Stacy the Sentimentalist

I guess I get a little sentimental. I think it's a flaw personally. We sentimentalize (did I just make up a new word?) everything in this country. Probably because we so brain dead that we'd rather "feel" than think. But in any case, I'm sentimental. I've been on facebook now for a week and a half. In that time I have heard from friends I haven't seen in 19 years. When I see their pictures I remember very special times for me. Like when my great uncle died while I was on a mission trip. He was like a grandfather to me and I loved him very much. Some of our group was at a laundromat when we got the news and when we got back to the church we were staying at, I collapsed on my pallet on the floor and began crying. A girl named Regina bent down and gave me this big hug and held me there while I was weeping. She cried with me because, well she was simply my friend. I've never forgot that.

I've chatted with a friend from college that I haven't talked to in a long time. He was a very big help and comfort through one of the most difficult times in my life.

I've been able to catch up with some of the kids from my youth group when I was a youth pastor and see how their lives have been progressing.

I've gotten messages from an old pastor who's teaching and preaching challenged my faith and my theological structure. He was a big influence in my life.

I've even heard from a couple of my best friend's ex-girlfriends from high school that I had a good friendship with.

And I get to watch how sweet and beautiful my wife is even in cyberspace.

This process has brought a lot of nostalgic feelings to surface. I try to fight it, but it comes out anyway. Now some of you are going to say, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with that." And to an extent you'd be right. The danger is that I want to stay there in those memories and feelings. I don't want to leave because they are comforting to me. But that's not where God wants me to live. There are so many people in my church that always speak of the "Good 'Ol Days" when our congregation reached 500 people on Sunday morning. I hear old car salesmen talk of the "Good 'Ol Days" of selling. The problem with the "Good 'Ol Days" is that they probably weren't that good. There was grumbling and complaining and heartache and struggles like there is today. Our human tendency, or maybe our cultural tendency, is to romanticise yesterday. But God has so much more in store for us today and tomorrow than we could ever hope to have gained from yesterday. If Paul forgot what was behind him and pressed on to take hold of God's better covenant with His people, then I can do no less. Of course what he was talking about was a little different than the context here, but can't the same principle be applied?

I love the times that I had in my life that God used to show me His Grace and Mercy and Love through the people I've reacquainted myself with on facebook. But, given my flaw for staying in yester year, I want to press on and strive to know the One in whose right hand are pleasures forever and ever.

My Sole Good

Oh! that I might repose on Thee! Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good! What art Thou to me? In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and, if I give it not, art wroth with me, and threatenest me with grievous woes? Is it then a slight woe to love Thee not? Oh! for Thy mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. So speak, that I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is before Thee; open Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. After this voice let me haste, and take hold on Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die- lest I die- only let me see Thy face.
Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save Thee? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy. I believe, and therefore do I speak. Lord, Thou knowest. Have I not confessed against myself my transgressions unto Thee, and Thou, my God, hast forgiven the iniquity of my heart? I contend not in judgment with Thee, who art the truth; I fear to deceive myself; lest mine iniquity lie unto itself. Therefore I contend not in judgment with Thee; for if Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall abide it? -- St. Augustine, "The Confessions of St. Augustine"

I'm not an expert on Augustine. I know a little about the man, but I haven't read his works. I got curious and started reading some of his confessions. This quote leaped out at me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that he articulated the problem before us and God to a tee.
It seems paradoxical, the fact that God commands the impossible act for us to love Him when we're incapable of loving. I mean incapable to the fullest extent. Not able, not willing, and not inclined. I do not want to love God in and of myself. I hated Him. I was His enemy. I wanted nothing to do with Him and therefore, by default, I wanted to go to hell. Yet I, like everyone else in the world, was commanded to love Him. But what are we to God for Him to desire us to love Him? What am I to a holy and just Creator? Augustine asked God for the only answer. Inebriate my heart. Fill my heart with God's love and salvation. Make it drunk for Him. I like that phrase. I want my heart to be drunk on God's Holy Spirit and not on wine. He calls God his "sole" good. He's the only good in this world and the only thing good for our souls.

