Ants, ants, and more ants!

I don't know how well any of you remember MacGyver, but I grew up loving that show. One of my favorite episodes was when he went to South America and had to fight billions of soldier ants. These ants had formed a supercolony that was destroying everything in a two-mile wide swath. Villages, horses, the forest, all animals that got in their way - everything they came to, they obliterated.

MacGyver stuck around to defend a plantation with a guy he'd just met. He tried getting water into the irrigation ditches to make little moats. The ants, completely undeterred, chewed the leaves off trees and used them as rafts. He tried burning them, but the rest of them simply waited out the fire. It was only by blowing the dam and flooding the whole plantation that MacGyver was able to get rid of them.

I saw another episode of a show I can't remember where these ants formed bridges out of their bodies. Ants would literally march to their deaths in the ditches and pile up their corpses until the pile was above the water level.

I don't know how much of all this is real or not. In MacGyver, they showed the ants cutting down leaves and floating across the ditches on them, but I don't know about the other feats. Also, so far as I know, these ants don't live in colonies that massive, though the soldier ants really do live in colonies of millions.

The point, though, is that this is the kind of single-mindedness of purpose that is lacking in people in general and the church in particular. The church used to have it. When it started, the people would literally pool all their resources together and do all the good they could with that money. They would support missionaries, feed the poor, and support each other. Many withheld nothing. Many knew they would die one day for sharing their faith, yet continued to do it. There was even a story I heard that as James was being led away to be beheaded, the man who had accused him came up to him, pleaded for forgiveness, accepted Christ, and insisted that it was not right that James should die alone. They were beheaded together. What a testimony that must have been to those who witnessed it! A man who has but to say nothing to save his life instead goes and dies willingly for a faith in God. And the man whom he accused forgives him willingly and leads him to Christ.

Where is that kind of single-mindedness now? Where is that self-sacrifice? Why is it so hard for us to even stop and talk to our brothers and sisters in Christ when they are going through a trial? Why is it so hard for us to confront them in order to help them? Why do we worry about where money will come from if we know we're spending it how God wants us to? Why is it so rare that we help each other out beyond moving furniture? Where is our colony mindset? We should be one big happy family, ruled by one big happy God. Little Christian ants, willing to do whatever He bids us to do to advance His kingdom. How many of us would walk through fire for Him, though? How many of us would even walk through a humiliation for Him?

Next!

I remember when there used to be a line for each teller. Now there's not even a single line at some grocery stores when they have the self-checkout lanes. Airports, movie theaters, baseball stadium ticket windows - pretty much everywhere has started using the one-line approach, which makes all the people at the windows have to shout "Next!" when they get done with a customer.

It's ironic that such a common and necessary word in work like that also seems to be they cry of our hearts in this generation. Those of you who are at least mid-20s may remember hours and hours spent on Nintendo, with the little pixelated Mario and his giant head that was big enough to break bricks or Contra, in which these two super-tough Marines shot bubbles out of their guns. Then there was Sega and SNes, Playstation, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, PS3, and Wii (along with probably half a dozen others that I'm forgetting). Every generation is a massive improvement on the previous one.

Same with computers, cell phones, and, to a lesser extent, cars. We always want what's next, the latest and therefore, the greatest.

With electronics, it's fine. But we do that with almost everything. We get out of a relationship and we focus on who's next more than why that one fell apart. We lose a job and get the next one rather than ask what we really want to be doing 10 years from now. We go out to a party and then the very next night get bored because there's nothing to do. We're always on the lookout for that next thrill or high, even if it's not an improvement over where we just were. Few people seem to be willing to sit back and really think about what is going to make them happy long-term.

I get into that mode more often than I'd like to admit. What am I thinking? I'm thinking, "What do I want to do right now?" or "I'll never have what I really want, so I might as well get what I can." Almost always one of those two thoughts. So short-sighted.

There's a story of a little boy walking around Paris when they were building the Notre Dame Cathedral. He asked one worker what he was doing. The man replied, "I'm earning a living." He asked a second man, who answered, "I'm laying bricks." He asked a third man and heard, "I'm building a cathedral." Three men, all doing the same thing, but with three very different perspectives.

