VERY REAL RAGS
I once heard a story about the Southeast Asian people who captured and domesticated wild water buffalo to use as plow animals. One of these huge beasts, whose massive weight and strength could destroy an entire village if it was so inclined, was captured, not with force, ropes, guns, or whips but with a far more powerful tool - FEAR. The villagers would go into the marshes and waterholes where the critters lounged and begin to make a loud racket by banging on cans and limbs while shouting and waving bits of cloth and rags. The giant animals would lunge in fear away from the noise and go crashing through the brush into a clearing prepared ahead of time. Around the clearing, old rags and colored pieces of cloth were draped over the shrubs, creating a corral of fabric. The buffalo would careen into this makeshift pen and skid to a complete halt. Frozen in bewildered fear, they kept a safe distance from the strange barrier and, day after day, the captors would talk to them and feed them until, having gained the animals' trust, they were able to lead them around the pen by a ring in the nose. Soon, with the touch of a slender stick, even a small child could ride on the back of the huge beast.

It is impossible to fear the past. We can only fear things that are future. A perception of what might happen tonight, tomorrow, next week, when I'm old, when I die, and even eternity. There is the school of thought that says the future is not a reality. It has yet to happen because it is still in the process of being formed. It is a convergence of events. What you do or don't do right now, combined with what others do or don't do right now. And of course, when that convergence finally happens tomorrow or next week, it will not be the future - we will then call it "now".

So our brains fill in the gaps and work out the scenarios in advance and if what we "image-ine" is negative, we are afraid. More than likely, we freeze in fear and do not dare take a step forward. The rags that our mind drapes around are as effective as a concrete wall in stopping us.

If we were to see beyond the wall or approach it and press against it, we would find that like old rags, there was never anything to fear at all.

Jesus said, "Do not be anxious (in a state of suspenseful fear) about tomorrow". He reminded us that tomorrow's troubles will be balanced out with its good things, and to those who walked in trust with Him, completeness. He used the word, "sufficient", which meant you will have everything you need available to you to make the day complete and full.

So why do we fail to understand and accept this?

I am not doing very well with the aging process. I confess that I have spent most of my days in the last few years anxious and worried. (You know the dream about walking in slow motion down the school hallway, in your underwear, looking for your locker, to get the book you forgot, for the class you can't find,to take a test, over subject matter you haven't covered or studied, at all!)

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out how to re-gain what I view as lost years, lost productivity, lost income and all the things I don't have and didn't do. I seem to always catch the red light while the guy in front of me on his cell phone pokes along and HE gets through on yellow and I get the red! And what is the universal law of motion that puts the two thousand cars on the feeder road just as I need to enter it from a side street? The pattern seems to be that I am always fifteen seconds late! This is partly a middle-aged thing and partly because my mom gave birth to me fifteen seconds late! I also think it is determined by how many times you have to move the car seat back to make leg room! Because of the Time/Space Continuum in the Laws of Relativity, all of these things have an accumulative effect on you for the rest of your life.

Obviously, my middle age fears would never be cured by a Harley and hairpiece! I could only hold one of them up anyway!

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for so many things. I love life and all of its beauty and joys. Who woulda thunk it, that a goofy, co-dependant boy from alcoholic parents with a truckload of fear and low self esteem would have such a wife as Brenda Casey to love him and have three great kids who grew up and give him three fantastic grandsons, Casey (my favorite), Corban (my other favorite), Caleb (my favorite also), sweet little Kylee, and Lilly Grace due in September, to call me "Poppa"! These are the best things, and if I didn't do anything else right, I sure got that right!

It's just that now I want to dig wells in Africa and put shoes on the feet of kids in Haiti, and facilitate dental care for children in impoverished communities both in the U.S. and abroad. I want to offer a hot meal to a homeless person and respect their dignity while I do it by waiting on them at a table as they sit and order. I want to be His hands and feet.

I have no idea how to do these things but HE does. He sees beyond the rags.
So stand back. I'm not sure what's out there or what tomorrow will bring, but I know He said He had overcome this world and would be with me. So let's see what's beyond those rags!

