My wife and I were talking tonight about how Christians are so often guilty of forgetting just how blessed they are.  We are quick to state how great God is and how fantastic it is to be a member of His kingdom.  Minutes later we are wallowing in our woes whining about all the things that are bringing us down and stealing away our joy.  I’m conscious tonight that I am a whiner at heart.  I simply like to talk about all the things in my life that are less perfect than I would like them to be.  I had a bad day because I had to drive an extra hour in the car.  My life is so tough because my job requires me to do all sorts of complicated client service work.  Woe is me because I come home tired and still need to pitch in and help clean the house and care for our children???  I take so many things for granted.  The context of my woes are the ingredients of precious dreams for so many others.  Here are just a few things I totally take for granted:

• Clean drinking water that will run for hours from the tap of my kitchen sink.
• A wife that appreciates me, listens to me, and loves me despite so many of my faults.
• Driving 3 miles to work each day.
• A job that pays all my bills, supports me, my wife, and my three boys.
• My health.  I complain about colds, headaches, and being sleepy???
• Vision.  I have friends who are blind and I don’t stop enough to praise God for colors.
• My mom and my dad love and support me and my family in so many ways.
• I’m an English speaking American with a Masters degree, a house, 2 cars, and a dog.
• We own about 20 Bibles that we can read at any time anywhere we want to read them.
• I can sing and play the guitar at the same time.
• Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God died to save me from my sins.

Life is genuinely good and I don’t need to compare myself to poverty stricken foreigners to say it.  I thank God for all the blessings He has poured out in my life – none of which I deserve.  I hope you pause to appreciate all the mercies and benevolence that have been shown to you.

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

I wanted to share the contents of an e-mail that I received today from a friend who had visited this blog and read the most recent entry.  I greatly respect the opinion of Edward Waters and asked his permission to share his thoughts here.  I agree with these comments and thought they provided a proper balance. 

Edward, thanks for visiting and thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Steadman,

If you listen carefully to your friends in the neighborhood, your friends at work, and the people you meet in the market place many of them are speaking the language of the new religion.  “I’m not religious – I didn’t grow up in Christian circles and I don’t believe in God… I do, however, love my family and I want to give back to my community.”  Family values have certainly been at the forefront of our attention as of late and the importance of the community has been a growing emphasis in America.  I know a lot of churchgoers who are there every Sunday primarily because they believe that it is a good community-building experience and it is something good for their family.  “Church is something we do as a family”, they say.  It almost sounds like another visit the family makes together like going to the zoo or visiting a museum.  Nominal Christianity has been a problem of the church for years but today it seems that there are those who are overt about their intentions.  They say, “I am here in church, not because I am a professing believer in Jesus, but because the church is a part of my community and they have a lot of wonderful programs here for each of my family members.”  What is our response when the church becomes a comfortable place for the unbelieving and unregenerate such that we can no longer tell the sheep from the wolves?  The teaching of the Word of God must be piercing, must cut to the heart of men and women in a way that convicts, lays bear the Truth, and, in some cases, divides.

Christianity values community and places a high value on family.  The Bible teaches us about the church community, the community of believers, and the community of Christ.  The family is at the heart of Christianity with covenant promises from God to the generations of the faithful.  The teaching of the New Testament is directed at husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, and children.  So what is so different between this ‘new religion’ of family and community and the Christian religion?  The family and community focus of the typical secular humanist relativist agnostic crowd lack the focus on the person of Jesus Christ.  In sum, family and community without the central focus of our fallen nature, the gulf that exists between sinful man and Holy God, and the redemption made possible by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is inadequate, empty, and vain.  We are indeed called to love our neighbor as we love ourselves but we must not forget the first and greatest command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  Christianity must be willing to differentiate itself from this new religion.  Almighty God will certainly differentiate the true followers of Jesus Christ from those who did what seemed to be good.  In the end, He will say to those who merely loved their family and gave back to their communities, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

