My Wife, The Criminal

Okay, so I told you last week that my wife is part of the leadership team of a small group of teenage girls. They meet every Sunday night, eat dinner together, and then study God's word and share with each other about their lives. This meeting normally takes place at a leader's home that is about 5 or 6 miles from where we live. So far, so good, right?

Last night my wife calls me about 8:30. I assumed that she was just calling me to tell me that she was on her way home from her small group. I was half right - she was on her way home from her small group, but that was not why she was calling me. She was calling me to tell me that she was pulled over to the side of the road because behind her was the sight of those gut-wrenching, horrifying, make-you-want-to-throw-up red and blue lights flashing away. She'd been pulled over and wanted me to know two things: 1) She'd been pulled over and was flipping out and 2) She'd left her wallet and her driver's license in our child's diaper bag, which was at home.

My wife is from North Carolina, and so at this point there was this great temptation on my part to tell her that in Georgia driving without a license is a serious crime, and that they will immediately take you to jail because they cannot allow you to drive any further if you do not have your license, and that I was going to just meet her at the police station with bail money in hand... but I enjoy living too much, so I decided that was not the best idea.

Actually, I knew exactly why those red and blue lights were flashing behind my wife, but you'll need to read to the end of the story to find out why.

There are fewer worse feelings in the world than driving down the road and suddenly realizing that the police officer behind you wants you to pull over. All sorts of thoughts will race through your mind: "Was I speeding?" "Did I run a red light?" "Have those unpaid parking tickets finally caught up to me?" And in that eternal wait for the officer to get out of his car and come to your window, this sickening feeling grows from somewhere deep within your bowels and consumes your entire body, so that by the time he arrives at your window, all you can do is stutter the phrase, "I-i-i-s th-th-th-ere a pro-pro-pro-blem of-of-of-ficer?" The experience of being pulled over - the heart racing, the stomach acid rising, the full-body tension - is, to me, the picture of anxiety.

In my devotional time this morning I read some wise words written about 2000 years ago: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4:6) My first thought was, "Yeah, right." Life is always throwing at us things that cause us anxiety: the possibility of losing our jobs, a rebellious teenager, the mortgage payment, or even getting pulled over by a police officer on the way home from a Bible study. This advice, do not be anxious about anything, may sound good, but it sure is hard to apply to our lives, right?

The writer of this verse is not saying that it's an automatic deal. What he is saying is that the more we grow in our relationship to God, the more that we are able to turn over our problems and issues to this God Who is in complete control of all of life. What has you anxious today? Your job? Problems with your spouse? Health issues? Your battle against anxiety is best fought on your knees, growing closer to the God who is fully able to handle any problem that you dump in His lap today.

"License and registration please." "Um-m-m, of-of-officer. My license is in my diaper bag at home." "That's pretty bad, but I guess I've heard worse excuses." He got her information, went back to his car, and then came back and asked her to step outside the car. Remember, I'm on the other end of the phone through this whole deal.

"Is this your car or your husband's car?" "Both of ours." "I think we need to blame this on your husband, then. You've got a tail light out that you need to get fixed. I wrote you a warning for driving without a license, but tell your husband to get some new bulbs for this tail light." In actuality, her husband knew about the light being out. He has just been too lazy, um, I mean, busy, to get it fixed.

So the whole thing ended well, and kudos to the Macon police department for hiring this officer who was very professional, very kind to my wife, and knew enough to blame me instead of her for the tail light situation.

Toxic Mess

Last Sunday evening my wife gave me dad duty. She helps lead a small group of teenage girls at our church, and they were having a birthday party of sorts, so she was gone for several hours and left me in charge of our six month old daughter. It's not that this was the first time that I'd ever had dad duty; it's just that normally my times in charge are brief and have major overlap with her nap times. This time I was completely in charge for a period of several hours, and most of that time my beautiful daughter Elizabeth was awake. So the odds were against me that my dad duty would turn to diaper duty. Sure enough, it did, and it was not the diaper duty of the "wet only" variety. This one was serious and should have involved a Hazmat team. I did not want to back down from my dad duty, though, so I attached my gas mask and decided to take care of business.

