Author: Dave Burchett

This month we are counting down the most read blogs in the nearly two years of humble ramblings. Today we check in with Number 17: Topic Number One – Forgiveness.

 

Over the weekend I watched The McLaughlin Group. I had not seen the show in years but not much has changed. Moderator John McLaughlin fires out discussion points in staccato fashion to the panel. McLaughlin shouts out the topic and then the name of the person chosen to respond first. If we had our own version of the show this week (The BadChristian Group) I suspect the opening salvo might go like this…

Topic Number One…FORGIVENESS…is it even possible?

DAVE???

This is an important subject. One of the most read articles I have posted dealt with forgiveness and I am going to revisit some of that blog today. I have written a lot about the Amish response to the tragic shootings in Pennsylvania. Those gentle people have taught me a lot about the topic. Yes it is possible. But it is very difficult to forgive if you have never been forgiven. For Christians this is a central theme of our faith. We have been forgiven. So what do we do with that gift of forgiveness? To paraphrase the not always ready for family time comedian Ron White…

We have the power to forgive…we just don’t have the ability.

I think that we have generally done a poor job of teaching forgiveness. Here are a few misconceptions that I personally had about forgiveness. This is from a chapter on forgiveness I wrote about in “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church”.

Forgiveness is not condoning or diminishing the offense. Forgiving a person who has wronged you does not mean they are “off the hook” for any consequences or judgment that may result from their actions. Forgiveness is a personal act of your will that releases the other person from your condemnation. At that point you have been obedient to what Jesus asks of you…the other person is responsible to God for their response. By extending forgiveness you are not saying the offense was insignificant or unimportant. You are saying that you trust God to see that justice is dispensed according to His Holy judgment and timing.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. The old forgive and forget admonition was one of the biggest barriers I faced in my journey to learn how to forgive. You know the old mental challenge to not picture an elephant in the room. You can’t do it. Instantly the image pops into your mind. The more I tried to be spiritually mature and try to forgive and forget the more my offender became the “elephant in the room.” That person or event was all I could think of. Over time you will think less and less of the hurt and/or the one who administered same. C.S. Lewis wrote to a friend late in his life. “Dear Mary…Do you know, only a few weeks ago, I realized suddenly that I had at last forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my childhood. I had been trying to do it for years.” To try to achieve a state of instantaneous forgetfulness is setting yourself up for failure and frustration.

Forgiveness does not require reconciliation. Certainly it is a worthy goal to have the gift of forgiveness lead to a restoration of a damaged relationship. But it takes two people to reconcile and you have no control over anyone’s response except your own. The other person may not respond graciously. They may not be ready to accept forgiveness or acknowledge their part or even desire to be reconciled. Again, we have done what is required of us by extending the grace of forgiveness. Reconciliation is not required to be obedient to the command of Jesus.

Forgiveness is an act of the will and is not a response to feelings. We must choose to forgive and trust the Jesus who forgave us to eventually change our feelings. We may not “feel” like forgiveness has transpired. If you decide to wait until you “feel” like forgiving or that the other person must make the first move you will remain spiritually stuck. We have to make the choice and then wait for God to honor the choice. We make a choice to forgive and then we have faith that the Holy Spirit will reshape our feelings over the course of time. Forgiveness requires choice and faith, just like every miracle that comes from God.

Forgiveness is not ignoring or excusing the offense. There is nothing to forgive if we have not been wronged. Jesus is not asking us to ignore reality. He is asking us to acknowledge how much we have been forgiven and to extend the same courtesy to others. Forgiveness is acknowledging the offense without cover-up or excuse and still choosing to forgive.

Forgiveness is not denial of the hurt. Pride will often cause us to “not allow the person who hurt us the satisfaction” of knowing we are wounded. That is absurd. Acknowledge the reality of the injury but make the choice and decision of your will to be healed.

Forgiveness is eliminating revenge as an option. Lewis Smedes makes a brilliant point about revenge. No matter how much we try “we cannot get even; this is the inner fatality of revenge.” When you start trying to get even you have lost. How many times must I gossip about you to get “even” for the hurt you caused me? When is the scale even? Or do I need to have the scale tip a bit toward me to be satisfied? What a self-defeating pursuit that becomes! And the truth proclaimed by Josh Billings is “there is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”

Forgiveness means understanding that hurt is part of the faith tour contract that we signed when we decided to follow Jesus. Author David Stoop notes that, “People choose the Path of Bitterness when they get caught up in trying to understand the reasons for the offense. They think, if only they could understand why the other person did what he or she did, they could get over it
and let it go.” I have three words for that approach….does not work.

