I was at a teen retreat this past weekend and as I listened to some of the testimonies at the end of the week I realized how many of them struggle in the same area I do: witnessing. We know that souls around us are dying and going to hell and that we could tell them how to avoid it, but we can't quite bring ourselves to do it. Later, when we meet with other Christians or hear a convicting message we confess that are utterly disgusted and ashamed with our weak witness and we all solemnly resolve to do better, but we don't. It's bewildering. How can we love Christ so much one moment and be ashamed to mention His name the next?
I definitely haven't figured out the answer to this question, but as I listened to the testimonies from other people I noticed a consistent theme and one that has definitely held true for my own life: we tend to overemphasize our role in witnessing. At college I have met many Christians who really love Christ and truly believe that He is the answer to life's important question but are unwilling to tell the world so because they are afraid that if they speak out they will be associated with some quack religious person on TV or disgraced politician who is a professing Christian. I would like to dismiss this as a flimsy excuse, which it is, but I can't say it doesn't affect me and I suspect I'm not the only one. It's not that we're ashamed of Christ or don't believe in Him, but secretly we are ashamed to be associated with a group of people which is increasingly being labeled – and sadly it is often correctly – as self righteous hypocrites. Knowing that we aren't perfect and that other Christians obviously aren't, we feel as if we have no legs to stand on, like a ladder salesman giving his pitch on top of a very flimsy ladder. It's as if we assume that all Christians need to be perfect before our message has any validity. Have we forgotten that our message to the world is to be like Christ, not to be like other people who call themselves Christians? Are we really so foolish as to believe that the power of the Gospel lies in our good example and not Christ's perfect sacrifice? If that were so -- if the authenticity of the message lies only in the sincerity and integrity of the messengers -- then I would be ashamed to be a Christian, for I have met some very bad messengers. However, it does not. The authority and integrity of the gospel lies in Christ and in Him alone, and it is for that reason only that I am not ashamed to be a Christian.
So many times I focus find myself defending myself or other Christians when I'm witnessing, as if I was the one they had to accept or reject, but I'm not. Most times I would be much better off if I only remembered that I'm only there to introduce them to somebody who's reputation is perfect. Only when you realize that Christianity is more about Christ than it is about us can you tell other people about the power of God and not feel like a phony. It may be true that Christians are the only Bible some people will ever read, but just remember who they are supposed to be reading about. The Bible is about Jesus Christ, not Christians and that is something I need to remember when Satan tries to remind me of why I shouldn't open my mouth.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Grill
(I came across this journal entry the other day and it made me laugh to remember how I fared on one of my first cooking ventures. Note: this happened four years ago so I hope I've learned a little since then. . . not much, but some =)
There were four of us. We just stood there staring at it. The hot dogs sat on the table, unopened and cold. Finally one of us broke the silence.
“You do know how to use this, don’t you?”
Silence. . . .
“Well we should be able to figure it out. After all, how hard can it be to use a charcoal grill?”
We returned to our staring. It just stood there. An open-ended box with a rack on top standing on one thin leg like a stork.
We weren't quite prepared for this. Each of us had sort of assumed we were the only ones who didn't know how to use a grill. Turned out we all were. While it came as a relief to each of to learn that we weren't the only one not skilled in this fine culinary art, it also presented a problem. Who was going to cook dinner? Secretly each of us had hoped that the others would have such a vast storehouse of knowledge and experience that we could sit back and watch them cook dinner without betraying our ignorance for this uniquely masculine skill.
We all knew the stereotype . . . we’d seen it many times: a man wearing an apron (not one of those frilly girl aprons but a real man's apron) standing over grill with tongs in one hand and a delicious platter of succulent meat, usually some game animal he's just killed, in the other. In the background mother and kids sit at the picnic table, perfectly secure in their man’s ability to perform the age-honored tradition of grilling. Now there was a real man, a rugged individual as able to prepare meat as his leather clad ancestors!
The only problem was he wasn't here.
As we stood there, painfully aware of this insult to our manhood, something stirred in each of us. We were men, too. This was our element! This was our time!! We would start the fire and grill those hot-dogs!!!
We started out with ardent fervor, which was more than could be said for our fire. Lynn, Shannon, and myself reached for the charcoal and the Leo, too slow get a hand on the bag, grabbed the lighter fluid.
It was then that we noticed it. A rock, rather large, sitting in the grill, covered with ashes. None of us wanted to be so dumb as to not know why every grill needs a big rock in it, but after looking around and seeing three other confused expressions, we took comfort in our collective ignorance and decided it was a pretty dumb chef who would leave a rock in a grill. We deposited the rock outside the grill and scraped out most of the ashes. This done, we poured a couple briquettes in the pit and doused them with lighter fluid.
Nothing happened.
We poured on some more.
Same result.
After a hurried huddle, we remembered the lighter.
Success! Oh the sweet smell of burning fumes! Our mission accomplished, we broke to wash our hands which had become quite dirty during the lighting process. When we came back we found a cold pile of charcoal. Obviously this lighter fluid was pretty weak stuff. We poured on twice as much and lit it off again.
It flamed nicely, but each of us kept an anxious eye on it, afraid it would mysteriously fizzle like the last one. Sure enough, the flames began to flicker and it started to smoke, a sure sign that our fire was dying. Leo grabbed the lighter fluid and hovered over it, ready to sauce it at a moments notice. Just as the last flame began to sputter he squirted it with the fluid.