But the problem continues after God changes our hearts. Our hearts are still small and like a ruin. My heart is not fit for the King of Glory to enter it. So Augustine asks of Him to repair it and enlarge it that God may enter. God comes in and cleanses our hearts so that He can give us the ability to love Him. He forgives and doesn't hold our iniquity against us. He frees us and chooses to love us despite our hatred of Him. When Joseph's brothers cast him into the well with the intent of murder, God had already planned their actions. He used this act so that He could save the murderers. That is the epitome of mercy. I'm going to use this sin to save the sinners. I can't fathom that kind of grace. I can't get my head around the scope and scale of that kind of mercy. Because if God didn't show that kind of mercy and grace to sinners, then who indeed could stand?

4 Weeks to Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I havent' taken a day off since April of this year. 6 days a week with maybe a few hours of early one day a week, but mostly 6 full 12 hour days is what I've been working. All for one big payoff. One weekend in time. One 4 day period to rest and recharge my batteries. It happens in 4 weeks. The first weekend in September will be a chance to forget about people, cars, "Can we meet somewhere in the middle?", and "Let us think about it and we'll call you back."

We're going to the beach. Panama City. Never been, so it'll be nice to see. I could really care less about the beach. I prefer the mountains. It's the company I look forward to. My wife and 2 youngest kids and a family from our church that I really love. I'm looking forward to fellowshiping with a guy that has very similar beliefs as me, but different enough for some good discussion. In my head I'm imagining just peace and rest and laughter and good seafood.

I hope I can keep my head in the game, but all I can do is think how much in the home stretch I'm in. Oh well. Guess by the time I move a few cars I'll forget abount sand, waves, and seafood.

Hello, my name is Stacy and I'm an addict.

I have to face facts. It's time to fess up. I'm a facebook addict. It started 3 days ago and it seems I can't stop. I get on it in the morning, during the work day, and when I get home at night. It's driving my family apart, but I just can't stop. My kids are ignored and go unfed and my wife is pouting that I'm not sitting with her on the couch.

But I can't stop. I won't stop. It's just too cool finding friends I haven't seen in 18 years! Friends I was once really close to. I love it and I'm not going to stop! Do you hear!? I'm not stopping! I'll be without a family soon. But I'll always have facebook.

Hannah's Hope Lay in Her Suffering (a sermon)

Charles Spurgeon said:
“There are circumstances of constitution, education, and surroundings which render it difficult for some very excellent persons to be cheerful: they are predestined to be known by such a name as this- “A woman of a sorrowful spirit.”

He was speaking about Hannah.
Most of us Church goin’ folk often hear about Hannah every few Mother’s Day that goes by. She is often lauded as one of the spiritual heroines that the Bible speaks about. And with good reason. She was a woman marked with emotional pain. Pain that caused her not to eat. And what was that pain?
Peer pressure. It’s that simple. Pressure from a rival wife and the canon of societal norms that existed in her day. But I’m getting a little ahead of my self.
It was still the times of the Judges. Israel had been in the promised land for many years and were constantly going through the cycle of obedience, contentment, egoism, rebellion, discipline (in the form of oppression), brokenness, rescue, and back to obedience where the cycle would start all over again. The book of Judges uses the story of the lives of a few select people to tell of God’s patience and mercy for the nation as a whole. Samuel switches gears and gets back to focusing on the details of a few people before the line of the kings begin.
Now, all of this is stemming from Genesis 3:15,
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
This is the verse that kicks off all of redemptive history. The first instance of the Gospel. The foretelling of Christ defeating Satan at Calvary and three days later at a borrowed tomb. Hannah was a major player in this role.