The Opposite of Fear

After getting home from the hospital, it took a couple of days to re-adjust. Things quickly got back to normal for my wife and kids. Brenda went back to work, the kids left every morning for school, and I was alone for the day to lay around, dress my wounds, feed myself Ensure through a tube in my abdomen, and watch old videos. No more visitors, nurses, doctors or therapists stopping by with a cheery smile and encouragement. I was left alone, and the monster called FEAR chose that time to come crawling out. I cried and wailed in fear as I stood looking at myself in the mirror. I knew with my brain that it must be silly and immature, but it overwhelmed me and froze my heart in horror and dread, and I sobbed and cried for hours every day until my family got back home. One day in particular I had to call my friend Craig Smith to come over and help me hold on to sanity. He sat patiently and prayed quietly while the storm passed and I regained my composure.

Odd thing about fear. It can be the source of some of the funniest moments in life. America's Funniest Home Videos still entertains with clips of people being scared by fake mice, hands jumping out of cakes, spiders, and scary masks. Humans have "funny bones", reflexes, and also, a little gland in the brain that responds instantly to perceived danger with a jolt of adrenalin that propels the body away from the danger, throws a punch or slap, and usually drains off the excess adrenaline rush by a scream, shout or yell.

I completely identify with Calvin in the comic strip when he knows (and Hobbs confirms) that there indeed are monsters under the bed. I spent 2 or 3 sleepless nights as a kid after my sister, Beebe Robinson, who now safely resides in Lubbock Texas, (are you reading this?) took me to the the Broadway Movie Theater in Houston, to see "The Angry Red Planet" and another time to see "House On The Haunted Hill", starring Vincent Price. As a small, oh-so-tender (emphasis on tender, as in "not chewy or tough") child of six years old, I trembled in my bed listening to the monsters scramble across the floor searching for me. I hoped they couldn't smell fear because that little room reeked of it!

Today at the ripe age of 57, I refuse to watch a monster movie or horror flick. I never understand, when they KNOW the monster is down in the sewer tunnels, why they would GO DOWN THERE! And why is it that no matter how fast you run from the limping guy with the axe, you can never get away from him. Even when you get the car started and drive madly away, he is ALWAYS in the back seat!

Another odd thing about fear is that it is always about the future. We never fear the past. When we are afraid, it is always about something that may or may not happen in the future. We fear doctor's visits, possible diagnoses, a test in school, a layoff at work, all things that might happen. Statistically, most things we fear never happen, but the mind prefers to err on the side of probability. Better to be ready to duck and not need to than to need to and not duck!

So why was I so afraid, and what was I really afraid of? Was I afraid of dying? I thought so at first, but it did not square with my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It took a few days for it to come to me that I was not afraid to die, I was afraid of NOT HAVING LIVED! My fear was that I might still have cancer and die within a year and leave my family with nothing.

For me, living does not mean sky diving, mountain climbing, and I have no desire to go 2.7 seconds on a bull named "Fu-Manchu"! I just wanted my silly little life to matter in the big picture. I still want that more than anything else! I want Him to increase in me and get glory.

So, about 10:30 one morning in that empty house, with tears in my eyes and fear in my heart, I fell to my knees at the foot of the bed and prayed. "God, I don't know if I still have cancer or not. I don't know how you will choose to take me out of the world. But I know that whether I have one day or 5o, I cannot live with this fear! Please give my heart and mind peace about this disease, and let me give you all my remaining days!"

At that moment, the fear left me! It disappeared and has NEVER come back! That was 17 years ago this week.

If you are reading this blog, I want to tell you that I love you and that you are a marvelous creation of God. I don't care if you are full of sin and your heart is a solid hardened mass of hate, anger, failure and fear! His nature is to flow. Jesus is already at your "door" and you didn't even know it! One simple prayer of invitation to open that door, and He steps in with love and deliverance. Jesus never said "Take courage!" He did say, "Fear not. Be of good chear! It is I!". He is LOVE, and His love in you, not courage, is the opposite of fear!

It's All About Perspective

We are not born with perspective. It is an acquired trait. It can only be developed with time and experience.

