SANDPAPER PEOPLE

Several years ago my wife, Anita, introduced me to a short phrase: “Sandpaper people.” Basically, “sandpaper people” are people who rub you the wrong way. Whether it’s a clash of personality types, a conflict of philosophies (POV) or just a momentary irritation, “sandpaper people” have a way of making life unpleasant and sometimes nearly unbearable. 

Last night we were with our small group and the topic of sandpaper people came up in our discussion. There was so much interaction I finally asked the group of approx. 20: “For how many of you does someone immediately come to mind as a sandpaper person in your life right now?” I was mildly shocked when everyone responded there was someone. Everyone! The fact that everyone identified someone seemed like more than a coincidence. My quick conclusion from this response was that sandpaper people may actually be part of God’s plan to develop our character and deeper our compassion. Where we may see these difficult people as a curse, they may actually be a gift and a blessing. I know that’s a tough perspective to choose, at least it’s tough for me, but it’s for our good we all are forced to deal with difficult people as a part of our daily life.

I recall Paul’s mention of a sandpaper man named Alexander in 2 Timothy 4:14, who he said caused “a great deal of harm.” (NIV) He also mentions facing intense opposition in places like 1 Thessalonians 2:2, Philippians 1:28 and Titus 2:8, at least some of this likely involved people and personalities. I think it is significant to remember that even though Paul faced opposition, he was never overcome by his opposition, and the purposes of God were always accomplished.

Sandpaper people force us to pray more, trust God more, seek God’s wisdom more, and to use greater caution with our words and actions, so we don’t provide ammunition to be used against us. They may force out of our independence and self-sufficiency, as we are motivated to rely on the support, encouragement and counsel of trusted friends.

While this blog has been considering the sandpaper people in our lives, none of us want to be a sandpaper person in someone's life. I think the primary way to avoid this undesirable designation is by choosing to be a person of grace. As we choose grace, in our actions and attitudes, in our words and in the way we view the shortcomings of others, we will avoid being the person others want to avoid.

GETTING CAUGHT OR NOT

I was talking with friends earlier this week and our conversation turned to the consequences of sin. Of course, there are all the consequences associated with getting caught in sin. There’s the shame associated with others becoming aware of your sin and the subsequent embarrassment when what was secret is “laid bare” (1 Corinthians 14:25; Hebrews 4:13), which is another way to say, “When there are no more secrets.” Sometimes, once caught, there are consequences which impact a person’s relationships, career, etc. In our conversation we talked about how much several “fallen” sports stars have lost because their private lives became public. The two which were mentioned were Tiger Woods and Michael Vick. In the case of Tiger, his “sin” ultimately cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Amazingly, that may not be the most costly consequence, as we’ll address later in this blog.

Leonard Ravenhill is quoted as saying, “The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it.” In our increasingly amoral culture, which is to say pretty much anything goes these days, guilt, shame and remorse are becomingly increasingly endangered. I am still perplexed that then New York Governor Eliot Spitzer went from a major prostitution scandal in 2008 to having his own show on CNN (Parker-Spitzer; Note: Kathleen Parker resigned from the show yesterday, 2.25.2011). 

The consequences for sin are not limited to getting caught. Before a person is caught, and even if they are never caught, no one ever gets away without having to deal with consequences. God created each of us with a moral conscience. Even though some people have a diminished conscience, due to rationalizing their choices and/or redefining sin, I don’t believe they can fully silence the sense of right and wrong which we all possess. The consequences connected to what happens in our conscience may be more severe and disturbing than actually getting caught in sin. I can’t say with certainty, but my guess is Tiger Woods giving up hundreds of millions in a divorce settlement and unknown additional millions (hundreds of millions?) in endorsement money is the LEAST of the consequences he’s dealing with. For those of us who are golf fans, it has not escaped our notice that the former best golfer in the world has not won a tournament since 2009 and there is no indication he will return to form any time soon.

David speaks directly to this matter of consequences, and specifically those associated with his conscience, in Psalm 51 (quotations are from the New Living Translation):

V3: “For I recognize my shameful deeds -- they haunt me day and night”

 

V4: “Against you, and you alone, have I sinned” – I have always wondered about this statement. We know that his sin involved and impacted others, but in David’s way of thinking, his sin was ultimately an offense against God. 

V8: “Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me” – People who don’t weep over the loss of the joy of salvation, probably never had it in the first place. 