He extinguished it completely.
We grabbed the lighter once more. However, before we lit it off once more, I offered a careful suggestion. I seemed to remember people stacking the charcoal in a pile before they lit it, something about conserving the heat. When I suggested it, they looked at me in awe. From then on I was the resident expert on grilling.
We stacked the charcoal in a crude little pile, adding one or two more briquettes for good measure, and for the third time we touched the lighter to the soaked pile. This time it stayed lit. Eager to grill supper we placed foil on the rack, which was rather dirty, slit it to allow heat through, and placed the hot-dogs on top.
While we were waiting for our meat to cook, we opened a bag of chips and dug in. We chatted confidently about how easy it was to grill and how good the hotdogs were going to be. We might even start our own grilling service depending on how good the hot dogs turned to be. Eventually Lynn decided it was time to check the dogs. Walking over to the grill, he grabbed the fork and flipped a dog. We all rose to inspect it. It had changed colors. It was no longer pink; instead, they were a quite light tan color--on one side. He proceeded to flip them all.
We returned to our chips thinking how foolish we had been to doubt ourselves. There was nothing to grilling, at least nothing we couldn’t figure out. To round out our soon-to-be meal, Shannon, Leo, and I broke out the drinks: Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper . . . three two-liter bottles for four guys. We wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night. Meanwhile Lynn broke out his own drink, a small plastic container with a suspiciously healthy looking label sporting bananas and strawberries.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“It’s soy milk,” he replied. “My mom really likes this stuff so she sent it along for us.”
Leo eyed it up. “It doesn’t look that bad. I’ll try some.”
“I'll take some, too,” I chimed in. I was feeling adventurous.
We both drank some and agreed that it wasn’t that bad. Not necessarily good, but not bad either. We ate some more chips and washed it down with soy milk. Pretty soon we figured it was time to check the main course before we made an entire meal of the condiments. The hot dogs were slightly warmer but they weren’t going anywhere fast.
“I don’t think their getting enough heat,” said Shannon, stating the obvious. “Maybe it would help if they were closer to the charcoal.”
Lynn, probably only one in our group with much engineering ability considered this. “Well the rack can’t be lowered so the only way to get them closer would be to move the charcoal up” He concluded. (Lynn was truly brilliant with that type of logic).
“That’s kinda hard to do after the fire’s already started.” said Shannon doubtfully.
“Not really,” said Lynn. “All you have to do is . . . “ He thought about this for a couple seconds. “Well yeah, I guess it is. If only we would have had something to put under the charcoal before we started it. Something like. . .”
“A big rock?” said Leo quietly.
Everybody wished he had kept that thought to himself.
It was then I noticed that everyone was looking at me. As the resident expert on grilling, and also the one who had decided to take out the big rock, charring these hot dogs became my dilemma. My first suggestion was walking over to the neighboring camp which looked like an extended family get-together and borrowing a few of their flames. Their grill was huge and obviously putting off way more heat than they needed. My plan was for two of us could sneak our hot-dogs on beside their steaks spare ribs while the other two created a distraction. Shannon thought maybe we should just ask them if we could use their grill. I think he secretly hoped that if we openly contributed to their grill, we might get invited to some tastier cuts of meat . . . kinda like a vending machine: you put hot dogs in and get T-bone steaks out. However, none of us were bold enough to take action on this daring plan, so the brainstorm continued.
My second suggestion was roasting-sticks. Since none of us had a knife, this would be hard, but the other were willing to give it a try. Shannon was the first to find a stick, actually it was more of a twig, and with this he speared a hot dog. It was then that we found out the hog dogs were cheese-filled. Cheese oozed out and dripped on the coals, causing a burst of flame.
With both of my brilliant plans shot down, I decided to try a different tactic. I thought that maybe if we turned the grill into the wind it would trap the heat against the back and force it up past the hot dogs. Accordingly we turned the grill into the wind.
We couldn't see much for the next few minutes as we tried to wipe ashes out of our eyes. Apparently my plan had overlooked one little detail. It was a rather windy day and a particularly strong gust of wind happened along just was turned the grill, catching up the ashes that we had neglected to scrape out and flinging them in our faces like a miniature volcano.
Now all three of my plans had failed and the hot dogs had a nice coating of ashes, Lynn decided to take matters into his own hands. It was time for desperate measures. Taking a hot dog off the rack, he wrapped it in some tinfoil we had used to cover the dirty rack, and placed it directly on top of the coals. Feeding off his idea, I suggested we wrap all the hot dogs in the protective foil and mass grill them.
They all agreed that if I had earned my first hot-dog with my first suggestion of piling the coals, I had definitely earned my second hot dog with this second suggestion. All fully convinced that this idea was a real winner, we busily commenced wrapping the hot dogs in the protective foil. The end result looked something like a large tin burrito. We placed this large burrito on the coal and waited to see what would happen. After about five minutes we checked them. They were nicely burned. . . on one side. The other side was barely touched. Also, because we had punched the foil full of holes, there were a lots of little pieces of ash burned into them. Not too thrilled with the outcome of our hard work, we discussed opening the second pack of hot dogs and trying over again. However, considering how well our attempts had worked – that and the fact that our tin foil burrito had smothered our fire and none of us had the heart or patience to try to get it going again – we decided to ditch the experiment and make the best of what we had.