The late author Lewis Smedes wrote powerfully about forgiveness. He often spoke of how only forgiveness can “release us from the grip of our history.” We cannot change an abusive upbringing. We cannot alter dysfunctional theological training that denied grace. We cannot simply deny the hurts that have been visited upon us and be spiritually free. Only forgiveness can release us from the grip of these real and historical events.

Forgiveness is not the cop out of weak people. The reason you need to forgive is that our Designer knew that is the only way for you to be fully healed. You have a Savior who understands the pain of betrayal. So I am going to ask you to be selfish and forgive. Say what? I have heard bitterness described as drinking rat poison and hoping the other person dies. The comparison works for me. It is vital to your spiritual well being to forgive others. When you follow the directive of Jesus and forgive you are free to concentrate on the blessings in your life. Is this easy? Of course not. I believe that forgiveness is the single hardest thing that Jesus asks us to do. But He knows how important forgiveness is for own growth. Will you go to Hell if you die today without forgiving another person? I don’t believe that for a moment. The redemptive act of Jesus on the cross literally has you (and sins past, present, and future) covered. But why would you want to live in anger and distress when Jesus has something better for you? The Apostle Paul’s wrote these words in Colossians.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Col 3 NIV

The movie “End of the Spear” chronicled one of the most amazing stories of forgiveness in recent memory. A group of missionaries were killed by the Waodani tribe in Ecuador. Their wives forgave them and went back to minister to their husbands killers. One of the things that really struck me from the movie “End of the Spear” was that in the Waodani language, there is no word for forgiveness. The concept was so foreign to that culture that no word had ever been coined. In our Christian culture we have the word but we too often lack the theology to apply it. Pastor Tommy Nelson says you can’t live a successful Christian life without good theology. And I believe understanding the Biblical teaching about forgiveness is one example. Jesus told the parable of the unforgiving debtor.

Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”

“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven! “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

“But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

“When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’

One observation from the parable. The debtor never acknowledged the obvious. That there was no way he could repay this debt. He made the ludicrous promise that he would “pay it back”. So the big lessons from the parable are not only extending mercy but realizing how much we have been forgiven. While I will likely never commit an act of brutality like the shooter in Pennsylvania I nonetheless had a debt of sin that could not be repaid. When I realize how much I owed I should be overwhelmed with gratitude that the debt is paid. And from that well of gratitude I should be able to extend that mercy to others. Thomas Fuller observed that “He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has to be forgiven.”

To be honest, I still don’t know if I could respond as well as the Amish saints to their heartbreaking tragedy. But I do know one thing as I write these thoughts today. I have seen that it is possible. So I know I have the theology and, with Christ, the ability to forgive like those men and women. The hard truth is that a Christian who is not forgiving is a Christian who is not growing. I am going to pray for me (and for you) to make the choice to forgive. God will do the rest.

Happy Fourth of July! Today the Bad Christian Top 20 Countdown is at Number 18 with this post: I Fought the Law.

I hope you read my blog about going to Homecoming last weekend at Baylor University. It was a wonderful weekend spent with family and friends. But I want these ramblings to be authentic and real. I have an embarrassing admission to make. I drove and parked carefully in Waco last weekend because I feared I was a wanted man. Let me explain.

October 22nd dawned sunny and pleasant in scenic Garland, Texas. I blissfully strode to the mailbox to retrieve my daily dose of catalogues, junk mail, and bills. I sorted through the stack.

“No annual fee for 12 months” – Correct. I am tearing it up.

“A Special Invitation from Miracle Ear” – I don’t like what I can hear. No thanks.

“A Charming Way to Show off Your Cleveland Browns Pride” – After last Sunday??? How about therapy?

“A Special 14 Hour Sale Just For You” – I can’t be there. You can go ahead and cancel it.

And then the heart stopper.

WARRANT ISSUED

Please be advised that Judge (I don’t want to make him mad), City of Waco Municipal Court Judge, has issued a warrant for your arrest.

This got my attention

This may be your last opportunity to pay.

This is Texas…that is a scary statement.

You also can be arrested at your work or home.

They would have a hard time finding me working but this is serious stuff!

