Disgusted

Ever get really disgusted with yourself.  I did this afternoon.  I was leaving the post office and there was woman in a high dollar car on the street in front of me.  She was weaving all over the street going about 15 miles below the speed limit.  Ahead of us the light at the intersection had turned green, it is one of those intersections that takes forever to get through.  She put her blinker on as if she were turning left, so I hoped she was going to make the light in time for me to turn as well.  No.  She slowed down to a near stop to turn left into the car wash, her car was clean.  I pulled around her and just barely made the light.

While this was going on I was talking to her.  In glowing terms about her lineage, her mental capacity, and her driving acumen.  She couldn’t hear me, which is a good thing.  I assume that if both our windows were down she would still have been oblivious.  She did not seem to have a clue where she was or any awareness of her immediate surroundings.

I was angry.  Very.

As soon as I got around her and through the light, I got one of those soft taps on the shoulder that the Lord gives me sometimes.  It wasn’t audible, but it was like He was saying, “Really?”  I was immediately disgusted.  Not with the woman, with me.  My anger was not a reflection of the way my Lord would have handled that situation.  Philippians 2:4 tells me I should have put that woman’s needs, whatever they were, ahead of mine.  I do not like that very much, but it says that all the same.

As an apprentice of Christ, I am bound to follow Him., to learn to interact with the world and the people in it in the manner in which He did.  I don’t do very well with that.  Even though I have been on this journey for 40 years, I have more to learn.

Perhaps there will be days soon when I won’t be disgusted with myself.

Encouragement

Ever had a difficult period in your life?  Things not going well.  In a hole spiritually, emotionally, physically, or financially?  There are those that do not recover.  As believers there are times when we do not do well helping those who struggle.

I met recently with one who had been through a dark time.  They are out of that phase of life now.  This past few months have been very hard for my wife and I for a number of reasons.  In the conversation with my friend they shared freely about the struggles they had experienced and the way the Lord had used others to help them handle that load.

They then asked me several questions about what we have been doing for the past several years.  Their response to what I shared was affirming and encouraging.  Their encouragement was timely.  The struggles we have had have in the past months have caused me to question if I should continue to push through this – what Gladwell labels a dip.  My friend’s enthusiasm for what I shared was like a spring rain on a parched ground.

2 Corinthians 1:3 – 5 tells us that the junk – that is in the original – we go through is preparation to comfort others.  My friend did that.  I left that conversation comforted, encouraged, and recharged.

It reminds me that the “junk” has a purpose.  It is prep for me to comfort, encourage, and recharge others.  That was a good and timely reminder.

Entrusted Doctrine

Just finished working through my summary of 1 Timothy.  The key to the book seems to be 3:14 – 16.  This is one of the places where an author explicitly tells you why they wrote the letter or book.  Paul’s objective, to tell his protégé how the church should run.

One of the major threads that runs through every chapter is sound doctrine.  Paul exhorts:
• That it be taught
• That it be received
• That any leaders should be able to teach it
• That its teaching will be resisted
• That it requires discipline and effort to sustain its teaching
• That those who labor in sound doctrine should be honored
• That there will be those who attempt to make money from teaching something other than sound doctrine – however I do not think they had televisions as yet in Ephesus.

For Paul it seems that the teaching of sound doctrine is the foundation for what he calls the household of truth.

The most interesting thing to me is the exhortation in 1 Timothy 4:11 – 16.  Paul strongly exhorts Timothy to work hard, to take pains, to pay close attention to this charge.  Later in 1 Timothy 6:12 to fight the good fight of faith.  The implication is that this role is not easy.  Laying a foundation of sound doctrine seems to be very difficult.

But that is what Paul entrusted to Timothy.