We ate our hot dogs -- with lots of ketchup -- and waited to get sick. We didn’t. Feeling slightly better about the meal, I figured I’d push my luck and try a mixed drink. Soy milk and Sprite. That nearly succeeded where the hot dogs had failed and I almost threw up. I had hoped the smooth and soothing texture of the soy milk and tangy fizz of the Sprite would equal each other out to create a nice blend. Wrong! It tasted like something that would work well to fuel a new breed of car. We ended up the meal with some leftover veggie pizza that Lynn’s mom had sent along in case of emergency. She must have known that we couldn’t prepare supper on our own. We ate and talked for a while and really had a nice time of it, even laughing a little at our mistakes.
When we exhausted our supply of edible food, we decided it was time to pack up and head home. As we drove off, Leo suggested that we might have saved ourselves a lot of time and trouble if we had just walked up to the large camp beside us, the one with the big grill, and pretended that we belonged with them.
“All we would have needed to do is say ‘Uncle!’ and pretend we were long lost relatives from California,” He said excitedly. “We could have had a gourmet meal for free and they would never have known the difference. They don’t look like a close knit-family anyway.”
We drove off thinking that, all in all, it had been fun. The freedom to fail should never be taken for granted and I'm sure we all learned something out of it – although I'm not quite sure what. I imagine we've all learned a little bit more about cooking since then . . at least I hope we have! However, as much fun as it was for us four guys to rough it for an entire meal, we were all looking forward to going home to a woman's cooking for a change.
There were four of us. We just stood there staring at it. The hot dogs sat on the table, unopened and cold. Finally one of us broke the silence.
“You do know how to use this, don’t you?”
Silence. . . .
“Well we should be able to figure it out. After all, how hard can it be to use a charcoal grill?”
We returned to our staring. It just stood there. An open-ended box with a rack on top standing on one thin leg like a stork.
We weren't quite prepared for this. Each of us had sort of assumed we were the only ones who didn't know how to use a grill. Turned out we all were. While it came as a relief to each of to learn that we weren't the only one not skilled in this fine culinary art, it also presented a problem. Who was going to cook dinner? Secretly each of us had hoped that the others would have such a vast storehouse of knowledge and experience that we could sit back and watch them cook dinner without betraying our ignorance for this uniquely masculine skill.
We all knew the stereotype . . . we’d seen it many times: a man wearing an apron (not one of those frilly girl aprons but a real man's apron) standing over grill with tongs in one hand and a delicious platter of succulent meat, usually some game animal he's just killed, in the other. In the background mother and kids sit at the picnic table, perfectly secure in their man’s ability to perform the age-honored tradition of grilling. Now there was a real man, a rugged individual as able to prepare meat as his leather clad ancestors!
The only problem was he wasn't here.
As we stood there, painfully aware of this insult to our manhood, something stirred in each of us. We were men, too. This was our element! This was our time!! We would start the fire and grill those hot-dogs!!!
We started out with ardent fervor, which was more than could be said for our fire. Lynn, Shannon, and myself reached for the charcoal and the Leo, too slow get a hand on the bag, grabbed the lighter fluid.
It was then that we noticed it. A rock, rather large, sitting in the grill, covered with ashes. None of us wanted to be so dumb as to not know why every grill needs a big rock in it, but after looking around and seeing three other confused expressions, we took comfort in our collective ignorance and decided it was a pretty dumb chef who would leave a rock in a grill. We deposited the rock outside the grill and scraped out most of the ashes. This done, we poured a couple briquettes in the pit and doused them with lighter fluid.
Nothing happened.
We poured on some more.
Same result.
After a hurried huddle, we remembered the lighter.
Success! Oh the sweet smell of burning fumes! Our mission accomplished, we broke to wash our hands which had become quite dirty during the lighting process. When we came back we found a cold pile of charcoal. Obviously this lighter fluid was pretty weak stuff. We poured on twice as much and lit it off again.
It flamed nicely, but each of us kept an anxious eye on it, afraid it would mysteriously fizzle like the last one. Sure enough, the flames began to flicker and it started to smoke, a sure sign that our fire was dying. Leo grabbed the lighter fluid and hovered over it, ready to sauce it at a moments notice. Just as the last flame began to sputter he squirted it with the fluid.
He extinguished it completely.
We grabbed the lighter once more. However, before we lit it off once more, I offered a careful suggestion. I seemed to remember people stacking the charcoal in a pile before they lit it, something about conserving the heat. When I suggested it, they looked at me in awe. From then on I was the resident expert on grilling.
We stacked the charcoal in a crude little pile, adding one or two more briquettes for good measure, and for the third time we touched the lighter to the soaked pile. This time it stayed lit. Eager to grill supper we placed foil on the rack, which was rather dirty, slit it to allow heat through, and placed the hot-dogs on top.
While we were waiting for our meat to cook, we opened a bag of chips and dug in. We chatted confidently about how easy it was to grill and how good the hotdogs were going to be. We might even start our own grilling service depending on how good the hot dogs turned to be. Eventually Lynn decided it was time to check the dogs. Walking over to the grill, he grabbed the fork and flipped a dog. We all rose to inspect it. It had changed colors. It was no longer pink; instead, they were a quite light tan color--on one side. He proceeded to flip them all.