My mind raced. I thought that this is going to hurt the very modest sales of my Christian books when I am cuffed and dragged off to the big house. The next thought was what the blazes had I done to be a wanted man? I called the City of Waco offices and gave them my case number (my first time to have a case number). I was thinking insanity would be my plea…witnesses would be no problem. The clerk informed me that my offense was actually a parking ticket picked up and ignored by my first born while he attended Baylor. I could simply admit my (his) guilt, give them a credit card number, and avoid having a humiliating mug shot on file. She turned to the records to enter my payment.

“Oh wait,” she said. “This was paid in full in 1999.”

“So if I had been pulled over in Waco this weekend I would have been cuffed and jailed for an offense that has been cleared?”

“Sorry Sir, I will fix that.”

For some reason I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the record keeping on the Brazos. I asked her to send me a copy of the debt payment just in case I somehow, inexplicably, for the first time in my life, was caught speeding through Waco. On Thursday before Homecoming I received a notarized release of my guilt. I carried it in my pocket all weekend.

Later I thought how scary that notice was and I was innocent! I can’t imagine the fear I would have experienced had I been guilty and received that warrant.

It made me think of another life experience where I fought the law. As I examined God’s Word I realized that I could not keep the law and live a sinless life that would allow me to be declared innocent in front of a Holy God. For a while I fought the law, and the law won (is there a song in there somewhere?). But I realized I could never reconcile with a Holy God on my own merit. James says if you break one part of the law you have violated all of it.

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. (James 2:10 NIV)

I had broken large chunks of the law. But when I read further I found out something very interesting. My debt had been paid in full over 2,000 years ago. I would not get a notarized copy but I would get the reassuring presence of the Holy Spirit. If I was terrified to face the City of Waco what would it be like to face a Holy and Righteous God with a warrant issued for my sin?

I will never know. My debt has been paid by Jesus. I fought the law and the Lord won. If your sin warrant is still active may I encourage you to get it cancelled today?

The Top 20 Countdown continues with Number 19: Is Manliness Endangered?

The number one box office movie is still the 1997 film Titanic. It was the number one movie for fifteen consecutive weekends and grossed 600 million in the US and over 1.8 billion worldwide. Titanic became a national obsession to the point where people were wearing T-Shirts that said…

The boat sank.
Get over it.

Many moviegoers got drawn into the class warfare relationship of Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). But there was so much more to this story than the boat sinking. The pride and arrogance of engineers who thought they had designed the unsinkable vessel. Witnessing the worst side of human nature as people perished because some were so concerned about self preservation that they willingly sacrificed others to achieve that goal. All of this came to mind as I read an article in The Weekly Standard entitled Being a Man. Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of the piece. She is the author of a book called The War Against Boys . Sommers was commenting on a controversial new book from Professor Harvey C.Mansfield. His book is titled Manliness and it is creating quite a stir in academic circles. This is an excerpt from Sommer’s article in The Weekly Standard.

ONE OF THE LEAST VISITED memorials in Washington is a waterfront statue commemorating the men who died on the Titanic. Seventy-four percent of the women passengers survived the April 15, 1912, calamity, while 80 percent of the men perished. Why? Because the men followed the principle “women and children first.” The monument, an 18-foot granite male figure with arms outstretched to the side, was erected by “the women of America” in 1931 to show their gratitude.

To The Brave Men
Who Perished
In The Wreck
of The Titanic,
April 15, 1912.
They Gave Their
Lives That Women
and Children
Might Be Saved.

Erected By
The Women
Of America.

Today, almost no one remembers those men. Women no longer bring flowers to the statue on April 15 to honor their chivalry. The idea of male gallantry makes many women nervous, suggesting (as it does) that women require special protection. It implies the sexes are objectively different. It tells us that some things are best left to men. Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name.

In Manliness, Harvey C. Mansfield seeks to persuade skeptical readers, especially educated women, to reconsider the merits of male protectiveness and assertiveness. It is in no way a defense of male privilege, but many will be offended by its old-fashioned claim that the virtues of men and women are different and complementary. Women would be foolish not to pay close attention to Mansfield’s subtle and fascinating argument.

“Manliness,” he says, “is a quality that causes individuals to stand for something.” The Greeks used the term thumos to denote the bristling, spirited element shared by human beings and animals that makes them fight back when threatened. It causes dogs to defend their turf; it makes human beings stand up for their kin, their religion, their country, their principles. “Just as a dog defends its master,” writes Mansfield, “so the doggish part of the human soul defends human ends higher than itself.”