She was married to a man named Elkanah. He had one other wife than Hannah, Peninnah. This was the first of Hannah’s afflictions. Peninnah would taunt and ridicule Hannah because Hannah couldn’t get pregnant. This was a big deal in this culture. Women were expected to do two things: 1) Have a husband, and 2) Have as many children as possible. Hard to understand in our liberated society. Also hard to comprehend is polygamy. It was a norm, and although God allowed it as he did other things due to the hardness of people’s hearts, it wasn’t his perfect ideal for a family that glorifies His name. A wise man said to a Sultan once, “First, learn to live with 2 tigresses, and then expect to live happily with two wives.” Brilliant idea! There is a natural urge to be the only apple of your spouse’s eye. That is why adultery hurts the other partner so badly. Hannah was viewed as the competition with Peninnah, so Peninnah exploited Hannah’s “disgrace” to hurt her emotionally.
If we stopped with the end of verse 2, “. . . but Hannah had no children,” then we would be lost and hopeless. No reason, no logic, no purpose to her pain, just naturalism and survival of the fittest would be the only thing to cling to. And as we’ve seen over the years, that offers no joy, only impending doom. But the writer says something that makes us sit up and take notice in verse 5.
When the time for yearly sacrifice would come around, Elkanah would go to Shiloh to sacrifice. He gave portions of the sacrifice to Peninnah and all her sons and daughters. But, to Hannah, he would give a double portion, because he loved her and saw she was upset at her condition. Verse 5 says, “but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, (now here’s the hope!) but the LORD had closed her womb.” Why would I call that hope? Doesn’t it seem illogical to go beyond an evolutionistic view of “that’s just the way things are” to saying there is hope in the statement that God caused this affliction? I mean, if that’s just the way things are then there’s no one to blame and we can come to terms with pain and suffering. Just accept it. Turn that frown upside down! NO!!! It’s fatalistic in its very meaning! But if there is a loving and merciful God who has been showing His love to His people all through the books of Genesis and Exodus and Joshua and Ruth and Judges, then there is a reason to it! We can lift up our faces and say, “God is God and I am not! He loves those He has redeemed for His own and gives them strength and grace through trying times so that He gets the glory for it!” God predetermined Hannah’s story! It wasn’t an accident. He barren so that through her a prophet would come to anoint a fore shadow of the first born of God which is Christ! But again, I get ahead of myself.
Verses 6-7 say that Peninnah would “provoke her bitterly” every time when she would go up to Shiloh “to the house of the LORD.” Hannah would go to worship and here comes her adversary. I can’t help but think of Sunday mornings when we go to corporately worship our God and our Adversary stirs things up in our lives in order to get our minds and hearts off of the very means of grace God provides for His people.
It made Hannah cry and she became so sick, she couldn’t eat. Have you ever had such grief that your body shuts down? The days seem short and the nights eternal. I have. I went through a two week period years ago, when I couldn’t eat or sleep. I lost 20 pounds in that 2 week period. Well, Elkanah tried to do the noble thing and comfort his wife. He did the typical “guy” thing, “Well, honey, ain’t I good enough?” We try ladies, we try. We’re just too egocentric to stop and think that this may be a bigger problem than we can fix. But notice Hannah’s effort to try and make her husband feel better in verse 9. Verse 8 says that Elkanah asked her why she was crying and not eating and not sleeping. Then he asks her if wasn’t he better than 10 kids. So, she eats and drinks and goes to the place where true comfort is found. The presence of God. Ladies, let this be a lesson to you. As well intentioned as we may be, we’re still dunder heads. Your only comfort is found in God. Only he can understand exactly what you’re feeling. Hannah didn’t scream and shout, “You just don’t understand!” She simply ate, drank and ran to God.
Verses 10-18, I think, are the heart of the chapter. Verse 10 says that she was still greatly distressed and was crying bitterly. But in that moment, she made a vow. Vows were very serious especially when made at the temple. It is a very, very, very dangerous thing to make a vow to God that you don’t intend to keep. Especially at the place that represented His presence. I hear people tell me all day every day, “Sure, I’ll be there at such and such a time to look at that vehicle and if something comes up, then I’ll call you.” They never show and they never call. “If you can get me this car for this amount, I’ll drive it home now.” I make phone calls to the banks to get the interest rate down, I argue with my managers to come down on the price, I call wholesalers to get more money for their trade ins. “Congrats, Mr. Customer, you win. You’re at the price/payment you want to be at! Just initial here and I’ll get the car cleaned up for you.”
“Well, I’ve got to talk to my wife first, but I’ll let you know tomorrow.” Tomorrow comes and goes and not a peep. People make promises and vows they never intend to keep. It doesn’t matter if they’re talking with a greasy used car salesman or if they’re talking with the Pope. There’s probably some leniency breaking a promise to a car salesman, but make no mistake about it, it’s scary and dangerous to lie to God. Just ask Ananias and Saphira.
Hannah had no plans to break her vow. If God would grant her a child to remove her shame, then she would offer the child to God as a Nazarite. This was a special vow people took to separate themselves to God. It was marked by never cutting your hair, never touching a dead body (even if it was a relative), and never drinking fermented drinks. I love the fact that Hannah was giving her gift back to God. It’s not enough to pray, Lord get me out of debt. But maybe it’s something different to say God get me out of debt and I’ll give my debt payments back to you, plus my tithe. Do you see the difference?
Hannah was praying by moving her lips, but not saying anything out loud. Eli, the chief priest whose sons were very wicked, thought she was drunk and told her to put a cork back on the wine bag. How often do we see people honestly expressing their sorrow to God in church and judge them. “She shouldn’t be raising her hands! All he does is cry!” Now, I’m not an advocate of emotionalism. That is getting a crowd crying and weeping or shouting out of guilt or a “motivational pep speech” like you’re at a football rally. But, folks, every time the pastor gets up here and passionately preaches God wrath, justice, forgiveness, or mercy, he’s trying to get us emotional. God wants our emotions, He just wants to go through our heads with correct doctrine that produces humility first. If your head isn’t in the game in worship and it’s just your emotions, then a quick lunch at the Chinese buffet can change how you feel within just a few hours. But if our mentality to God’s word changes, then how we act will change which will produce different emotions in regard to our actions, because we now know in our heads that the actions or attitudes are wrong or right. Does that make sense? It’s like what Paul talked about the Law. He would have never known what sin was and how to feel about it if someone hadn’t written the Law. Once the Law got into people’s heads, then it changed how they felt about the things they had been doing. So learn by Hannah’s example, pour out your heart to God. But do it honestly. There was honesty in Hannah’s sorrow. She didn’t water it down or decide to “pull herself up by her own boot straps” to make the “most out of a bad situation. She was hurting and she was honest about before God.
She was also honest with Eli. If I’m having a bad day, then people know it. Mostly by my face. I’ve never been able to hide my emotions because I wear it on my face. People see it. Then they ask, “Are you ok?” I realize I’ve been caught, so I say, “Oh yeah, I’m fine, just thinking.” Hannah laid it on the table to her spiritual leader. “I am a woman oppressed in spirit.” The word ‘oppressed’ in Hebrew comes from a root word that means “to be hard, severe, or fierce.” There was a fierceness in Hannah’s suffering. In the 1960’s, the African American community was fighting for their civil rights and against the oppression of the laws of the land. A lot of you remember that time. Since I wasn’t even a thought then, I can’t even imagine the tension that existed. Having talked with some of the leaders of that movement here in Birmingham and speaking with many people from both sides, I can feel, if that’s the right word to use, the frustration of being oppressed from someone else. There is a sense of that in Hannah’s use of that word. That there was no way out of this misery and heartache. There are worse heartaches though. I believe that the loss of a child would be far greater than the absence of one. We can all probably think of a dozen scenarios that would be worse than Hannah’s, perhaps some of you have been through worse. But it’s the fact of her distress, not necessarily the cause.
Evidently, this caused Eli to shut up, because all he said was basically go in peace and I hope God grants your request. I don’t know how to argue Hannah’s reaction. All the text says is that she left, ate, and was no longer sad. I say I don’t know how to argue it because I don’t know if it was God alone who caused her not to be sad or if it was God working through Eli’s simple reply that lifted her countenance. The text doesn’t tell us. We just know that her sorrow was replaced with peace. Her suffering with at least contentment.
So. I had a Bible professor that once told me when you’re speaking on a text, at the end, all the audience is asking is, “So what?” What does all this mean and how does it apply to our walk with God? The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, is that She had a baby, Samuel, and fulfilled her vow to God by giving him to God to serve at the Temple under Eli. But, let me see if I can offer some application.