Everything was going just fine up until the point that I detached the diaper. Somehow my precious little girl managed to get her hand into the diaper area. I quickly reached for the baby wipes, grabbing 20-30 to quickly wipe away any, ummm, stuff, before it spread. My mission failed. I would wipe, and then somehow her hand would manage to get back into the diaper and continue to spread the "issue." The more I tried to clean up the situation, the more it spread. Suddenly the “issue” was on me, on her, and on the changing pad. I quickly realized that I was fighting a losing battle, and so I scooped up the little pooper and ran for the bathtub. Evidently, I didn’t do the whole bath thing like mommy does it, because she screamed bloody murder at me the entire time. Finally, once the evidence was off me and her, I wrapped her in her towel and held her close to me. She was nice and clean and sweet and I’d finally managed to abate the screaming and shut off the flow of tears. It was such a tender moment, holding my wonderful little girl close to me and telling her everything was going to be okay. That was, until, I felt this warm substance running down my arm. She’d decided to throw up all over me and her pretty pink bath towel. Back to the bath tub...

Later that evening (once I’d put the sweet little emitter of harmful toxins to bed), I started thinking, “None of this would have happened if she would have let me change her without fighting me the whole time. She would have been clean, she would not have gone through the whole bath fiasco, and probably would not have thrown up from the experience if she’d just let me handle the situation.”

So many times our relationship with God is the same way. He is perfectly capable of handling our situation, but we try to help God and make an absolute mess. In my sermon this past Sunday I used the story of Abraham and Sarah. God made a promise to them that they would have children. They doubted his promise and decided that they needed to help Him out. So they enlisted Hagar, their younger Egyptian servant, to be the second wife of Abraham and to give him children. They succeeded in their mission, but Hagar’s son, Ishmael, became the father of the Arab people, and they have been fighting with the Jewish people to this day. To put it in brief, Abraham and Sarah decided to handle the situation themselves and made quite a mess.

What are you trying to take back from God today? What are you trying to handle, or rush along, or manipulate because God isn’t working the way you want Him to work? Are you trying to “help” God in an area of your life that He has completely under control? Be careful...you may end up with a toxic mess on your hands!

Image

This coming Sunday I’m starting a series called, “Image.” I’ve probably been challenged more studying for this series than any series I’ve done in a long time. All of us (yes, even preacher types) are caught up in appearances. We all care about our own looks, having the right image, and making a good first impression. I think that more than any other time in world history, we are absolutely, overwhelmingly consumed with image. Just think, someone could hire an advertising firm and with enough money and the right people, take anyone, ANYONE, and make that person famous by giving him or her the right image. No matter how much that person had achieved, or what kind of talents she possessed, or the depth of his character, with the right PR people, that person could really be somebody. It’s all about the look!

So often our lives seem to just revolve around this idea of having the right image. We all want to be accepted, and since the world screams at us that it takes a certain image to be loved and accepted, we will spend whatever time, money, and energy we have to get that image.

I read this past week that some psychologists have said that a person’s self worth is largely determined by what he thinks the most important person in his life thinks about him. In other words, if you’re girlfriend is the most important person in your life, then her view of you will determine your view of yourself. The only problem is that we are depending on imperfect people to help us determine our self worth! And for a lot of people, their view of themselves is pretty low because they’ve been surrounded by those who’ve constantly beat them down throughout their lives.

But I’ve got great news for all of us – God’s view of us is not based upon our look, or our fashion sense, or our performance, or even our character. It’s based upon Himself, and because of that, He thinks we are wonderful! This Sunday I’m talking about what the Bible says about how God views us. If God is most important in our lives, then it ought to be His view of us that determines our self worth.