Every human being possesses thumos. But those who are manly possess it in abundance, and sometimes in excess. The manly man is not satisfied to let things be as they are, and he makes sure everyone knows it. He invests his perception of injustice with cosmic importance.

Women can be manly–Margaret Thatcher is an example–but manliness is the “quality mostly of one sex.” This creates problems for a society such as ours that likes to think of itself as “gender neutral,” egalitarian, and sensitive. Manliness is not sensitive. Today, we mainly cope with it by politely changing the subject. The very word is deemed quaint and outmoded. Gender experts in our universities teach as fact that the sex difference is an illusion–a discredited construct, like the earth being flat or the sun revolving around the earth.

This surprises me that a Harvard professor has the courage to write this book. Manliness has been either deemed outmoded or it has been marginalized by the stereotypes of men that are anything but manly. We seem to equate cultural manliness with the “bad boys”. That is not a Biblical view of being a man. The church has some dogs in this hunt. The role of men in marriages and families has been perplexing as we try to integrate Biblical principles with cultural realities. Neither I nor my wife will ever believe that sex differences are an illusion. Raising three sons will get you to that place. The confusion that many men feel over how to be a spiritual leader in the home is often paralyzing. But how this issue plays out in the corporate church may be the biggest issue of all.

David Murrow has written a book called Why Men Hate Going to Church. Murrow postulates in an interview in Leadership Magazine that men don’t do church very well. In a nutshell, he sees these problems.

“You have to be able to speak, read, and pray out loud in church culture, and the average man is not going to be as good at that as most women. Secondly, we do almost nothing to try to attract men. We’re constantly putting books in the hands of Christians telling them that the way to Christ is through a classroom experience and Bible studies. This whole idea of church as a “learning process” is going to attract more women than men. On top of that, so much of the imagery used in the church is feminine. In the last fifty years, the dominant metaphor used to describe the Christian life has been “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Jesus’ command was not to “have a personal relationship with me,” but to “follow me.” Men can handle that.”

Men can handle that. We understand how to follow a dynamic leader and Jesus was that. We often forget how over the top revolutionary Jesus was in His teachings about women. He demonstrated manliness in the sense that I would like to become manly. Courageous when speaking the truth. Strong enough to stand up for the poor, the weak, and disadvantaged. Tender enough to realize the pure hearts of children. Willing to forgive and to restore those who left him behind. Jesus was not like the hippie peace loving character from the TV show The Book of Daniel. That type of benign character won’t get you killed on a cross. And Jesus realized the importance of investing His life into the life of flawed men who, despite their weaknesses, understood the concept of manliness. And those twelve men changed the world. Send out twelve emasculated men with that mission and see what happens.

The article from The Weekly Standard continues.

Manliness can be noble and heroic, like the men on the Titanic; but it can also be foolish, stubborn, and violent. Manliness is often aggressive, but when the aggression is tied to the concept of honor, it transcends mere animal spiritedness. Allied with reason, as in Socrates, manliness finds its highest expression.

Because manliness manifested in sinfulness is often foolish and violent our culture wants to neuter the manliness and not attack the root cause of misguided “thumos”. It is politically incorrect to suggest that sin is the reason for manliness that goes astray in violence and aggression. I believe that is the root cause and not the trait of manliness. I remember the fear of Promise Keepers expressed by many women. The concern that somehow we men were rallying to reclaim our role as kings of the house and plotting ways to make our wives live in submission to our every desire. But all I ever experienced at a Promise Keepers meeting was getting my butt kicked about not loving my wife enough. Or being challenged about working too much and spending too little time with my wife and kids. Dangerous stuff, huh?

I would suggest that for me manliness finds its highest expression when I am trying to love my wife like Christ loved the church (I have varying degrees of success). Manliness is manifested in having the “thumos” to protect her and my family and my friends. I pray that I would have the courage to be like the men who were honored at the now mostly forgotten Titanic monument. Jesus said that “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Do I have that kind of love?

Nobility. Honor. Manliness. Do we still believe in those words? It is an important question.

It is hard to believe that I have now posted over 350 blogs. Out of curiosity I went back and calculated the most read articles. Starting today we will mark the Top 20 Countdown. The twentieth most read post regarded a classic Christmas song and story. The article was called “The Christmas Truce”.