“Arise, O Lord, and let Thine enemies be confounded; let them flee from Thy presence that hate Thy godly name.  Give thy servants strength to speak thy word with boldness, and let all nations cleave to the true knowledge of Thee.  Amen.”  (From the Scots Confession of 1560)

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

A great weakness of the church at large is that we separate ourselves from the children in the life of the church; hence the nursery, the Sunday school classes, the children’s church, the youth ministries.  Why do we do this?  Let us make sure our motive is that we desire to draw them close to Jesus and not to simplify our own worship experience.  As a parent I have grown very aware of how tempted I am to wall off my children from various meetings that we have in the life of the church.  Why?  It’s complicated, it takes more work to include them, it takes more energy, I face possible embarrassment for what they might say or do or how they behave.  I have concerns about how this will reflect on me.  As a cell shepherd it is clear to me that involving the children with catechism, music, special parts of the study that relate to them, and even preparing so that the lesson is more relevant and engaging for our youth is a real challenge.  This is hard work!  We need to remember why it is that our church aims to provide intergenerational worship.  Why is intergenerational worship part of the vision of any church? 

The greatest gift we can give our children in ministry to them is living humbly before God.  We must live in such a way as to demonstrate our need for Jesus rather than modeling the self-justification and potential pretension in which we are so often tempted to participate.  We need to be humble as parents and as role models in the church.  We have a responsibility to be prepared to teach this next generation.  We need to know the Word well enough to explain it in simple terms and we need to do our part by actively engaging in their lives.  This is a high calling and a tough job.  It is not easy getting down on their level.  Most of us are much more comfortable talking with those who are most like ourselves, namely other adults.  Some of us have been blessed with a great gift for teaching the children.  We need to affirm how important these gifts are and encourage each other to use them fully.  We need to make time for the children, to plan with them in mind!  Fathers, we have too often delegated the biblical teaching of our children to our wives and to our children’s teachers.  Fathers have a responsibility along with mothers to take the time daily to teach our children the great truths of salvation, justification, sanctification, redemption, and adoption.  Just as Jesus called the children to Himself, we must call the children unto Jesus and make sure that we are doing everything we can to make the way to Jesus clear and easy.

Blessings to you ~ Steadman

            The Christian should always understand themselves as being, not citizens of this world but instead, exiles in a foreign land.  We are strangers here and as such we must never grow too comfortable.  It is critical that we cling to the commandments of our God and follow Him in complete obedience remembering that ‘our citizenship is in heaven’.  In his book, No Place for Truth, David Wells explains how the changes thrust upon our society by the advance of modernity have impacted Christian Theology.  Christianity at large has in many ways embraced modernity and the accepted increase in mobility has eroded our accountability to the body of Christ.  Our mobility has changed how we view our world, our relationships, and even our views about truth.  We must no longer accept these changes to the fabric of our society.  We are strangers here and we must return to the commands of our God before we succumb to the ways and practices of foreign gods.

Wells traces a number of the changes impacting our theology.  He points out the differences between the world in which we find ourselves and the world that existed on a few hundred years ago.  These differences are made clear as he shows us the life of the small town of Wenham, Massachusetts during the 1800s in comparison to our big city world today.  Mobility became a norm of our society as travel became more and more common place.  Wells explains that, “Travel is the lubricant of a diversified social life, and in the first half of the century Wenhamites would barely have given a thought to what lay over the horizon.”  The value associated with permanence and stability has been replaced with a hunger lust for change.  This worldview that expects change impacts every facet of life.  “That world prized permanence; ours knows that change is irresistible and has come to need it.  They made houses and shoes to last; we build obsolescence into many of our products, and our houses last only about forty years.  The deluge of new products that our productive economy has spewed forth itself generates a need that advertisers say will be satisfied only by a fresh purchase.”  The look and feel of modern life has been radically reshaped by this shift.