What is our perspective when we go about our days? Are we just making a living? Are we simply doing what we happen to be doing? Or are we building something that will last and impact other people? Are we looking for the next thrill or our life's purpose?

Putting It All Together

My little brother is both the most athletic one in our family and the clumsiest. There were many times growing up that he'd come in my room, pick up something that belonged to me, and start tossing it around - behind his back, under his legs, etc. I would tell him to stop because he would either drop it and risk breaking it or somehow hit me with it. I was right most of the time. He also broke a number of vases and figurines our mother kept around the house. He was usually good about telling her and she was often able to put the chipped pieces back together and glue them, sometimes so well that we could only see the cracks if we looked for them.

But sometimes, the vase or statue would be totally destroyed. There would be too many pieces, or some would be missing, or they couldn't be fit together just right, and so whatever it had been would be thrown away. And even the ones she fixed still had those minute cracks, no matter how well she repaired them.

A lot of people have used, or at least heard, the expression "picking up the pieces of my broken heart." They glue it back together, one little piece at a time, trying to make it stronger than it was before, trying to hide the cracks from other people, only to watch helplessly as it gets shattered again. The only way most of them find around that is to take their heart away from everyone, lock it in a safe, and let no one in.

My father was not, by any metric, a good father when I was growing up. There are worse fathers, I know, but the things he did to our family still affect us. And yet God has been working on me to forgive him. When I felt that, I started complaining to God, listing all the various things he had done, trying to justify my hatred of him. Then God shut me up like only he can, "Did anything he did break your life beyond My ability to fix it?"

I can't answer yes to that, even though that's what my heart has been claiming all these years. Focusing on the wreckage of my shattered youth, I cried that it was broken and no one could fix it, and so I had a right to hate the one who had done it.

But Jesus was sent to fix the broken. The sin in our lives that kept us from knowing God - paid for. The eternal death that was supposed to be ours - no more. The pain and suffering we all go through is still there, but He is our strength that gives us peace and guides us through them.

And then our hearts - He quite literally was dying to put them back together for us.

When I hear people wondering why God won't heal them or their hearts, I often think of a quote I once heard, "God can put your heart back together, but He must have all the pieces." What we so often do is complain that it's broken, but then piece it together ourselves or hide it away. When we do the former, there will be cracks in it, and whatever glue we use won't be strong enough to make it as it was before. When we do the latter, we lose all the good that we are meant to enjoy in an effort to avoid the bad.

God, though, can actually put all the pieces back where they were and meld them together again, making the heart brand new and strong. It is your choice: you can have a heart that beats for Him, or pieces of your broken heart that you try to glue back together or hide for the rest of your life.

Looking in the Mirror

I just got back from a week long trip to the beach...ok, it was supposed to be a week long, but I came back early. Why? A vision problem. My eyesight is fine, or as fine as it usually is anyway, but I wasn't seeing me as I really was and was risking causing vision problems for others.

I know the above is a bit vague, and I don't want to get too deeply into it because it's not the point of this post. Suffice it to say that I was worried about something and not projecting the image I should be projecting.

When you are hired at a company, you no longer represent yourself alone. You represent the company, be that company McDonald's or Apple or a little mom-and-pop shop. Your demeanor while you're at work reflects on the company, whether it's positive or negative. You have to control how you come across because your attitude influences others' opinions of whom you're working for.

Yet with Christianity, we don't seem to consider this. I know I didn't last week. This is not about being real with our struggles with each other. We're humans, so we're going to want to have certain things or do certain things that we shouldn't and becoming a Christian isn't going to magically change that. But what I'm talking about is I didn't consider that when I was so worried about this particular issue and so caught up in it, I was sending a message loud and clear to everyone who saw me that God wasn't good enough. I was announcing that I didn't think God could pull me through this or change my situation or that He didn't care enough about me to help me.