 

Last year I posted a story about the decision by a Wisconsin elementary school to rewrite the lyrics of “Silent Night” to make it acceptable for the “winter program”. The unfortunate choice for a new title was “Cold in the Night”. And the new lyrics went something like this.

Cold in the night,
no one in sight,
winter winds whirl and bite,
how I wish I were happy and warm,
safe with my family out of the storm.

That is wrong on so many levels. Why not just have the kids sing “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” and go on home. Some things just shouldn’t be done. It is like the old Jim Croce song…”you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don’t rewrite Silent Night” (New Revised Version).

Re-reading that post brought to mind a legend I had heard all of my life involving the real song “Silent Night” and a wartime Christmas truce. I researched the story and found that it actually happened. Here is a nice Christmas story for your Christmas celebrations to share at Christmas gatherings during this Christmas Season (was that anti-pc sentence a little too obvious?). I would normally post a story like this a little closer to Christmas Day but I just found out there is a movie depicting this event and I thought you might be interested in acquiring or renting it. There are some cautions for parents contained in this review in ChristianityToday but the positives seem well worth the investment. I just ordered the DVD and I look forward to viewing it this Christmas. Here is the story that inspired the film.

The year was 1914 and soldiers had to spend Christmas Eve night on the battlefields of France during World War I, the Great War, as it was called. After only four months of fighting, more than a million men had already perished in the bloody conflict. The bodies of dead soldiers were scattered between the trenches. Enemy troops were dug-in so close that they could easily exchange shouts.

On December 24, 1914, in the middle of a freezing battlefield in France, a miracle happened.

The British troops watched in amazement as candle-lit Christmas trees began to appear above the German trenches. The glowing trees soon appeared along the length of the German front.

Henry Williamson, a young soldier with the London Regiment wrote in his diary: “From the German parapet, a rich baritone voice had begun to sing a song I remembered my German nurse singing to me…. The grave and tender voice rose out of the frozen mist. It was all so strange… like being in another world — to which one had come through a nightmare.”

Silent Night
Holy Night

A man named John McCutcheon wrote a song about the incident. These lyrics are from his work called “Christmas in the Trenches”. His poem has also been released as an illustrated book with CD that you find at John’s website.

The cannon rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more,
As Christmas brought us respite from the war….

“They finished their carol and we thought that we ought to retaliate,” another British soldier wrote, “So we sang “The First Noël” and when we finished, they all began clapping. And they struck up “O Tannebaum” and on it went… until we started up “O Come All Ye Faithful” [and] the Germans immediately joined in …. this was really a most extraordinary thing — two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”

McCutcheon’s lyrics continue…

“There’s someone coming towards us!” the front-line sentry cried.
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night.

It is recorded that enemy soldiers greeted each other in the no man’s land that was a killing zone on December 23rd. The soldiers wished each other Merry Christmas and agreed not to fire their rifles on Christmas Day. The spontaneous cease-fire eventually embraced much of a 500-mile stretch of the Western Front. According to the reports of soldiers at the scene, hundreds of thousands of soldiers celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace among the bodies of their dead.

Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man’s Land.
With neither gun nor bayonet, we met there hand to hand.

Other soldiers told of how the “enemies” exchanged badges and buttons from their uniforms. Others shared photos of wives and children and some even exchanged addresses and promised to write after the war ended. The German troops rolled out barrels of dark beer and the British reciprocated with offerings of plum pudding. Some soldiers produced soccer balls and a spirited match broke out as fellow soldiers shouted encouragement.

At one location along the front the men who just the day before sought to kill one another now gathered together to bury their dead. Together, with heads uncovered, they held a service to memorialize their fallen comrades. A solitary voice began to sing Silent Night, in French. He was joined by another voice — this one singing in German — the words of a Christmas song known and beloved by all.

But the miracle of peace was temporary. Slowly, under threats from their officers, the troops returned to the trenches and the recoils of rifles split the temporary “Silent Night.” Some soldiers admitted aiming so their bullets flew well above the heads of the “enemy.”

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.
With sad farewells, we each prepared to settle back to war.

But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night:
“Whose family have I fixed within my sight?”

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas come since World War I, I’ve learned its lesson well:

That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame,
And on each end of the rifle, we’re the same.

