My wife and I are in an ongoing discussion over some happenings that cause me to say the perpetrator is “evil” to which she replies “Why do you call it evil? I think it’s just stupidity.” There are some very specific reasons that I believe this particular event is a manifestation of evil, but let’s set those aside for now and just deal with the question of “Is it evil, or is it stupid?”

To which my response is: Is there a difference? Really?

What are your thoughts?

‘Tis the season for an outbreak of pyromania. I can hardly step outside without setting something on fire; leaf beds in the timber, sage grass in the pastures.

As I watched the fire burn tonight I noticed how it cleared out the underbrush, and in just a few days the black will be replaced by green shoots of new growth. That caused me to reflect on the fires we face in life.

From time to time all of us find ourselves in the heat. The fire could be with a child, or in our marriage, or in our business, or with our health, or with a relationship. Jesus said  (John 16:33) “In this world you will have trouble.” If you are like me you want to run from that trouble. But I wonder if it might represent “friendly fire?”

Just  like the fires I set on the farm clear out the underbrush and make way for new growth, I wonder if the fires we face are perhaps designed to clear out the dead wood and prepare our lives for something fresh and new—growth.

I don’t enjoy difficulty, and I know you don’t either. But next time we find some part of our life ablaze, maybe we should pause to consider whether what’s being consumed was dead and needed to go, in order to make way for new growth.

Friendly, fire?

If you are in the communication business, every speech, interview, sermon, pep-talk, or presentation you give should bear this in mind: What is it I want my listeners to do because of what I say to them today?

I heard a really nice sermon recently, but I have no idea what I was supposed to do at the end of it. I don’t know if I was supposed to pray more, give more, do more, love more, lust less?????? I just don’t know.

My thought as it came to a conclusion was that the speaker was so focused on preparing a nice sermon that he didn’t bother with thinking through what that sermon was to accomplish.

It’s been a long time since a took a homiletics or public speaking class, and I don’t really remember what they teach there, but I can tell you this: prepare your message to hit a target designed to move people to action, and you’ll deliver a bell-ringer every time.

Next time you get ready to speak, just ask this simple question: What is it I want my audience to do because of what I say to them today.

There was a point in my life where I spoke publicly several times a week to reasonably large audiences, and I recall going through a season where I struggled with laughter. I was pretty good on my feet, and quick with a quip, and on the days when I was “on” I could have them rolling in the aisles.

It was fun to make people laugh. It felt powerful to elicit such a pleasant emotion from people, and I remember thinking at one point “I could be Jay Leno.” That was the problem. I’d lost sight of my purpose. Whether what I taught had a point, or even was truth became secondary to the more important issue of whether they had a good time, and I was the most hip and cool speaker.

Laughter is important. We need it. The Bible says it does good like a medicine. Indeed! Someone said “Laughter is the lotion for the sunburn of the soul” and our souls need the soothing, cooling relief. However those who are preaching business ought never forget that their primary purpose is to communicate truth that changes life. Sometimes it seems that preachers get confused and have so much fun telling stories in their sermons that they forget the larger purpose of pointing people to the Giver of life.

There’s a lot of room for perspective and interpretation on this matter, so I want to be sure we leave space for grace and differing opinion. While listening to a sermon recently it occurred to me that it was heavy on humor, while being seasoned with truth.  That’s backwards. The sermon ought to be full of truth, and seasoned with just enough humor to lower the defenses of the listener so that the truth can soak in.

Laughter is wonderful. Life is so much more. And those whose job it is to communicate life, must guard against prostituting their message for the temporary high of a laugh. There’s too much at stake.

There’s a lot to laugh about in the Bible; even more when we seriously consider how to be and do all it calls us to. Sometimes our life even becomes “laugh so you don’t cry” and I’m all for that, too. But I used to make the mistake—and I think some preachers do today—of focusing on the lines that will draw the laugh. Instead, focus on the lines that deliver the truth, and just let the laughs leak in where they may.

I love you my brothers and sisters. It is a good and honorable thing you strive to do. We need the medicine entrusted to you. Give us enough laughter to ease our pain, and enough Truth to cure our disease.

It is Springtime in the Ozarks. I love this time of year.

With each new dawn’s earlier arrival, the harsh realities of winder fade into memory.

The crocus bloom. The dead brown of winter grass gives way to a hint of green, a light that says “Go. Grow.”

The tom turkey chases three hens at once as they gobble their escape in every widening circles in my yard.

The tom cat shows up less often to be fed. He’s got work to do; off somewhere with his harem.

This time of year says “Life. Life! LIFE!”

I can’t express how much I love this time of year. On a still cool but sunny day the warmth penetrates my jacket as I watch the flock. I’m grateful to be alive. It’s so beautiful, and wonderful. And then I think of that passage in I Corinthians 9 which says “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Heaven must surely be spectacular!

(I wonder if the tom ever catches the hen, in heaven’s front yard?)