Mobility and change not only influence the outward appearance of a community but they attack the glue that holds community together.  They attack relationships.  “This same impermanence characterizes our relationships.  Our mobility means that most of our friendships are quite fleeting. . . It is simply a part of the reality of moving that we will have to make a new set of friends.  And we may have to find fresh spouses as well, for the bonds that are formed with such high hopes at the beginning of the marriage often turn out to be impermanent.”  If the body of Christ is made strong by the relationships that are knit together amongst the people of the local church or fellowship of believers, then it seems that the body of Christ has been weakened by the transience of our modern community.  Accountability can only take place within deeply rooted relationships where people in fellowship with one another are willing to examine one another’s lives and speak the truth in love.  When friendship and relationship become characterized by impermanence there is little or no expectation that exhortation of this nature will be given.

Instead of a community of believers coming together as a local church, in many respects we see church buildings filled by a fellowship of individuals with common interest that are characterized by a specific care for ‘what’s in it for me’.  We are true consumers looking for the best deal filled with self interest far more than a love that drives us to ‘consider the interests of others greater than our own’.  Our focus on the individual and our love of the self is shaping the future of Christian theology.  Wells states that, “When rugged individualism defined the essence of what it meant to be American, Christian faith was choreographed in one way.  When the pursuit and satisfaction of the self became the essence of what it meant to be American in the modern world, evangelical faith was choreographed in an entirely different way.” If we are to have a theology that endures, a theology that is based on absolutes rather than relativism, we must return to the commands of God.

If we are exiles living in a strange land, it seems necessary that we remember how God wanted His exiles to live.  “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for you sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  God commanded the exiles to have a perspective of permanence.  Even though they were in a foreign land they were to make it their home, to put down roots, to prepare the next generation, and to pray for their city.  Let us remember these virtues as we approach a theology based on, “confession, reflection, and the cultivation of virtues grounded in confession and reflection.”  We need to be cultivating these virtues to counter the norms of our modern society just as the exiles in Babylon were cultivating their gardens preparing themselves to reap the fruit of a future harvest.

We have enjoyed a delightful time with family this Christmas.  The greatest joy for me has come from seeing my boys just being boys.  They have spent hours wrestling, playing with G.I. Joes, running around in the freezing cold outside, and, of course, asking routinely when they could open presents.  I’m pleased to have 3 boys and pleased to see them doing the things that boys do when given the space and time to play.

 

I did ask my family to gather around for an extended time of thanksgiving and reflection this morning.  It was tough for Miles and Liam to sit and focus without being distracted by gifts with their names on them.  However, they did take time to help us remember the Christmas story as told from Luke chapter 2.  Each of us went around and shared what we were thankful for this Christmas.  I asked Miles to explain not just who he was thankful for but what about them made him thankful to God.  He did a great job and when he prayed for us at lunch he told the Lord how much he loved Him and how thankful he was for Jesus’ birthday. 

 

We didn’t spend any time talking about Santa or reindeers this Christmas and my wife was a little anxious at times about how conversations with other children at school might turn out given the fact that Miles understands that the real St. Nicolas died more than 1600 years ago in Turkey.  Miles is fond of replying to those who ask what Santa Claus is bringing him for Christmas with a rather short, “You know St. Nicolas is dead don’t you?”  I really love this response but I am aware that there could be a parent calling my house bothered by the fact that my children have ruined their Christmas by dashing their kid’s dreams about the fictitious old St. Nick and his slay full of toys.  What am I to say?  How about, “I’m sorry my child shared his religious belief that Christmas has to do with the birth of Jesus Christ and told your child the truth about Santa.”  That seems to be the only reasonable response but I do want to be sensitive and kind. 