That is the message the Prince of Peace brought to us on Christmas long ago. Perhaps those of us who celebrate the birth of the Savior could learn a lesson from this Christmas miracle as we engage those who do not share our beliefs and faith in Jesus. Those on the other side of the cultural trenches are not unlike us. The message delivered in Bethlehem was peace and goodwill toward all men. When we fight the cultural war we need remember that the whole purpose of Jesus invading our space and time was to love and ultimately die for those on both sides of the battle.

But perhaps the biggest lesson is how the power of a unified focus on Jesus can unite even bitter enemies. My heart aches as I see Christians splitting ranks over things that don’t amount to a hill of beans on an eternal scale. I picture Jesus weeping over the churches of America like He wept over Jerusalem. I picture Him weeping over how Christians in this country divide over non-essentials and fail to communicate the joy and life-changing power of the good news of the gospel. Jesus gave this final command to His followers…

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” Matt 28 The Message

Pretty straight forward. Nothing in there about personal gain, power, or prestige. The power of what happened on that Silent Night united enemies centuries later on a French battlefield. My Christmas prayer is that the miracle of God becoming man will unite you and me, His followers, to seek what actually matters. To really make it about Christ and not about us. While we still have the chance.

My copy of World Magazine arrived in the mail this week and I noticed that Dr.Marvin Olasky had written an interesting feature. Here is the description from the article:

Since July 1, 2000, I’ve been telling WORLD readers every few months about my treadmill reading—books that exercise my mind while exercising my body. Normally I note only books worth reading, and have cited about 400 during those seven years. Here are 100 all-time treadmill favorites.

I scanned the impressive list of titles and authors. I actually overlooked on the first pass an author that is very close to me. 

Me.

Dr.Olasky included When Bad Christians Happen to Good People in his all-time treadmill faves. I was surprised and honored. I am sure that thinkers on his list like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, William F. Buckley, William Dembski, Alister McGrath, and many others would be just as surprised to be lumped in with me. I wrestled with the whole shameless self-promotion thing for several days. I did a search for the phrase “tooting your own horn” and I found that a book has actually been written on the subject. Peggy Klaus has written Brag – The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It. So I decided to go to the expert on personal horn tooting. I found that Klaus had a helpful list posted at her website:

TWELVE TOOTING TIPS FOR MASTERING THE ART OF BRAGGING

• Be your best, authentic self.
• Think about to whom you are tooting.
• Say it with meaningful and entertaining stories.
• Keep it short and simple.
• Talk with me, not at me.
• Be able to back up what you say.
• Know when to toot.
• Turn small talk into big talk.
• Keep your Bragologues and Brag Bites current and fresh.
• Be ready at a moment’s notice.
• Have a sense of humor.
• Use it all: your eyes, your ears, your head, and your heart.

I have to confess that “know when to toot” made me giggle. One more reason that some of the authors listed above might be shocked to find me on the list. But I did find some helpful points.

• Be your best, authentic self. Okay. I have enormous respect for Dr.Olasky. I was genuinely honored that he included my book on his list.
• Keep it short and simple. A bigger challenge for me. This is a great list of books even if you find my personal horn tooting off putting.
• Have a sense of humor. How can I not have a sense of humor when my primary honor to stack up against the credentials of this prestigious list is “Dave is a member of Sam’s Club.”

Marvin Olasky added this note about my book.

When some churches fixate on unimportant matters, the antidote question is WJSHTOT—”Would Jesus Spend His Time on This?”

Mr.Olasky’s kind endorsement of my book was a nice surprise to start my week. Sorry for tooting my own horn. But what do you expect from an expert on “Bad Christians?”

One annual announcement is guaranteed to send me into “grumpy old man” syndrome. The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch has just released the winners of the 10th Annual Wacky Warning Label Contest. The contest is conducted to reveal how lawsuits and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for commonsense warnings on products. This seemed like an appropriate follow-up to yesterday’s maddening story about the case of the multi-million dollar pants.

Before we unveil the winner allow us to warm up with these tributes to the obvious:

Honorable mention goes to Ronald Hyman of Augusta, Georgia for a warning he found on the cover of his local Yellow Pages book which cautions users: “Please do not use this directory while operating a moving vehicle.”

Excellent piece of advice. And because of this warning I have stopped doing my sudoku puzzle while driving on the freeway. Thanks!!!!

Third place was a tie between these warning labels:

Farrah Kakavand of Oak Park, California won a share of third place and $100 for a warning she found on a Super Lotto ticket which says, “Do not iron.”