V9: “Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt” – David couldn’t ignore the guilt of sin and the “stain’ it had left on his conscience [heart].

V11: “Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me” – David was a worshiper. He, more than most and maybe more than anyone, understood what it was like to be in the precious presence of Almighty God. And now, because of the hidden sin in his life he wasn’t experiencing that presence he so deeply valued.  And, he missed it! He…missed…it!

V12: “Restore to me again the joy of your salvation” – Notice David comes back to the theme of JOY. It’s not a stretch to suggest that the loss of joy was one of the main consequences David experienced. There is pleasure in sin (Hebrews 11:25), but it doesn’t even begin to compare with the joy which comes to those who are in right relationship to God. 

When I was talking with my friends earlier this week, I reflected back on my younger years. I distinctly remember thinking that if I didn’t get caught, then I was “scot free” (“Without incurring payment; or escaping without punishment” from phrases.org). The problem was, I knew what I had done. I knew I had disobeyed my parents or my teacher or God. It didn’t matter that no one else knew, I knew! There is what others know, which is usually limited in some way. There is what we know, which is everything except what we bury in our sub-conscience. And then there is what God knows, which is everything because nothing is hidden from him (Hebrews 4:13). Therefore, even if you never get caught, there are still consequences, because you know and God knows.

LIFE IS HARD, Part 3

Today I want to deal with the question: What happens if we live with an expectation that life is going to be hard? There would be some who would answer this question by from the perspective of fear. Something along the lines that if a person expects life to be hard, they will become someone who is negative and always expecting the worst to happen. They will be consumed with their problems. I have a friend who worked really hard to deny reality. Even if he was going through a hard time, he refused to acknowledge it. His approach had something to do with a misunderstanding of faith. I used to tell my friend he could be standing in the middle of a cow pie, and he would still say, “Don’t the roses smell wonderful today?” I think if someone is consumed with negativity or they live in constant denial of reality, they have trust issues in their relationship with God. 

Here’s my perspective: I believe if we live with an expectation that life is going to be hard, we will better prepare ourselves and, furthermore, we will live with an active awareness that we need to be on guard against the schemes of the devil. 

The following verses not only remind me I am in a fight, but I need to be ready to fight. Hopefully you didn’t read that last sentence too quickly. I’ll say it again: We’re in a fight and we need to be ready to fight! 

Ephesians 6:11 NIV “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.”

Jude 1:20 NIV “…build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.”

1 Timothy 6:12 NIV “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

2 Peter 3:17 NIV “Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.”

1 Corinthians 10:12 NAS “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”

If you’re find that life is not particularly hard for you right now, don’t assume it’s going to remain that way forever. Take this time to get ready for the next fight of faith. It’s not like I want to be a bummer for you, but if things are going really well for you right now, it’s going to change. We won’t get to rest from the fight until we reach heaven. If you think of life like a boxing match, the times of relative calm, are simply the space between the rounds. Catch your breath and get ready to get back into the brawl. 

Also, when things are calm in your life, look for opportunities to come alongside those who going through a hard time, they are literally all around us, and pour the grace and love of God into their lives in the spirit of Galatians 6:1 (NLT) “Dear brothers and sisters, if another Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.”

LIFE IS HARD, Part Two

Today I want to continue the previous blog, LIFE IS HARD. There’s a reason why Staples (staples.com), the office products store, has designed all of their advertising and promotion around the “easy” theme. According to their website, they make everything easy. The appeal of making everything easy makes a lot of sense. Given the complexity of our high-stress, high-tech world, everyone is looking for ways to make life easier. Whether Staples can produce on the promise of their “easy button” is up to each consumer to decide. Are you buying what they’re selling?

We all wish we had an “easy button” we could push on demand to help us cope with the really hard things we encounter in our everyday lives. The “American Dream”, which sets us up to expect life to be comfortable, convenient and happy, contributes to an expectation that things are going to go our way. There are some in Christian circles who go so far as to suggest God promises to give us the life of our dreams if we’ll have faith, live righteously and pray the right prayers. That would have been a tough sermon to preach when I visited Honduras a couple of years ago, and was sharing with people who lived on $900 a year. BTW, they were people of great faith, hope and love, even though they didn’t have all the things many of us equate with happiness in life. Makes a person go, “Ummm!” Maybe they’ve discovered something many of us are missing.

In today’s blog I want to address the following question: “What happens if we expect life to be easy and it suddenly becomes hard?” 

