Freedom

Have you heard of a man by the name of John Joe Gray, from Trinidad, Texas? No? Well, one thing is for certain, you haven’t heard FROM John Joe Gray in sixteen years. In fact, no one has other than his family. That’s because for more than the last decade and a half he hasn’t left his home. He hasn’t gone out to see a matinee at the theater, he hasn’t gone shopping for Christmas gifts in the mall, the guy hasn’t even tried stuffed crust pizza. That is a crime in and of itself.

The story can get a bit complicated, but in 1999 Gray was arrested for shoving and biting a state trooper at an everyday traffic stop. At the time he had on him a pistol that wasn’t licensed, and when the officer tried to arrest him, Gray reacted and assaulted the officer. He was rightly charged for the crime but refused to return to court. Things escalated quickly when he armed himself on his 47-acre farm and vowed to open fire if his property line was breached by authorities. For the last 15 years he and his family have patrolled their ranch with pistols and shotguns in an effort to turn away any strangers who might threaten their sanctuary.

The kicker in this whole saga is that the felony charge for the original assault was dismissed in December of 2014 when the district attorney left office. Yet, inexplicably, the court failed to notify John Joe Gray of the dismissal until recently, thereby extending his self inflicted house arrest for over a year more than necessary. You may be wondering why law enforcement never made an arrest during this extended period of time. They certainly had just cause and the firepower to do so. The county sheriff, Ray Nutt, reasoned that Gray was quite serious in his determination to keep people out and that sending in officers would likely result in harm and loss of human life. Nutt did say something quite telling though that caused me to ponder this whole story on a much more introspective manner. When explaining why he didn’t pursue an arrest during this entire ordeal he said,

"It wasn't worth it,” said Nutt. “Joe Gray has been in prison out there himself, in my opinion, for 14 years."

On any given day I estimate that I get offended two to four times. These wrongs come in various forms, at various times, and by different people. Some of the people I know and some I do not. The tricky part with these irritations lately is how often I find myself holding on to them. Whether being cut off on the road or receiving a low blow in an argument with someone close to me, my reaction lately has been similar to that of John Joe Gray. I rapidly back into a corner and arm myself with well thought-out and anger-filled responses. I do this arming in solitude, completely shut off from the world around me.

Paul wrote in Colossians 3:13, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

What a challenge that is in a world fueled by communication and emotion and burdened by selfishness. To “make allowance” for someone means to previously understand and commit to showing grace when an offense occurs. This form of pre-determination gets difficult when you know there was ill intent in one’s actions. This grace-giving gets muddied when an offense is repeated over and over again.

I imagine if one asked John Joe Gray if he was happy in his isolation on his farm, he would instinctively say that he was. I don’t know him personally, but I do know that hurt sometimes tends to conceal the true feelings of oneself. To be cutoff from the world around you while others continue to move forward brings about a different kind of loneliness. This same feeling happens when we hold in anger and ostracize ourselves from the ones we care about.

What freedom there is in forgiveness! What liberty in releasing someone from the responsibility to make right a wrong! I have a friend who mentioned to me once that one of Christ’s final acts was forgiveness because he wanted to die completely free. This is a tremendous thought and example that we should readily follow.

If you are reading this and find yourself imprisoned by your own bitterness, I encourage you to ask in this very moment for God to touch your heart and soften you to offer forgiveness to the one who injured you. Ask God to give you extra courage and strength to extend grace to all, even those who are oblivious to the offense they have caused. Lastly, in this prayer to the Father, ask him to heal the hurt you have, to give back the time you may have wasted, and to restore the joy you may have lost. And as he faithfully works on these requests, come out of that solitude and live free again.

Marathon

The idea of participating in a marathon makes me squirm. 26...ahem, 26.2 miles of running and running and running without something chasing you just doesn’t seem logical to me, much less fun. It actually looks a bit like torture. In fact, if I have to travel on pavement for more than a couple of miles, it’ll be in the front seat of my truck, listening to the radio with the air conditioning on.

