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“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.”     Isaiah 55:8 

Blessings, as we have all no doubt experienced, sometimes show up disguised as trouble, disappointment, heartache, even tragedy.  I think back to the time as a young man in my early twenties, freshly discharged from active military duty and eager to get back in “circulation”, my first date upon return was with a girl named Donna.  We seemed to hit it off and have a nice time together, so we arranged another date.  But several days later she called and broke the date.  I was disappointed, of course, but what bruised my fragile ego even more was when as an alternative she offered to set me up with a friend (translate, don’t bother to call me again).  But I decided to take a chance and call Donna’s friend anyway.  Recently, her friend and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary; for there, disguised as a bruised ego, I received the blessing of meeting the love of my life.

Imagine the disappointment two thousand years ago when the long-awaited Messiah appeared not as a warrior-king riding in on a white horse as everyone had hoped, rather as a helpless baby born on a bed of straw in a barnyard to a teenage girl and her husband from an obscure Galilean village.  Worse, fast forward thirty-three years later, and despite all his great miracles and profound teachings and the multitude of followers he had gathered, to be executed in the cruelest fashion as if the worst of criminals.  What had appeared to be nothing but trouble, disappointment, heartache, and tragedy all rolled up in one brief lifetime, was nothing less than a disguise for the greatest blessing the world has ever known, when Christ reappeared from the grave three days later.

What an amazing story beginning to end, a baby born in a sheep pen who grew up to lead and teach masses the greatest lessons ever taught, only to be nailed to a cross where he suffocated and bled to death.  Think about it, Easter would never have occurred if the child had not been born on Christmas.  Nor would there be reason to celebrate Christmas – imagine no lights, no trees, no carols, no presents, no Santa Claus – if the Savior had not risen on Easter.  Only God could deliver such a blessing in disguise.  “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.” 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.  Abundant Living will return in January 2022.

“. . . he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born.”  – Psalm 78:5-6 

Recently I got charged with the responsibility of helping our seven-year-old granddaughter, Olive who is in second grade, with her math homework.  The assignment, a page of simple addition math problems, seemed easy enough, after all I have had addition and subtraction mastered since . . . well since I was her age.  But as I studied the assignment it was not simply about deriving the correct answers, instead about using a specific method for solving addition problems, one that made absolutely no sense to me.  Suddenly, the lyrics from the 1970 hit song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young came to mind, “Teach your children well.  Their father’s hell did slowly go by.”  And what a failure I was at teaching well!  That is, until I finally figured out their methodology.

Long before Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and their famous recording, Psalm 78 delivered a similar message, to teach our children well.  But the emphasis was not on teaching arithmetic (which thankfully lets me off the hook), but about lessons from history, specifically about the Jewish nation from the time of slavery in Egypt, through the Exodus, to the time of David’s reign.  It should be told over and over, the Psalmist urges, from one generation to the next so they would not forget God and make the same mistakes as their ancestors.  That is, “Teach your children well.  Their father’s hell did slowly go by.”

Fortunately, helping my grandchildren with their schoolwork is seldom a responsibility that falls on me as a grandparent; rather, that responsibility lies in the more capable hands of their teachers and parents who are on the front lines.  But that does not dismiss grandparents to the sidelines, to being hands-off.  In fact, among the many blessings of being a grandparent, for me at least, is the opportunity to right some of the wrongs I may have made in parenting my own children and having a second chance to teach and influence a new generation, not about arithmetic, but life and values and wisdom, our relationship with God, seeds sewn that may not sprout until long beyond my years.

“Teach your children well . . . so the next generation will know, even the children yet to be born,” not just for the sake of our families, but for the well-being of all mankind.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you . . .”  – Matthew 7:12 

The Golden Rule is almost universally accepted as the ideal for how we should live and treat others.  There was a time, in fact, I thought modeling the Golden Rule was the magic formula for effective leadership (as if I had been the first one to ever think of that).  While it’s a good idea and certainly one of the essential ingredients in good leadership, I quickly discovered that expecting the Golden Rule to be the ONLY ingredient necessary for effective leadership led to disappointing results.  Why?  As much as the Golden Rule seems to be an easy concept, it is difficult to follow.

What took me a long time to figure out is that there are two sides to the Golden Rule.  One is the obvious, that is treating others as we would have them treat us.  The other has to do with how we, and others, respond to such treatment.  That’s where the disappointing results occur when the one receiving the gracious and generous treatment does not respond by appreciating, reciprocating, or imitating.