1) Our suffering as a believer is never in vain. Hannah’s wasn’t, Christ’s certainly wasn’t, and neither is yours’. Are you suffering? Are you going through heartache? How do you deal with it? By coming to an understanding that God has a purpose for the suffering. By knowing in your head that God is to be praised in the midnight because He is still God in the midnight and letting that truth affect your emotions. In other words, it’s all about God and not us. It’s His Glory that is at stake in this world and it will not be compromised. That doesn’t mean “putting on a happy face” and “thinking positively.” It means being honest with God. If you’re angry, tell Him you’re angry. If you’re sad, tell Him you’re sad. Then ask him for forgiveness for making it about you and ask Him to give you a passion for His Glory that surpasses your own circumstances.
2) The place to unload your burdens is at the place of worship. For us, that means here with other believers where God specially manifests His presence. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do this at home or in the car or on a lunch break. In fact, it’s good to focus on God at these places including what you’re going through. But, God has designed Sunday mornings as a place where we draw nourishment from his spiritual body manifested in physical bodies corporately worshipping Him. It’s a means of Grace, so why wouldn’t you use it.
3) Be careful in your distress that you don’t make vow or promise you don’t mean to keep. We’re prone to negotiate with God. “God if you’ll just, then I’ll. . .” A guy I went to high school went that partied a lot, had a brain aneurysm a year or so after we graduated. He told everyone how he’d changed his life and was going to live for God now. Within a year he was back to where he was in high school. I’m not sure what his current status is right now, but my point is we want out of the pain so bad, we’re willing to say anything to relieve the pressure, because we’re emotionally overloaded. Do not do this! If you make a vow, keep it!