I have a good buddy who thinks otherwise. Two or three times a year this guy puts his hundred dollar running shoes on and spends half a day running a race. He’s quite good and, frankly, I’m proud of him. We’ve been friends for over fifteen years and my family recently moved down the street from him so, periodically, if I am outside, I see him out on the street training, plugging along in his neon cut off shirt, head phones, and shorts that are a bit too short for my taste. He usually stops when he sees me and the conversation goes something like this.

Me: “Hey buddy!”. I wave as he stops in front of my house.

Him: ( Heavy breathing)

Me: “ How was it today?”

Him: ( Heavy breathing)

Me: How many did you get in?

Him: (Heavy Breathing) “Did eight“, more breathing, ”down to Shea Blvd and around.”

Me: Nice man. Way to go! How many days until the race?”

Him: “A few weeks, gotta beat my time from last year.”

Me: I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure you will man. You’ve been working hard. You know, one of these days I’m going to join you in one of these races.”

Now that wasn’t true, was it? It’s a nice sentiment and all, but I truly have zero intentions of ever joining him in one of those races. None. I wouldn’t do a marathon even if they gave out twenty dollar bills at the water stops along the way. I love to be athletic but long distance running just isn’t my thing. This fact hasn’t changed, however, over the years, I have frequently said to my friend, “maybe I’ll join you one of these times”.

The real question is why? Why do I tell a buddy something with which I never plan on following through? What makes me compulsively make a statement that sounds good but takes away my credibility? After searching my heart, the answer sacked me like an unsuspecting quarterback. Not only do I think I can fool others, but I think I can fool myself. After all, I’m just saying what we all want to hear, right?

Isn’t it amazing how we tell ourselves fairy tales about our life on a daily basis? Recently I caught myself going 30 mph over the speed limit a mile from our house. As I slowed down I said to myself, “You aren’t going that fast, Justin. Besides, everyone is doing it.” There are two key falsehoods in that statement. One was that I was driving nearly double the allotted speed for that street and the other is that EVERYONE was NOT doing it.

The bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 that “the heart is deceitful above all things, who can understand it?” I find that warning so true and applicable in our current culture. The heart of man naturally wants to see itself and project to others the most idealistic appearance it possibly can. For this reason, we say what we need to in order to fool ourselves and others into seeing us in that perfect image.

This deception may feel good in the moment but it is incredibly damaging to the soul. In fact, I believe these white lies we tell ourselves repeatedly stunt our growth as men and women of God. They sabotage relationships that we have with others because we have to constantly maintain these stories with more deceipt. Soon we find ourselves making decisions based on a false image rather than where we truly are in our walk of life. Surface problems then become our focus rather than asking the Lord to change us from the inside out.

So what’s the remedy here? How do we stop the compulsion to fool ourselves? Two ideas come to mind.

1. Carefully inspect and locate areas where you haven’t been completely honest with yourself. Take a indepth look at yourself and recognize where you are in need of improvement, and where you can allow God to come in and clean up. This introspection can be painful initially, but take the example of David the Psalmist and his request unto God in regards to this…

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts;

And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.“

- Psalm 139:23-24 NIV

What strikes me about this is the invitation for God to come in and literally see if there is any wickedness inside of him. He’s asking for the microscope, desiring God to reveal what and where things aren’t right. He wants God to know his heart, almost implying that he himself doesn’t.

Then he requests for God to lead him in the way of everlasting. This brings me to the second step in the process.

2. Make a commitment at the start of each day to allow the Lord to lead your thoughts, words and actions. Decide to begin the journey of each day having 100% integrity and honesty with your words as you ask God to lead. This means to let exaggeration and manipulation fall by the wayside. It means being truthful with yourself at every turn no matter the consequence. It means that you will submit to his ways which are full of truth.

These two steps will initially be a challenge, but as you continue to apply them every day, I promise you will see a difference. Your relationships with others will deepen and you will feel the freedom that complete honesty provides. How liberating!. Allowing God to guide you will result in security, fewer burdens from the restraints of deception.