How frustrating to have to present a rumpled winning lottery ticket! Unacceptable! Other care suggestions for your paper lottery ticket include avoiding fire and water. Solid advice.

The other third-place check went to Nancy Shue of York, Pennsylvania who found this warning label on a cell phone. The warning? “Don’t try to dry your phone in a microwave oven.”

Who would consider putting a wet electronic device into a microwave? Don’t they deserve the consequences? The same label also helpfully suggests that you should keep your cell phone away from “the ground.” Seriously. They have a little icon that suggests you shouldn’t drop your phone. Who knew?

The $250 second-place award went to Rich Heitzig of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, for a label on a personal watercraft that warns:, “Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level.”

Failure to heed this sage advice will definitely thin the herd. Is it really necessary to warn consumers about mixing fuel and fire?

Bob Wilkinson of Northville, Michigan won the $500 grand prize and a copy of the new book, “Remove Child Before Folding, The 101 Stupidest, Silliest and Wackiest Warning Labels Ever,” by M-LAW president Bob Dorigo Jones.

The champion label was found on a washing machine at a Laundromat, and the label makes a very sound suggestion:

“Do not put any person in this washer.”

Did this actually happen? Did someone think they would emerge fluffy and springtime fresh from a gentle spin in the washing machine? Do you need to have a snorkel that sticks out of the lid to breathe? Wouldn’t the spin cycle make you barf? Could I then hop in the dryer to get dewrinkled? That would be cheaper than botox. Can you drive home after all that spinning? Should you use your Yellow Pages while operating your vehicle? Oh wait…we already learned that answer.

“This annual contest gives us a chance to tell the inside story of how our nation’s legal system has become so erratic that these types of labels are necessary,” said Jones.

“The personal injury lawyers who file the frivolous lawsuits that make outrageously obvious warning labels necessary may not be pleased that we reveal some of their secrets, but America deserves to know how the ‘sue first, ask questions later’ mentality is changing our culture and piling costs on consumers.”

So as I go into my grumpy geezer mode I will point out that if I checked my fuel level with a match it was not the fault of the manufacturer of the machine. That would be my bad. If I destroyed my wet cell phone in a microwave that makes me a moron, not a victim. Sticking a person in the washing machine should lead to a separation from the herd for a long time, not a warning.

The movement to save us from ourselves has larger consequences. You cannot post enough labels to remove the risk to life. I think one of the dangerous and maybe even unintentionally deceitful things that Christians communicate is that coming to faith in Jesus will make your life trouble free. Perhaps we should have a label with every presentation of the gospel.

       Caution – Jesus reports that “in this world you will have trouble.”  (Read the small print in Mark and John)

Coming to faith does not remove the trouble from our lives. Jesus is not a money back guarantee for perfect health, unlimited prosperity, and nonstop giddiness. Trouble is a part of life. Problems either refine us or ruin us. That is where Jesus comes in.

         I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue  to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.  (The Message,  John 16)

That is what I have discovered in my journey with Jesus. When life delivers the inevitable I can be assured, deeply at peace, and even unshakable. NBA star Alonzo Manning faced a career ending illness but his response was interesting. “Adversity introduces a man to himself.” I would suggest that adversity introduces a person to his faith. Does it stand up to the hard times? Real faith does. Jesus came to give us real life and to help us get through the risks that living life brings. I can testify that it works. I can also testify that life is full of trouble. Consider yourself warned.

 

Sorry I have been away from the blogosphere for a couple of days. I know that my tens of fans have missed the daily ramblings. Sometimes I have to go into seclusion and, like talk show host Glen Beck, duct tape my head to keep it from exploding. The most recent event that caused my distress centered around a lawsuit.

You have likely heard the story about the judge in Washington D.C. who lost his pants. Actually, according to Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson, it was the nefarious folks at the local dry cleaners that lost his beloved pants. And these must have been some really terrific trousers because Judge Roy sued the mom-and-pop dry cleaners for $54 million in damages for the missing slacks.

I have had some pretty good pants in my life but I have never had a pair of slacks that I could trade for a brand new Boeing 737 jet. The good Judge Pearson caused my head to nearly explode when I read this account of the trial in The Washington Post.

A D.C. law judge broke down in tears and had to take a break from his testimony because he became too emotional while questioning himself about his experience with a missing pair of pants.

I tried to imagine the testimony. “I thought about that empty hanger…and…sob…could I have a moment here?” Back to the Post story.