We returned to our chips thinking how foolish we had been to doubt ourselves. There was nothing to grilling, at least nothing we couldn’t figure out. To round out our soon-to-be meal, Shannon, Leo, and I broke out the drinks: Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper . . . three two-liter bottles for four guys. We wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night. Meanwhile Lynn broke out his own drink, a small plastic container with a suspiciously healthy looking label sporting bananas and strawberries.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“It’s soy milk,” he replied. “My mom really likes this stuff so she sent it along for us.”
Leo eyed it up. “It doesn’t look that bad. I’ll try some.”
“I'll take some, too,” I chimed in. I was feeling adventurous.
We both drank some and agreed that it wasn’t that bad. Not necessarily good, but not bad either. We ate some more chips and washed it down with soy milk. Pretty soon we figured it was time to check the main course before we made an entire meal of the condiments. The hot dogs were slightly warmer but they weren’t going anywhere fast.
“I don’t think their getting enough heat,” said Shannon, stating the obvious. “Maybe it would help if they were closer to the charcoal.”
Lynn, probably only one in our group with much engineering ability considered this. “Well the rack can’t be lowered so the only way to get them closer would be to move the charcoal up” He concluded. (Lynn was truly brilliant with that type of logic).
“That’s kinda hard to do after the fire’s already started.” said Shannon doubtfully.
“Not really,” said Lynn. “All you have to do is . . . “ He thought about this for a couple seconds. “Well yeah, I guess it is. If only we would have had something to put under the charcoal before we started it. Something like. . .”
“A big rock?” said Leo quietly.
Everybody wished he had kept that thought to himself.
It was then I noticed that everyone was looking at me. As the resident expert on grilling, and also the one who had decided to take out the big rock, charring these hot dogs became my dilemma. My first suggestion was walking over to the neighboring camp which looked like an extended family get-together and borrowing a few of their flames. Their grill was huge and obviously putting off way more heat than they needed. My plan was for two of us could sneak our hot-dogs on beside their steaks spare ribs while the other two created a distraction. Shannon thought maybe we should just ask them if we could use their grill. I think he secretly hoped that if we openly contributed to their grill, we might get invited to some tastier cuts of meat . . . kinda like a vending machine: you put hot dogs in and get T-bone steaks out. However, none of us were bold enough to take action on this daring plan, so the brainstorm continued.
My second suggestion was roasting-sticks. Since none of us had a knife, this would be hard, but the other were willing to give it a try. Shannon was the first to find a stick, actually it was more of a twig, and with this he speared a hot dog. It was then that we found out the hog dogs were cheese-filled. Cheese oozed out and dripped on the coals, causing a burst of flame.
With both of my brilliant plans shot down, I decided to try a different tactic. I thought that maybe if we turned the grill into the wind it would trap the heat against the back and force it up past the hot dogs. Accordingly we turned the grill into the wind.
We couldn't see much for the next few minutes as we tried to wipe ashes out of our eyes. Apparently my plan had overlooked one little detail. It was a rather windy day and a particularly strong gust of wind happened along just was turned the grill, catching up the ashes that we had neglected to scrape out and flinging them in our faces like a miniature volcano.
Now all three of my plans had failed and the hot dogs had a nice coating of ashes, Lynn decided to take matters into his own hands. It was time for desperate measures. Taking a hot dog off the rack, he wrapped it in some tinfoil we had used to cover the dirty rack, and placed it directly on top of the coals. Feeding off his idea, I suggested we wrap all the hot dogs in the protective foil and mass grill them.
They all agreed that if I had earned my first hot-dog with my first suggestion of piling the coals, I had definitely earned my second hot dog with this second suggestion. All fully convinced that this idea was a real winner, we busily commenced wrapping the hot dogs in the protective foil. The end result looked something like a large tin burrito. We placed this large burrito on the coal and waited to see what would happen. After about five minutes we checked them. They were nicely burned. . . on one side. The other side was barely touched. Also, because we had punched the foil full of holes, there were a lots of little pieces of ash burned into them. Not too thrilled with the outcome of our hard work, we discussed opening the second pack of hot dogs and trying over again. However, considering how well our attempts had worked – that and the fact that our tin foil burrito had smothered our fire and none of us had the heart or patience to try to get it going again – we decided to ditch the experiment and make the best of what we had.
We ate our hot dogs -- with lots of ketchup -- and waited to get sick. We didn’t. Feeling slightly better about the meal, I figured I’d push my luck and try a mixed drink. Soy milk and Sprite. That nearly succeeded where the hot dogs had failed and I almost threw up. I had hoped the smooth and soothing texture of the soy milk and tangy fizz of the Sprite would equal each other out to create a nice blend. Wrong! It tasted like something that would work well to fuel a new breed of car. We ended up the meal with some leftover veggie pizza that Lynn’s mom had sent along in case of emergency. She must have known that we couldn’t prepare supper on our own. We ate and talked for a while and really had a nice time of it, even laughing a little at our mistakes.
When we exhausted our supply of edible food, we decided it was time to pack up and head home. As we drove off, Leo suggested that we might have saved ourselves a lot of time and trouble if we had just walked up to the large camp beside us, the one with the big grill, and pretended that we belonged with them.
“All we would have needed to do is say ‘Uncle!’ and pretend we were long lost relatives from California,” He said excitedly. “We could have had a gourmet meal for free and they would never have known the difference. They don’t look like a close knit-family anyway.”
