Eavesdropping for Kindness and Encouragement

February 25, 2023Todd R 1 Comment

One of my favorite quotes on kindness is pretty simple: “Be kind. You never know what someone’s going through.” In their 1984 book Encouragement: The Key to Caring, Dr. Larry Crabb and Dr. Dan Allender write about how much of our interaction with others happens between layers we put on to hide our true selves, rather than between the deepest parts of our selves. We intentionally don’t let others know what we’re going through. Although the above quote probably wasn’t common when the book was written in 1984, the authors definitely had the idea in mind when they wrote about how we might imagine eavesdropping on the thoughts of others as we arrive at church on Sunday morning. Such imagining might help us realize how much people encouragement and kindness everyone really needs. They wrote that we might hear thoughts like these:

“Oh, no! There’s Fred pulling up in his car. If he sees me, he’ll ask me for that committee report I haven’t done yet. I’d better move inside quickly and get seated.”
“I wish my husband weren’t away on that business trip. It’s really uncomfortable coming to church without him. Well, I’ll just sit in the back and leave as soon as the service is over.”
“I sure hope the preaching is better than it’s been the last few weeks.”
“This should be a really good day. No work that needs to be done. I like our church and the football game is on TV at 3 this afternoon. That gives me time to take the family out to dinner and still be home for the kickoff. I really like being a Christian.”
“I wonder if I should keep coming to this church. I really haven’t made any friends and the sermons don’t do much for me. Well I’ll keep praying about it and see how it goes today”
“Look at that happy young family. It really hurts when I realize my kids are grown, gone, unsaved, and mixed-up. Boy, I wish I could have a few years back. Well I can’t start crying now. Cmon, smile-here comes Nancy to say hello.”
“People think of me as a pretty spiritually together person. I’ll make a point to interact graciously and to respond in a biblical way to whatever happens.”[1]

While we can’t (and shouldn’t) eavesdrop on thoughts, imagining it reminds us that we really don’t know what’s going on behind other people’s layers, and they don’t usually know what’s behind ours.

Therefore, “Be kind. You never know what someone’s going through.”

[1] Crabb, Larry and Dan Allender. Encouragement: The Key to Caring (1984). P. 95-96.

Don’t Fear Jezebel’s Algorithm

January 19, 2023January 19, 2023Todd R 4 Comments

Yesterday I re-posted a story of King Jehoiakim’s attempts to destroy the prophet Jeremiah’s words with fire, as recorded in Jeremiah 36:20-25 (which survived). I decided to share it again based on two events: 1) a comment I saw on Facebook yesterday lamenting that owning a Bible could be made illegal, and 2) Facebook’s reminder to me in “Memories” that two years ago to the day I had posted this:

“To any religious person who is dismayed at “their side” being shut down by social media: Name one of Gods accomplishments that required Twitter or Facebook. The Holy Spirit is the original (and best) social network. Listen to Him. Post to Him. Wait for Him. The Answer lies there. He remains online for eternity and He has a plan.”

Resistance to spreading God’s word is as old as time. Consider the Old Testament story of Elijah, who prophesied during the reign of Israel’s evil king Ahab and his wife Jezebel. According to Who’s Who in the Bible, “Jezebel devoted herself to bringing the worship of Baal and his consort Asherah to Israel. She employed 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophetesses of Asherah (1 Kings 18:19), and persecuted the prophets of the Lord, including Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-9).”[1] Many prophets were killed.

Elijah despaired, as written in 1 Kings 19:10 – “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Apostles also struggled to stay strong, including Paul. When he was frustrated at resistance and lack of progress in Corinth, “the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”[2]

When Paul needed an example to encourage others to persist, he used Elijah’s story in Romans 11:2 – “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’ But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’”

Therefore, our hope is not in social networks where we can share God’s message, or in the benevolence of the programmers of algorithms that choose who sees what we post, or in the regulators and legislators who monitor the public square, or in the founding political documents that give us rights. But:

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
            and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
            giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
            it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
            and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11

Social networks, algorithms, regulators and government are not our enemy, but our enemy is the one who tries to convince us we need these things more than we need the God who made them and who made us all. His word will accomplish its purpose, and we have Elijah’s and Paul’s words and actions as evidence.

God’s word withstands the fire. Always.

[1] Gardner, Paul D., editor. The Complete Who’s Who in the Bible. (1995)
[2] Acts 18:9-10

Words of Life and Death

November 29, 2022December 9, 2022Todd R 5 Comments

Rummaging in the basement for a book recently, I found a book I wasn’t looking for: Encouragement: The Key to Caring by Dr. Larry Crabb and Dr. Dan Allender. It was a good find. The authors define encouragement as “the kind of expression that helps someone want to be a better Christian, even when life is rough.”[1] This is the kind of expression recommended in Hebrews 10:23-25 – “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (emphasis mine)

However, if we don’t believe our words matter – that they have real power – we might think such encouragement is pointless. Making a case for the power of our words, the authors cite these Proverbs:

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” – Prov. 18:21
“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.” – Prov. 12:25
“A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.” – Prov. 15:4
“Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” – Prov. 16:24
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” – Prov. 25:11[2]

In these Proverbs, words have the power of life and death. Power to lift or break a spirit. They have real power to influence others for good, or for bad. They can influence our health, bodily and spiritually. Our words are one of the hardest things for us to control – especially online – and unless we realize their power, we’re too likely to take them lightly. James wrote that taming our tongues may be our biggest challenge, and if we can tame it, we can tame our whole body. (James 3:2-3)

Therefore, pray for more encouraging, more powerful words today, and that God would cleanse our hearts, the spring from which our words come[3], so we may praise Him and provide “sweetness to the soul and health to the body” of those around us.

It won’t happen all at once, and all will stumble, but as the saying goes:

Yard by yard, life is hard!
Inch by inch, life’s a cinch!

[1] Crabb, Larry and Dan Allender. Encouragement: The Key to Caring (1984). P. 10.
[2] Ibid. P. 19. See also Proverbs 25:20 and James 3:5-6.
[3] James 3:11

The Birth of Narnia and Why Tolkien Hated It – Sunday Share from Harry Lee Poe

October 23, 2022October 26, 2022Todd R Leave a comment

Many of us have loved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the rest of the Narnia series of fantasy books by C.S. Lewis for so long we just assume they have always existed and were inevitable. Behind the books, however, is a story of the fight to get them written. The partnership between Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien is widely known, but less known is that one of the reasons Lewis had trouble writing Narnia was discouraging objections from his friends. One said that “the children wearing fur coats since it seemed an endorsement of the fur trade and the murder of all the innocent animals needed to make such a coat,” while Tolkien himself criticized the story for not fitting the conventions of the genre.

In the article linked here and below, Harry Lee Poe, a professor at Union University, shares these stories and more about how Lewis persisted in writing and “experienced a renewal of his imaginative power.” Each of us is a marvelous work of a powerful Creator, designed to represent Him in this world. As you read the article, “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). Is there a world of Narnia trying to come out of each of us?

(Estimated reading time 7 minutes)

I discovered this article through fellow blogger Barbara Harper, who posts a weekly list of good reads on Saturday.

https://www.crossway.org/articles/the-birth-of-narnia-and-why-tolkien-hated-it/