Administrative law judge Roy Pearson is representing himself in civil court and claimed that he is owed $54 million from a local dry cleaner who he says lost his pants, despite a sign in their store which ensures “Satisfaction Guaranteed.”

The case gained national attention soon after the lawsuit was filed. The pants are expected to be introduced into evidence, although [Pearson] says the pants are not his, and the correct pants are still missing.

“Your Honor, I would like to introduce the first witness. Please call ‘Not My Pants’ to the stand.”

Perhaps they could have organized a trouser lineup for Judge Roy to try and identify his misplaced pants. Maybe a police artist composite sketch of his slacks could have located the traumatized trousers before it was too late.

“Is that about the right crease? Do you see a zipper that looks like the one on your pants? I know this is hard. Just work with me a little longer.”

To be honest, I underestimated the amount of trauma that Judge Pearson endured when his drawers went missing. I thought the people in Darfur were suffering until I heard this heartbreaking testimony.

Pearson testified that he had endured severe “mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort.” In his opening statement, Pearson came out swinging, telling the court “never before in recorded history have a group of defendants engaged in such misleading and unfair business practices.”

That must come as a pleasant surprise to the Enron defendants. Pantsgate has, according to Pearson, superseded that little misunderstanding down in Houston.

Repeatedly referring to himself as ‘”we,” Pearson sought to represent himself as the leader of a class of tens of thousands, if not a half million local residents he believes are at risk of falling for such insidious business practices as posting “Satisfaction Guaranteed’ signs and “Same Day Service.”

“Mr. Pearson, you are not a ‘we’.” You are an  ‘I’,” Judge Judith Bartnoff told Pearson. But as he explained the details of the missing pants, Pearson struggled to get through his hour and a half of testimony, most of which concerned his credentials and his background. He became visibly emotional when he reached the point in the story where he confronted Soo Chung from the dry cleaning store.

“These are not my pants,” he testified yesterday, telling her “I have in my adult life, with one exception, never worn pants with cuffs.”

But Chung insisted, Pearson testified.

“These are your pants.”

Pearson rushed from the courtroom, tears streaming down his face.

I am a soft touch. I teared up when I watched Flicka the other night with my bride. But I am almost positive the phrase “these are your pants” will never make me weep. Perhaps it is just me. Could it be something in my background has kept me from developing the kind of relationship with my pants that Mr.Pearson has developed? Maybe my own dysfunction is at the root of my cold and distant trouser interactions. Sorry for the off-the-cuff confessions but I just don’t have any sentiments for my slacks. What is wrong with me?

This week the court ruled on the saga of the switched slacks. So how much did Roy Pearson get for his anguish, inconvenience and discomfort?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Judge Judith Bartnoff heard the heartwrenching testimony and still somehow ruled against Pearson. The Washington Post quoted the judge’s ruling. “A reasonable consumer would not interpret ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer’s unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute,” Bartnoff wrote in a 23-page ruling, adding that Pearson “is not entitled to any relief whatsoever.”

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the Chungs’ court costs — likely to be a few thousand dollars — to cover fees for filings, transcripts and similar expenses. But even bigger troubles loom. She said she will consider making Pearson also pay the couple’s attorneys’ fees arising from the two-year legal battle. With the legal costs likely to exceed $100,000, however, the Chungs aren’t counting on Pearson being able to pay, Manning said.

And with good reason. Up for reappointment this year, Pearson could have a hard time keeping his $96,000-a-year job if Bartnoff finds him at fault for his pursuit of the case. While awaiting a decision on his reappointment, Pearson is not hearing cases. He did not respond to emails seeking comment yesterday.

How can cases like this even get to a trial? Shouldn’t there be some basis for tossing out ridiculous lawsuits like this? During the past two years, Pearson rejected offers to settle, first for $3,000, then for $4,600 and finally for $12,000. I can tell you that if my dry cleaner loses my most very favorite pair of pants I will settle for $3,000 and just go to grief counseling for a few weeks. I promise I will fight through it.

What is the lesson for the rest of us? After removing the duct tape from my head I actually felt sorry for Mr.Pearson. I cannot imagine generating enough anger and bitterness to pursue such a lawsuit. But, in the spirit of this blog, I try really hard not to feel superior to others. So when I start down that path I simply remember and identify with the words of Paul.

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. (I Timothy NLT)

I pray that Mr. Pearson, and all of us, will meditate on more important things this day than misplaced pants.