We drove off thinking that, all in all, it had been fun. The freedom to fail should never be taken for granted and I'm sure we all learned something out of it – although I'm not quite sure what. I imagine we've all learned a little bit more about cooking since then . . at least I hope we have! However, as much fun as it was for us four guys to rough it for an entire meal, we were all looking forward to going home to a woman's cooking for a change.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Not Alone
After praying for the last two weeks for something constructive to do while I'm recovering from shoulder surgery, God answered in a way I never expected. The other night a friend of mine called and asked me if I wanted to be a counselor at a winter retreat he's planning for later this month. Apparently he found out from someone that I'd had shoulder surgery and was looking for something to do so he gave me a call. God really does have a great sense of timing! I haven't heard from him for half a year but he called at a time when I desperately needed something to do to get my focus off myself. It also happens to work out great with my college schedule so it looks like the doors are open for me to do something besides sitting at home trying to find something to do.
Anyway, it was an encouragement to me to see God answer that prayer, especially since I've been struggling the past two weeks and haven't felt like I've been on God's side for most of it. Earlier that day I felt like I was doing all I could and not receiving much help, but then, with one simple phone call, God had reminded me once again that I'm not alone. I felt like He was saying, “Mike, I know you better than you know yourself. I know exactly when you struggle and why you struggle, but I love you anyway and I do hear you when you cry out to me. You're not alone in this, and even though you fight Me at times, when you turn back to Me, even the littlest bit, I will be there to help you come the rest of the way.”
The battle still isn't over, but it was good to be reminded that the only time I'll have to fight alone is when I'm fighting God. Thankfully He knows the weakness of prodigal sons and doesn't make us come all the way home by ourselves but runs to meet us when we He sees us making an effort to come back.
James 4:8 “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts ye double minded.”
Anyway, it was an encouragement to me to see God answer that prayer, especially since I've been struggling the past two weeks and haven't felt like I've been on God's side for most of it. Earlier that day I felt like I was doing all I could and not receiving much help, but then, with one simple phone call, God had reminded me once again that I'm not alone. I felt like He was saying, “Mike, I know you better than you know yourself. I know exactly when you struggle and why you struggle, but I love you anyway and I do hear you when you cry out to me. You're not alone in this, and even though you fight Me at times, when you turn back to Me, even the littlest bit, I will be there to help you come the rest of the way.”
The battle still isn't over, but it was good to be reminded that the only time I'll have to fight alone is when I'm fighting God. Thankfully He knows the weakness of prodigal sons and doesn't make us come all the way home by ourselves but runs to meet us when we He sees us making an effort to come back.
James 4:8 “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts ye double minded.”
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
I Dare Not Call Him Lord . . .
To call Jesus “Lord” when I ask Him to save me – that is easy; to treat Him as one when He asks me to obey – that is much harder. Many times I don't really want a Lord as much as they want a strong protector to guide me, but I can't have one without the other. To ask His protection and guidance is to let Him make the rules and set the course. This song points that out. It is one we sang at camp this summer and it was a favorite among the staff. The message was clear and it was much needed as the realities set in of what it means to be a servant and surrender your will to His.
I DARE NOT CALL HIM LORD
I can not understand the way God moves his hand,
But I can still be faithful to Him, He's working in His plan,
When worry comes my way, when trials come each day,
If He would be my Lord I must learn to trust Him and obey.
I dare not call Him Lord and live the way I choose,
If I would be His servant my life is his to use,
And if I gain the world, and all it can afford,
I can not be His servant, I dare not call Him Lord.
I don't do all I should, I don't do what I would,
But God in love is faithful and true, He works all things for good,
Oh may I always be a vessel Lord for Thee,
That all I do and say everyday, may cause the world to see.
I dare not call Him Lord and live the way I choose,
If I would be His servant my life is his to use,
And if I gain the world, and all it can afford,
I can not be His servant, I dare not call Him Lord --
But I will be his servant, and I will call Him Lord.
I DARE NOT CALL HIM LORD
I can not understand the way God moves his hand,
But I can still be faithful to Him, He's working in His plan,
When worry comes my way, when trials come each day,
If He would be my Lord I must learn to trust Him and obey.
I dare not call Him Lord and live the way I choose,
If I would be His servant my life is his to use,
And if I gain the world, and all it can afford,
I can not be His servant, I dare not call Him Lord.
I don't do all I should, I don't do what I would,
But God in love is faithful and true, He works all things for good,
Oh may I always be a vessel Lord for Thee,
That all I do and say everyday, may cause the world to see.
I dare not call Him Lord and live the way I choose,
If I would be His servant my life is his to use,
And if I gain the world, and all it can afford,
I can not be His servant, I dare not call Him Lord --
But I will be his servant, and I will call Him Lord.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
"You're going the wrong way! Sir."
(Something that happened to me this summer.)
It was supposed to be a simple thing. I knew people half my age who had been doing it for years. I was confident I could do just as well as them. After all, hadn't I passed my driver's course on the first try and been driving real grown-up cars for three years?
The go-cart track was a simple thing. . . deceptively simple . . . a quasi round track with a few sloping curves and an overpass. The car was simple too; a brake pedal and a gas pedal that you pushed gently start and then crushed to the floor for the rest of the race.
There were only four other people in the race. Two of them were my brothers and the other two were my cousins. Five cousins duke it out it out Highland Mini Sports park raceway (which also doubled as a car wash.) It was going to be a momentous occasion.