Visual perspective is the eye's ability to analyze the distance and position of objects to one another based on acquired knowledge about the size and dimension of the objects themselves. We learn the relationship between far, near, and everything in between. This is why it takes time to develop and why babies back up to steps, trip over thresholds, but reach for the moon. It is why they are not afraid to be tossed into the air and caught, or jump from high places into an adult's arms. As they age, over a few months and years, and develop perspective, they will move more surely, take steps more quickly, stop reaching for the moon, and they will become afraid! As adults they will be afraid of things they cannot see and their mind will tell them things are unreachable because they are too far away! They will limit themselves to those things which look close, make sense, and look safe.

Mental, emotional, and psychological perspective all work in the same way. Children think they are the center of the universe and teenagers can't see what their parents already know. (They depend totally on "lateral vision", which values the opinion of peers over anybody else). And even as adults, we often misjudge God, ourselves, and others because of faulty perspective. We see tiny mountains and huge anthills! We really mess things up when we start acting on false perspective, dismissing important things and devoting entirely too much attention to anthills.

During my second week in the hospital, I was taken rather unceremoniously to have x-rays made of my abdominal surgical site. I suppose to verify that the plumbing was working. I could have told them it wasn't. I was loaded into a wheelchair, wrapped in warm blankets and pushed by an orderly to the elevator which emptied me out into the main lobby of the hospital. I looked like Mahatma Gandhi with an attitude!
I was parked in the main hallway by a door marked "Imaging" and told that someone would be out shortly to take me into the room. So there I was, left alone in that hallway with people walking in both directions in front of me and staring at me like I was either a strange growth on the floor or a beggar who took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in their hallway! All I needed was a tin cup!

I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to cover as much of my face as possible. I tried to disappear.I sat in that hallway for what seemed like an eternity and grew angrier by the moment. "What a stupid place to put the X-Ray unit!" "Why not just let me sit out in the driveway?!", I groused.
Why was I not surprised that of all times and places for somebody to actually recognize me, they did there! Somebody from a church where I had ministered just happened to walk by and recognized me! They stopped, did a double take, and tried to strike up a conversation with me, oblivious to what I had just gone through, how I was feeling, and what I was facing. Now, I was already annoyed that I had to be in that busy hallway on such a 'bad hair day' but then, to add to my indignation, my sick, emaciated, shrouded body was still recognizable to someone! So much for self image! Was there a sign posted somewhere? Caution: Sam Frank ahead- Merge Left<" I bluntly told the person I'm in no mood to talk and need to sit quietly. Besides, I am prone to sudden, violent spasms of vomiting! You may want to move, like, into the next corridor! I wanted to say it, but didn't. (Lady, if you are reading this, I'm sorry!)

It was time for my out-of-perspective perspective to get readjusted!

That's when the wagons started arriving. Little red ones, pulled by moms, dads, brothers and sisters. They each carried a small child wrapped in a blanket, hairless, sallow skin with blue veins, sunken eyes with dark circles gazing at a nothing in particular but looking like little soldiers transported into a war zone. The look on the faces of the parents said it all. I looked for a glimmer of hope and optimism, but it was brutally absent. Most of them knew that their time with that child had become their most precious possession, and even a wagon ride to chemotherapy was made as special as it could be and filled with all the love and comfort humanly possible. Most of them probably had mere weeks. Some would leave without their child.

In anger and shame at my self, I sat up a little straighter, dropped the blanket from my head and, fighting back tears, I began to smile at every child as they approached. I tried to catch the eye of each parent and say a kind word.

I am doing fine! I have no problems! I have a chance! I heard myself saying these things aloud to anybody and everybody! I would spend the next hour stretched out on a cold, hard x-ray table making jokes about my guts, and being "digestively challenged"!

"Doc, will I be able to play the cello when I get out?"

"I believe you will, sir."

"Amazing! I can't play any instrument now!"

They're probably still talking about that one!

As we enter into 2010, our perspective may suffer the ravages of economic, physical, domestic, or emotional crisis'. The path ahead may seem long when you are so weary, short when you need hope, rough and rutted when you hurt beyond endurance. One thing is certain. For 33 years, the God of your salvation lived in this world, in an age that was particularly brutal, enslaving, prejudiced, segregated, impoverished, hungry, sick, and ignorant. Embodied in flesh, the un-blinking eye of God experienced all of it and today, at this very moment, will guide you and I through our lives with un-erring direction by His Eternal Perspective! Let's trust Him!