Fortunately, I was on the trip with other Christians. How bad would it have been if I had been with those who didn't know Christ for themselves? What kind of message would I have been sending about God's power and love? "Come to Christ, because He isn't powerful enough to help you and doesn't care enough to help even if He could."

We don't always have to be happy, but we should always have a peace if we trust in God. People want a life without tears and pain, but that's naive and everyone who has any maturity will recognize that. What they really want, then, is to know they'll get through their situation, that it won't overcome them.

Gandhi once said, "There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever." Worry, in other words, is a statement of a lack of faith in God.

What makes you worry? Step back for a second and consider the following two questions: 1. Is God, the Creator of the universe, more powerful than your situation, or not? 2. Do you believe He loves you? If you answer yes to both of those, how can you not have peace?

Lessons from sand crabs

I'm here on vacation at Virginia Beach. The house I'm staying at is amazing, the beach is hot, the water cool, the sky perfect. It makes for some beautiful sunrises and great late night walks on the beach.

One of the creatures one encounters on these nocturnal strolls is the sand crab, a small crab that could fit in most people's hands and whose main talent seems to be running away. They remind me a lot of those little RC cars in how quickly they move.

There's a lot to learn from these eight-legged critters. First, they're almost always within 20 feet of where high tide comes in. They know that the source of their food is the ocean. They can't comprehend it anymore than we can comprehend God, but they know it brings them food, and that is good enough for them. They don't waste their time wandering away from the ocean in search for another source of food. They don't argue with each other about how the ocean should supply food or other aspects of the ocean. They just stick near the ocean and let it provide for them.

How I wish we could do that with God! Instead, we're looking at all the other puddles we see around us and wondering what kind of food will come from them. It will either be scant or tainted - usually both - and will leave us wondering what we were thinking by going to that source. Yet, rather than go back to our Ocean, we go to the next puddle or gutter stream or sewage outlet, thinking the food has to be better there.

Second, when there's danger, the crabs usually run toward the ocean. If they're not very close to their little holes, they run at full speed toward the ocean and seek protection there. Sometimes, they run right into my feet, just like we run right into more problems when we try to avoid them, but they right themselves and head toward the ocean.

In several walks on the beach both here and in Wilmington, NC, I've seen only one crab actually hold its ground and threaten us with claws held up in defiance. And if I'd wanted to, I could have stomped on that crab and killed it. The point is that we are too small ourselves to stand up to all the world throws at us. We can shake our claws in defiance at it and hold our ground, but we'll eventually get stepped on and crushed. Our only other option is to run somewhere for protection, yet even here, we run toward another source or a hole or another bunch of crabs who are all trying to look out for themselves rather than run to our Ocean and let Him protect us.

Third, the crabs actually work hard, getting their food and digging their holes. I see them often standing there waiting for me to pass, frozen in the beam of my flashlight, but more often, I see them moving around, hunting for the shells the ocean has thrown up and checking them for food or throwing out little bits of sand from their holes. They seem tireless. They're also always checking to see if it's dark out yet. Even in the middle of the day, if their holes are in the shade at all, they will come out and check to see if it's night yet.

I think we default into one of two modes: either wanting God to provide everything for us without us lifting a finger or not trusting God to provide anything for us. Neither is a proper view of God or how He works. Look back at Scripture. In the Old Testament, God often delivers the enemy into the Israelites' hands, but in all cases (that I can think of, at least), there is some action required of someone. Joshua or King David have to lead their troops into battle, Gideon has to blow the horn and smash the pot holding the torch, Naaman has to go bathe in the Jordan seven times, and so on. Always an action. In the New Testament, there is not a single case where Jesus just went to someone's house because He knew there was a sick person there. The family either had to send someone to Him to bid him to come or bring their sick to Him. "Faith without works is dead."

The other situation is probably even worse, since God seems to respond in the Bible only when He's asked to. If we're not depending on Him, then why would He provide miraculously for us? Does the ocean throw it's food into every lake and puddle inland? No, a crab must go to the ocean to find it. Why would we expect God to treat us differently?