And that’s no lie.

Junk Drawer

I have a love/hate relationship with the drawer that sits beneath my kitchen’s butcher block. Actually, I’d say most of the time it’s more hate than it is love. The reason is not because of the construction of the drawer, the size, or even the fact that it reluctantly slides open as if it were playing a game of tug-o-war with me. No, it gives me problems because of its contents. You see, this drawer is the quintessential junk drawer and if you were in my kitchen looking through it right now you would find all the non-essentials of life: A worn out lint brush, old batteries that may or may not work, pens and highlighters of all sorts, business cards (who uses those anymore?), a tube of super glue without the lid on, some berry flavored Skittles, broken golf tees, a couple of thank you cards (one having been written out but never given), a GI Joe who's torso and legs have come apart, movie ticket stubs…the list goes on, and on, and on and on. It’s as if it is a monster collecting everything that’s not important.

My wife, Kristin, razzes me about this drawer all the time. If I ever ask her where something is in the house, she instinctively replies politely (I think), “Check your junk drawer.” Two things bother me about her statement. One is that there is no way my running shoes could ever fit in there so she is being a real sarcastic treasure. And two, the fact that she says “your” junk drawer. That gnaws at me. It not really just mine, is it?

The other day after finding myself exaggerating the truth at a local automotive parts store I found myself thinking about another junk drawer that I keep full of unneeded and unwanted things. That’s the junk drawer of my heart. I was frustrated at myself as I was driving away in my car. I told Rob, the mechanic, that I haven’t taken my automotive shopping any where but his establishment as we were wrapping up the sale. It was true for the most part except for a few times in the last year when the competing shop was more convenient and running specials. Yet, I told him that simply to develop a stronger rapport with him – and to avoid hurting his feelings. I certainly didn’t walk into the store with the intent to fabricate; the words completely and unintentionally came out of my mouth in the flow of our conversation. The point is that I lied.

As I sat in my car battling with fully understanding why I said what I said, I subconsciously began to put these feelings in the junk drawer and store up guilt and shame against myself. This self-deprecation happened more than once throughout the day as I let the mistake take over my thoughts.

“How can I say I love Christ and still deceive others?”

“I wonder if God will hear my prayer tomorrow at worship night at the church?”

“Should I go back in and tell Rob of my lie?”

One mistake stored away rather than given away affected my entire day.

We do that as Christians all the time, don’t we? We know in our hearts that the bible teaches that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. We know that God is both willing and able to remove our sins from us and clothe us in His righteousness. That we, through Jesus, can be in right standing with God once again. Yet, when it comes to letting our past failures beat us more than once, we somehow become professional storage managers. It’s as if we feel like the only way we are to be made righteous again for our wrong doing is by sticking our mistakes in a junk drawer and never addressing it because we don’t know what to do with it. But that is just it. I never will need those movie stubs again. Ever. I never will use broken golf tees either. Ever. These things take up space and clutter up my drawer. Likewise, with the management and safe keeping of my failures.

I believe the truth in Hebrews 12:1 speaks to this concept directly:

‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest things that hinders us is the hiding and resurfacing of our sin that leads to guilt and shame. In the above verse, Paul is encouraging us to throw off everything and anything that hinders us. Might I add the word away to the equation? How much better would we be able to serve God if we weren’t constantly trying to manage and sort through our mistakes of yesterday, last week, or even years back and gave it away instead? How differently would we see the people we are called to love and support if we were free from the bitterness against ourselves that weighs on us morning, noon and night?

Certainly, it is a tactic of the enemy himself to prick our memories with our mistakes, but should we really let the poison of a sinful thought, misspoken word, or detrimental action impact us more than once? I encourage you that today is the day to clean out your junk drawer. It’s time to bring ALL of our cares before Christ, even those of which we are most ashamed. God, in all of his compassion, is an expert in forgiveness and releasing you from the weight of yesterday. Take courage and talk with him about it.