We paid our five dollars to lady attendant -- it seemed steep to me, but the others handed it over without balking so I figured I must just be tight – and proceeded in an orderly fashion to the car of our choice. Well it would have been orderly if my brother hadn't tried to beat to the car I wanted. I lost so instead of the bright red car with the cool flame job at the front of the line, I had to settle for a car at the back of the pack. I imagine it was once a pretty little blue car, but that was several years ago. It looked like it had a habit of hopping off the track and running cross country to the nearest demolition derby. Things were not off to a good, start, but I figured I'd make it up on the raceway.
When I tried to enter my car, I discovered that this contraption was obviously made for midgets, not a youngish guy who was often referred to fondly – or not so kindly depending on the situation – as “lanky”. I wondered briefly as I forced my legs out from underneath my chin and into the pedal arena, whether maybe we were a little too old for this sort of thing, but I dismissed that. After all, my one cousin was a year older than me and he was doing it. Although, on second thought, he doesn't measure out at 6'2”.
Once I got all my limbs in the right place and wrestled the seat belt into position, I looked up for my instructions. The girl who was in charge of our little group had already started her memorized speech. She looked bored and in her right hand she held a remote with a bunch of buttons. I'd missed her little introduction about safety, but I caught enough of the beginning to hear the important part: How to start the car! She punched a little button on her remote and a light appeared under a switch. In unison we all flipped the switched and the cars roared to life. Actually, it was more of a sputter, but with four rough-running engines all under one roof, it sounded like a roar. Yeah! This was progress! I couldn't hear the lady with the remote any more, but now that I had my car started, I figured I could take it from here. It didn't look like she was saying anything important anyway. She had the look of an instructor explaining to a group of adults something a group of kindergartners should already know.
The lady with the remote was closing her speech by the time I had figured out which pedal was the gas and which was the brake. The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get the thing in gear. No matter how hard I stepped on the gas nothing happened. I found my answer when she punched a button on her remote and everybody else headed out of the garage for their practice lap. The gas! Of course! I fumbled around in the unknown pedal arena until I found the gas pedal again. It worked this time! Apparently she had changed something with her remote and my car had been given permission to listen to me when I stepped on the gas. I started to wonder just how much control she had over us. After all, I was here to race, not ride around in a remote controlled dune buggy! However, the upshot of the whole thing was that I had discovered forward motion. I was pumped!
By the time I made the discovery, everyone else was well on their way to the track. Determined to catch up by the end of the practice lap, I stepped on the gas hard. This produced an ungainly lurch out of my car. No matter how I tried to smooth it out, it still bucked like a bronco every time I tried to change it's pace. Apparently it had two speeds. Fast and stopped, and the only way to get from one to the other was to ride a passing leapfrog. However, despite the bucking the wheels had started to roll faster. I decided it was time to see if the car listened to the steering wheel of if that too had to wait to for it's orders from the master remote.
I turned the wheel hard and found out that I was definitely in control of the wheel. The only problem was I wasn't really in good control of them. When I turned the steering wheel, the tiny front wheels responded by doing an about face and my car veered wildly to the right. I corrected the slight problem and veered back on track. I realized by now that this thing didn't have power steering and that if I was to make anything except right-angle turns on the track, I would have to use a fine combination of extreme strength and hair-thin precision. Fortunately I was well in command of both so I should have no problem. The wheels were rolling, the motor was rumbling, and the steering wheel worked as my car and I rumbled out from the safety of the garage. Now we were going somewhere! The only problem was I wasn't quite sure where.
While I was busting my bronco, everyone else had saddled theirs and had disappeared. I had intended to follow them and catch them by the first corner. The only problem was I didn't know which one it was. From my snake's eye view, I couldn't see if they had gone right or left when they left the garage. I looked around quickly for any markers that would tell me which way to go. No luck there. (I found out later that I was sitting right on top of it.) Not wanting to stop the car and ask for directions – I am a guy after all! -- I aimed straight ahead for a long as I could, still frantically searching for my direction. I didn't find it. In a moment of desperation, as the guardrail loomed up in front of my car, (and partly because I had turned right out of the garage and it was now a conditioned response in a panic) I whipped the wheel to the right and set my course downhill. Then I saw the marker, a big fat arrow painted on the ground – pointing right at me!
Apparently the lady with the remote saw it too before I had figured out that one a racetrack one really ought not to drive against the arrows, she came running out of the garage shouting and waving her remote. I took the hint and figured a quick U-turn was in order. Hoping that two rights make a right, I whipped the wheel to right one more time and tried to turn my leaping frog around. It didn't work. The track was much to tight even to allow my spectacular right-angle turn. Deciding to make it a two-point turn instead of a U-turn, I mashed the brake before just before running into another guardrail and I searched in the dark for a pedal that would make the car back up. I found out then that this car really was simple and in addition to having only two speeds and two pedals, it only had one direction – forward. With only one option left, I turned the wheel even further to the right and ramped into the guardrail in an attempt to right myself before the lady with the remote got to me.
It didn't work. Apparently she had decided that I was some sort of idiot and the easiest way to deal with me was to take matters out of my hands. She punched another button on her remote and my car obediently died. Walking up to me with a disgusted look on her face, she informed me rather emphatically that I had done something that I gathered no one else had ever done in the history of the course.
“You're going the wrong way! Sir” (I loved the way she added “Sir” on there. It made it sound like I was a grown up idiot instead of just a little one.)
“You need to listen to directions when I tell you to turn left when you get to the track!”Still glaring at me, she clicked something on her remote began pushing me backwards.