One of the parables of Jesus describes a servant who owed his king an enormous sum of money.  About to be thrown into prison for defaulting on the debt the servant begged for mercy, for which the king out of pity graciously cancelled the servant’s debt.  “But when that servant went out,” scripture says, “he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii” (a small fraction of what he had owed the king), and unlike the king he refused to forgive the fellow servant his debt and had him thrown into prison.  (Ref. Matthew 18:23-35)  Here is an example of someone who was the recipient of the Golden Rule, yet when the opportunity arose to imitate, did just the opposite.

Haven’t we all been disappointed or hurt by the lack of response we received from following the Golden Rule.  But how many times have we failed – or refused like the ungrateful servant – to respond in the same way?  The Golden Rule is the ideal for how we should live and treat others, but it is effective only when we treat others according to it, AND respond when treated likewise.

“The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.”

• Psalm 85:12 

In the small northwest Texas community where I was raised I always knew when harvest time arrived.  Cotton being the major crop in that area meant that harvest time began, and still does, in early fall about two months prior to Thanksgiving, often extending well into December.  I did not quite experience the harvest first-hand by working in the fields like many of my schoolmates did, as farming was not our family’s primary business.  Nevertheless, I knew harvest time had begun when, almost simultaneous with the arrival of the first cold front, the whole atmosphere of the town would change with the constant hum of the cotton gins that could be heard from anyone’s backyard, and the distinctive smell of smoke wafting over the community from the gins’ adjacent incinerators that burned the hulls and stems from which the cotton fibers were extracted.

In an agricultural community like my hometown the harvest means everything, not just to the farmers, but literally every person, business, and service provider.  The bankers receive loan repayments, merchants who at one time extended credit throughout the year get repaid, bank accounts are fattened, and money becomes available for purchase of all sorts of necessities, and even a few luxuries.  Likewise, a crop failure could be devastating for the entire community and region.  Everything depends on the harvest.  It is the lifeblood of the economy.

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving, established as a day of giving thanks and sacrifice for the blessing of the harvest.  As the majority of us in our urbanized society are no longer engaged directly in agriculture, we often feel disconnected from it, notwithstanding our appreciation of those who produce the food that goes on our tables.  Instead, our harvests come in different forms.  While farmers must depend on proper amounts of rain and sunshine, and protection from hailstorms, floods, insects, or plant diseases, the rest of us depend on the viability of our employers, the loyalty of our customers and clients, the protection of our communities, homes, and families from disease or injury.  In other words, in whatever form it takes we all depend on the harvest.  May we never lose faith that “the Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.”  And may we take a moment this week to give thanks for harvest time.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”  –  Philippians 2:3 

In one of the meditations from her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story about one of the Desert Fathers, from among the legendary third century monks who escaped into the wilderness to live simple solitary lives, whose tiny cell was once invaded by robbers who announced they had come to steal the few possessions he had.  “My sons,” responded the gentle monk, “take all you want.”  After they had stuffed everything they could find in their bags, they started off.  But when the monk saw that they had left a little bundle hidden from view, he picked it up and chased after them.  “My sons, take this, you forgot it in the cell!” he shouted.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I were inclined to chase after thieves who had broken into my home and absconded with my stuff it would be to get it back and maybe teach them a lesson or two, not to hand over more.  You see, I’m pretty attached to my possessions, which I had after all worked hard to acquire, and not just the expensive treasures either, but ordinary household items as well.  (I’m still hoarding toilet paper from the pandemic induced scarcity that occurred eighteen months ago.)  These things belong to me not some thief who did nothing to earn them like I did, right?

The Desert Father apparently didn’t see it that way.  Instead, he was simply following the teaching of Jesus that if someone wants to take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well, as in “here, you forgot something when you were stealing me blind, take this too.”  Makes no sense, does it?  Except, the conclusion of the story is that the thieves were so amazed by the monk’s humility that they brought everything back and returned it. 

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,” the Apostle Paul wrote, “but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Based on that, all I can figure is the monk must have believed the thieves needed his possessions more than he did – unlike me who guards his treasures (and still hoards toilet paper).  Barbara Brown Taylor added another tidbit I had not considered, one that is common among all the great wisdom traditions, “that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed.”  The Desert Father obviously did not suffer that impediment.