dates. One month he might plan dinner and a trip to the art gallery, and the next she might plan a day at the zoo. But whatever the outing might be, they take turns coming up with something they can do together.

I took that idea and have planned a surprise for my husband, though it has to wait a couple of weeks. And he took the idea and had planned a surprise for this weekend, until he threw his back out this past Monday. So his plans are on hold.

Then today, while searching the internet for a restaurant we hadn’t been to in a while, I ran across a dinner cruise in our area that sounds so romantic! They don’t begin running them until June, but I’m already making plans for us to go sometime after they open.

Marriages these days don’t always last as long as ours has. We both come from families whose marital legacy spanned over 60 years and for my parents still counting. (His mom died five years ago after 64 years of marriage.)

Too often today people give up on marriage before it ever gets started, or they bail when the going gets rough. It’s worth it to stick it out, but it might take a bit of creative loving along the way.

Don’t let the status quo make life so comfortable that it gets boring. God, that awesome Creator of us all, gave us the ability to be creative in return. When we use that to focus on how better to love our mates, it will make our marriages stronger.

Now off to celebrate!

I decided to try something new in my Bible reading. I’m going through the Psalms backwards. Starting with Psalm 150 and moving toward Psalm 1. Yesterday I read Psalm 150 and 149.

I know it probably sounds silly, but I often start with Psalm 1 and then something comes up and I end up starting in a different book or doing a different study. I don’t always finish what I started with this wonderful book. So I decided to mix things up a bit.

The interesting thing about the later Psalms is the way they focus so much on praise. The praising, directed toward Almighty God, comes in many different forms. The psalmist encourages the reader to praise in different places – the sanctuary, outdoors while gazing at creation; and with different instruments – the harp and trumpet, loud cymbals and lyre; and in different postures – on their beds or on their feet dancing.

People are commanded to praise the Lord, but it is interesting to note in Psalm 148 that the psalmist also addresses the sun, moon, and stars, the waters, the sea creatures, fire, hail, snow, and clouds, stormy wind, mountains, hills and trees, beasts and cattle, creeping things and flying fowl to exalt His name. No one is exempt – not king or prince, young or old, male or female or any other created thing – all are to give Him the glory due His name.

Have you ever seen the flowers dance? Or a young goat skip? When a bird sings, is it just instinct, or is it singing a new song to the Lord?

Of all God’s creatures, people have the ability to be the most creative in their praise. But so often we lapse into familiar patterns. We think of praise as something we do on Sunday mornings when we sing praise and worship choruses. The same music, sung the same way comes from lips that know the words, but do our hearts carry the tune?

King David got creative in praise to the Lord when the people of Israel brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. He stripped off his royal robes and dressed like a common man, danced before the Lord. Perhaps removing the trappings of royalty allowed him to focus less on who he was and more on who God is. Inhibitions aside, he lost himself in praise to his King.

Some of the people looked on with respect and admiration for a man who could forget himself and focus only on God Most High. But there was at least one who looked down on him with utter disdain.

That person came from his own household.

More to come…