“Okay, turn the wheel left.”
Now I know how to make a two-point turn and I had already decided to do it the other way, so when she told me to turn left, I assumed she meant her left and I whipped the wheel right one more time. This got another glare from her and in her eyes I read the desire to tell me what she really thought about my driving abilities if she had been allowed to. At least she wasn't bored any more! My guess is that she hasn't had the kind of excitement in all the years she's been doing that job.
Finally I decided to do things her way -- after all she had the remote and I gathered she was about to use it again to pull me off the track! -- and with a little bit of uneasy teamwork, we managed to get my car back on track. By this time I was expecting to see my cousins and brothers come roaring around the track. Fortunately, when she stopped my car she had the foresight and decency to stop their cars as well so they didn't come up and rear-end us as we corrected my little mistake. It also meant they didn't have to see how red my face turned as I struggled to prove to the lady with the remote that I really could drive and that it was not a hazard to local security to let me finish the race. However, while they were stuck on the other side of the track, my uncle and aunt who had come along to watch were doing just that. My car was making a lot of noise so I couldn't hear them laughing, but I happened to look up when she was pushing me and my uncle's face was bulging and kind of red, like he wanted to laugh but wanted to save it for when I was closer and could really appreciate it. My aunt looked like she was trying not to laugh, not because she wanted to do it in my face but because she wasn't sure she wanted other people to know that she was associated with me and my predicament.
By the time I had my car righted and ready for action once more, she had released the rest of the cars and they were coming off their warm-up lap. The reached me about the time I started rolling and we all moved from warm-up speed to racing speed as the lady decided I really didn't need my warm-up lap. My brother passed me immediately but my car's bucking ability finally paid off and I managed to wheel into line just in time to cut off the rest of the pack. . . a position I managed to keep for the entire race. It turned out that once you found your place it really didn't matter how good a driver you were because all the cars were the same speed you could go full speed around the entire track.
When we finished our last lap, the lady with the remote reigned back into parking speed. I got another look from her as I parked my car, but I ignored her and moved off in the company of people with a better sense of humor, people who could appreciate a real idiotic maneuver when they saw one. Needless to say, I had to repeat the story several times before they got their fill and have retold it many times since then, along with the story about another time when I went the going the wrong way. Incidentally, that also involved a right turn into the wrong lane. . . but that's a story for another time.
It was supposed to be a simple thing. I knew people half my age who had been doing it for years. I was confident I could do just as well as them. After all, hadn't I passed my driver's course on the first try and been driving real grown-up cars for three years?
The go-cart track was a simple thing. . . deceptively simple . . . a quasi round track with a few sloping curves and an overpass. The car was simple too; a brake pedal and a gas pedal that you pushed gently start and then crushed to the floor for the rest of the race.
There were only four other people in the race. Two of them were my brothers and the other two were my cousins. Five cousins duke it out it out Highland Mini Sports park raceway (which also doubled as a car wash.) It was going to be a momentous occasion.
We paid our five dollars to lady attendant -- it seemed steep to me, but the others handed it over without balking so I figured I must just be tight – and proceeded in an orderly fashion to the car of our choice. Well it would have been orderly if my brother hadn't tried to beat to the car I wanted. I lost so instead of the bright red car with the cool flame job at the front of the line, I had to settle for a car at the back of the pack. I imagine it was once a pretty little blue car, but that was several years ago. It looked like it had a habit of hopping off the track and running cross country to the nearest demolition derby. Things were not off to a good, start, but I figured I'd make it up on the raceway.
When I tried to enter my car, I discovered that this contraption was obviously made for midgets, not a youngish guy who was often referred to fondly – or not so kindly depending on the situation – as “lanky”. I wondered briefly as I forced my legs out from underneath my chin and into the pedal arena, whether maybe we were a little too old for this sort of thing, but I dismissed that. After all, my one cousin was a year older than me and he was doing it. Although, on second thought, he doesn't measure out at 6'2”.
Once I got all my limbs in the right place and wrestled the seat belt into position, I looked up for my instructions. The girl who was in charge of our little group had already started her memorized speech. She looked bored and in her right hand she held a remote with a bunch of buttons. I'd missed her little introduction about safety, but I caught enough of the beginning to hear the important part: How to start the car! She punched a little button on her remote and a light appeared under a switch. In unison we all flipped the switched and the cars roared to life. Actually, it was more of a sputter, but with four rough-running engines all under one roof, it sounded like a roar. Yeah! This was progress! I couldn't hear the lady with the remote any more, but now that I had my car started, I figured I could take it from here. It didn't look like she was saying anything important anyway. She had the look of an instructor explaining to a group of adults something a group of kindergartners should already know.
The lady with the remote was closing her speech by the time I had figured out which pedal was the gas and which was the brake. The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get the thing in gear. No matter how hard I stepped on the gas nothing happened. I found my answer when she punched a button on her remote and everybody else headed out of the garage for their practice lap. The gas! Of course! I fumbled around in the unknown pedal arena until I found the gas pedal again. It worked this time! Apparently she had changed something with her remote and my car had been given permission to listen to me when I stepped on the gas. I started to wonder just how much control she had over us. After all, I was here to race, not ride around in a remote controlled dune buggy! However, the upshot of the whole thing was that I had discovered forward motion. I was pumped!