No room for complaining (or "The Return of Haley's Comet" for Chuck)

I always am complaining. Not necessarily verbally, but in my head, I always find it difficult to stay in a state of contentment. Especially at work. The life of a car salesman is not easy. I get to work between 8:15 and 8:30 and unlock the gate and building, get cars out on the grass and try to eat some dry mini wheats before everyone else gets there. I try to send some emails from one of our customer internet lead managers as they are time sensitive in the hope that they may respond and it's not some 12 year old wasting time on the internet looking at cars. Keep in mind that every lead counts as a percentage of cars sold during the month whether or not the person is a buyer or not. It gets frustrating to say the least.

The bad part is that Missy and I have always been taken care of financially. It's been more than tight, but God has been providing for us, especailly in the last few months. In June I sold 25 cars. That's the most cars sold and the most money made I've ever done in a month. God was gracious to me and I was overwhelmed. I started thinking that I've got this whole dependence thing down to a science. That I wasn't going to worry, fret, or complain about money or my sales anymore. That is until I went the first 7 days of July and didn't sell a single car! Seven days without a sale may not seem like much, but it's kinda like dog years. One week is like a month. On top of that I had numerous car and van repairs that had to be done. So there I went again, getting my bowels in an uproar (I would say "panties in a wad", but that really sounds unmasculine) and forgetting my dependence on my Sovereign. The month ended with 17 cars out in 3 weeks. But it was hard to really feel deserving of that feat. Especailly when I didn't trust for the first 3 weeks of the month.

I also complain about customers. Now I know that because I'm a car salesman, I'm ranked just under lawyers on the trustworthy career ladder. I'm automatically a liar and a scam artist. Just yesterday another salesman asked me a product question about a window sticker. Seemed a feature to a truck was listed on the sticker, but wasn't actually on the truck. I looked at his customer dead in the eye and said it was a misprint. Because I actually thought it was. When the salesman and the customer realized it wasn't a misprint, but that that feature had been taken off as a standard feature and replaced with an upgrade, do you know what the customer said? "Man, I didn't think for a second that that guy (me) was a typical used car salesman. He looked me right at me with all confidence and told me that junk. And I believed him!" The point? He thought I was simply doing what car salesmen do. . . purposely lying! He didn't even consider that I made a mistake. Nope, I was just lying. So I've learned to live with that fact.
I had another customer that took 3, count them 3, hours of my time (one of those hours was after we'd already closed) and didn't buy a car! They say we're theives and liars, but these people wanted a car for half price and said that they'd buy from me. Like I said frustration is a part of the lifestyle.

But if I hold to the theology that I claim to belive in, then none of that should really matter. If I believe that God is totally and completely in control of every molecule that exist and every inclination of every man and woman's mind and heart, then I have no room to be mad or frustrated or depressed or to complain. Job said that God does great things, he brings the rain. If I wrote down everything it takes for a drop of moisture from the Mediterranian Sea 300 miles to a farmer in the form of a drop of rain, that wouldn't seem like a mundane statement. So there I sit at a car lot day in and day out, the bottomless abyss of depravity, sulking like a pouty 5 year old. God still decides to pull me through and bless me. I trust and then go right back into the spiral of disbelief and self centeredness. Very frustrating. Almost laughable if it wasn't so sinful.