First, and I mentioned this in the previous blog, we’ll find ourselves unprepared for the disappointment which comes from dealing with hard things. In my experience, one of the most damaging effects of disappointment is disillusionment. We see both of these strong emotions in the words of Job, as he struggles to process all that he is going through. David deals with similar emotions in Psalm 73, and even a dose of despair, as he tries to understand why his life is going so bad, all while evil men are experiencing the life of his dreams. 

Second, what we do with the disappointment, disillusionment and despair associated with life suddenly becoming hard, is a serious concern. Many times, in the confusion of our thoughts and emotions, we begin to reach wrong conclusions and make poor decisions. There is a certain level of irrationality which often accompanies our confused state. It’s at that this point we may being making decisions which carry consequences that will linger in our lives long after the hard times have passed. We look for the “easy button”, or a way to escape as quickly as possible. For some people this involves turning to substances, making radical changes in their relationships (getting in or getting out of a significant relationship), and/or making rash decisions regarding the big things in their life (career, school, church, etc.). It’s ironic that the motivation for making such changes is to make things easier or better, and what it usually does is make things even harder. The devil is a liar and if you’re following his advice it’s never going to turn out good in the end. 

Third, when were going through hard times, we often feel very isolated and alone. There’s a great temptation to look around at others and how things are going for them, and to conclude that we have it worse than anyone else. I don’t mean to diminish what you’re dealing with today in any way, but the truth is everybody’s life is hard. Everybody is facing something so challenging, they want to give up. This is how I see it, everybody has either just come through hard season, or they’re currently in a hard season, or they’re getting ready to enter into some difficult days. If we believe what Job writes in 7:1-3, it’s what each of us has been allotted or assigned. In our humanness, we tend to ask: “Why me?” A different question is: “Why not you?” 

In my next blog I want to deal with the question: What happens if we live with an expectation that life is going to be hard? Look for it on Thursday or so.

John 16:33 NIV "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

LIFE IS HARD

I lead a weekly small group which is studying the Book of Job. So far, we’re through chapter seven. I’ve found that many people try to avoid this Old Testament book. It’s like they have enough trouble in their own lives, why get caught up in someone else’s mess? I understand the perspective, but personally I think there are some powerful spiritual lessons to be learned from Job.

As we were looking at chapter seven last week one of the lessons which surfaced was in regards to Job’s perspective on life. In reading through verses 1-3, Job communicates that life will be hard, at least for a period of “months” (V3). He actually states that each person is “allotted” (NIV) or “assigned” (NLT) a period of struggle. In our study, we’re finding that we have to always compare what Job is saying to the rest of the Bible because his thoughts are not always correct. On this point, I believe Job is correct. For anyone to reach the conclusion that the Bible teaches Christians are exempt from struggles and suffering is incomplete or in error. 

For many people, the possibility our lives will be anything other than a smooth and easy stroll, is unacceptable. Of course, some have tried to manipulate their theology to eliminate suffering and struggle. This usually results in a determined focus on the promises of God; not all of the promises, of course, just the ones which seem to point to their desired outcome. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am all for focusing on the promises of God and, especially, praying the promises. It’s what I do when I am going through a dark time. (FYI: The Bible often describes trials and tribulations in terms of night or darkness)

I am deeply concerned for those who expect life to be easy. It may work for awhile, but eventually there will be a huge disappointment, or the death of a loved one, or something which happens to change the direction of life temporarily and even permanently. The worst thing for those who expect life to be easy is they are unprepared for the hard times. There are more than a few Christians who assume because they loved God and are trying to do right [righteous] things, their life would be easy. There are times when the invitation for someone to follow Christ is some variation of the idea: “Come to Jesus and he will take all your problems away.” More than a few people have told me when they made the choice to follow Christ, that’s when their problems really began. Job’s four friends argued with him from the perspective, “bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people.” Therefore, they argue, because so much tragedy had descended upon Job’s life, he must have messed up big time.

In the 80s, CCM artist Pam Thum recorded a song, “Life is Hard (God is Good).” (see link below) The song isn’t exactly my style, but I appreciate the message. Thum sings: “Jesus never said, it was an easy road to travel, He only said that you would never be alone.” In my next blog I will share with you why it’s better to go through life with the perspective there will be hard times for all of us. Until then:  “Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV) Wherever you are and whatever you’re going through today, Jesus is in the middle of it all with you!

Link to the song, LIFE IS HARD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CofUkANTmeQ&feature=related