By the time I made the discovery, everyone else was well on their way to the track. Determined to catch up by the end of the practice lap, I stepped on the gas hard. This produced an ungainly lurch out of my car. No matter how I tried to smooth it out, it still bucked like a bronco every time I tried to change it's pace. Apparently it had two speeds. Fast and stopped, and the only way to get from one to the other was to ride a passing leapfrog. However, despite the bucking the wheels had started to roll faster. I decided it was time to see if the car listened to the steering wheel of if that too had to wait to for it's orders from the master remote.
I turned the wheel hard and found out that I was definitely in control of the wheel. The only problem was I wasn't really in good control of them. When I turned the steering wheel, the tiny front wheels responded by doing an about face and my car veered wildly to the right. I corrected the slight problem and veered back on track. I realized by now that this thing didn't have power steering and that if I was to make anything except right-angle turns on the track, I would have to use a fine combination of extreme strength and hair-thin precision. Fortunately I was well in command of both so I should have no problem. The wheels were rolling, the motor was rumbling, and the steering wheel worked as my car and I rumbled out from the safety of the garage. Now we were going somewhere! The only problem was I wasn't quite sure where.
While I was busting my bronco, everyone else had saddled theirs and had disappeared. I had intended to follow them and catch them by the first corner. The only problem was I didn't know which one it was. From my snake's eye view, I couldn't see if they had gone right or left when they left the garage. I looked around quickly for any markers that would tell me which way to go. No luck there. (I found out later that I was sitting right on top of it.) Not wanting to stop the car and ask for directions – I am a guy after all! -- I aimed straight ahead for a long as I could, still frantically searching for my direction. I didn't find it. In a moment of desperation, as the guardrail loomed up in front of my car, (and partly because I had turned right out of the garage and it was now a conditioned response in a panic) I whipped the wheel to the right and set my course downhill. Then I saw the marker, a big fat arrow painted on the ground – pointing right at me!
Apparently the lady with the remote saw it too before I had figured out that one a racetrack one really ought not to drive against the arrows, she came running out of the garage shouting and waving her remote. I took the hint and figured a quick U-turn was in order. Hoping that two rights make a right, I whipped the wheel to right one more time and tried to turn my leaping frog around. It didn't work. The track was much to tight even to allow my spectacular right-angle turn. Deciding to make it a two-point turn instead of a U-turn, I mashed the brake before just before running into another guardrail and I searched in the dark for a pedal that would make the car back up. I found out then that this car really was simple and in addition to having only two speeds and two pedals, it only had one direction – forward. With only one option left, I turned the wheel even further to the right and ramped into the guardrail in an attempt to right myself before the lady with the remote got to me.
It didn't work. Apparently she had decided that I was some sort of idiot and the easiest way to deal with me was to take matters out of my hands. She punched another button on her remote and my car obediently died. Walking up to me with a disgusted look on her face, she informed me rather emphatically that I had done something that I gathered no one else had ever done in the history of the course.
“You're going the wrong way! Sir” (I loved the way she added “Sir” on there. It made it sound like I was a grown up idiot instead of just a little one.)
“You need to listen to directions when I tell you to turn left when you get to the track!”Still glaring at me, she clicked something on her remote began pushing me backwards.
“Okay, turn the wheel left.”
Now I know how to make a two-point turn and I had already decided to do it the other way, so when she told me to turn left, I assumed she meant her left and I whipped the wheel right one more time. This got another glare from her and in her eyes I read the desire to tell me what she really thought about my driving abilities if she had been allowed to. At least she wasn't bored any more! My guess is that she hasn't had the kind of excitement in all the years she's been doing that job.
Finally I decided to do things her way -- after all she had the remote and I gathered she was about to use it again to pull me off the track! -- and with a little bit of uneasy teamwork, we managed to get my car back on track. By this time I was expecting to see my cousins and brothers come roaring around the track. Fortunately, when she stopped my car she had the foresight and decency to stop their cars as well so they didn't come up and rear-end us as we corrected my little mistake. It also meant they didn't have to see how red my face turned as I struggled to prove to the lady with the remote that I really could drive and that it was not a hazard to local security to let me finish the race. However, while they were stuck on the other side of the track, my uncle and aunt who had come along to watch were doing just that. My car was making a lot of noise so I couldn't hear them laughing, but I happened to look up when she was pushing me and my uncle's face was bulging and kind of red, like he wanted to laugh but wanted to save it for when I was closer and could really appreciate it. My aunt looked like she was trying not to laugh, not because she wanted to do it in my face but because she wasn't sure she wanted other people to know that she was associated with me and my predicament.
By the time I had my car righted and ready for action once more, she had released the rest of the cars and they were coming off their warm-up lap. The reached me about the time I started rolling and we all moved from warm-up speed to racing speed as the lady decided I really didn't need my warm-up lap. My brother passed me immediately but my car's bucking ability finally paid off and I managed to wheel into line just in time to cut off the rest of the pack. . . a position I managed to keep for the entire race. It turned out that once you found your place it really didn't matter how good a driver you were because all the cars were the same speed you could go full speed around the entire track.
When we finished our last lap, the lady with the remote reigned back into parking speed. I got another look from her as I parked my car, but I ignored her and moved off in the company of people with a better sense of humor, people who could appreciate a real idiotic maneuver when they saw one. Needless to say, I had to repeat the story several times before they got their fill and have retold it many times since then, along with the story about another time when I went the going the wrong way. Incidentally, that also involved a right turn into the wrong lane. . . but that's a story for another time.
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