 

If anyone has had experience with this in the past and has any words of wisdom, I’d appreciate your encouragement for how to keep our faith at the heart of Christmas and still be gracious neighbors to the families of other kindergarteners around town.  I need to plan ahead for Christmas 2005 so I’m not caught off guard by the candor of my boys and the interactions they will have with their peers in the years to come.  I am grateful that they remember the birth of Jesus and I want them to grow up acknowledging His birth, the coming of our Savior.  Blessing to you ~ Steadman   

Our oldest boy wasn’t exactly overwhelmed at first about being a shepherd in today’s children’s pageant at church. One of our goals as a church has always been to incorporate intergenerational worship and I was really excited when a couple in our congregation offered to organize the scene by lining up wee ones to play the roles of Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, and various barn-yard animals. I was just about to let my son off the hook when it dawned on me that he probably had no idea what this was really all about. We talked about it. I explained that being a shepherd on this special Sunday morning was really just another way of worshipping Jesus. After all, why did those shepherds come to Bethlehem in the first place? They came to worship the King, to see the Savior about whom the angels had spoken. Not only could being a shepherd be a way of worshipping Jesus in the here and now but the hope was that it would help all of us adults that were looking on to worship Jesus as well. The retelling of the story of Jesus’ incarnation wasn’t so we parents could watch our little 2 year old, 3 year old, and 4 year old children looking all cute up there in front of everyone. The purpose was to help us remember Jesus. The Bible tells us that “out of the mouths of babes and infants God has established praise.” (Psalm 8:2) My hope is that we will all be reminded of the birth of our Savior this Christmas season - as we see the story retold, as we listen to the music that proclaims His coming. My son decided to participate after all. I think it had more to do with the fact that I offered to let him carry his grandfather’s cane as a shepherd’s staff than it had to do with his deep understanding of worship. Whatever the reason, I’m convinced he is doing the right thing and I pray that in his small way he will contribute this morning to our corporate worship of the King who came to Earth two thousand years ago, who lived as we do – yet without sin, who died for us, who was resurrected, who is seated at His Father’s right hand, and who is coming back to judge the quick and the dead. May we worship Him and bring our offerings just as the shepherd’s did in Bethlehem. Blessings to you ~ Steadman

Have you ever been going through the steps of life, taking the day sort of as it comes and suddenly been struck by the miracle of life… better yet the miracle of knowing the God who created you? Yesterday morning at sunrise was one of those moments for me. I was listening to the radio and a song by Neil Diamond, “I am… I said” was playing as a backdrop to my drive. I had just dropped off a friend at his house after our Friday morning breakfast at Danny’s Restaurant and I was headed up Old Battleground to go to work. I was passing this little farm that still sits seemingly untouched in the midst of our suburban sprawl of north Greensboro. The farmhouse, barn, and pastures are there on the left as you head up the hill to the intersection of Battleground and Horse Pen Creek Road. If you haven’t seen this beautiful landmark it is worth taking a look before it disappears one of these days. I pray that day will come long after I am gone from this Earth. As I looked out across the farm at 7:30am the orange light of sunrise was washing the whole scene. There were these long fingers of clouds that were purple and blue in the morning light and the moment was really powerful. My mind takes snapshots of moments like these and I try to conjure them in my mind at times when I’m sitting in my cubicle pouring over the long To Do lists that constantly replenish themselves on my desk. The song helped to make the moment. It was a melancholy song that conveyed a soul-searching loneliness of the world without God. Here’s just a few of the lyrics: "I am, I said To no one there And no one heard at all Not even the chair I am, I cried I am, said I And I am lost, and I can't even say why Leavin' me lonely still Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of being a king And then became one Well, except for the names and a few other changes If you talk about me, the story's the same one But I got an emptiness deep inside And I've tried but it won't let me go And I'm not a man who likes to swear But I've never cared for the sound of being alone I am, I said To no one there And no one heard at all Not even the chair I am, I cried I am, said I And I am lost, and I can't even say why" As these lyrics hummed in the background a sad tune, my heart was reminded that I am not alone. I know the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Instead of Neil Diamond’s voice singing a song of longing and emptiness, I heard an old man’s voice from somewhere in my childhood singing baritone with tears in his eyes as he sung his testimony, “You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart.” Blessings to you ~ Steadman

Here's another great quotation form Christian author William Stringfellow on the subject of listening. I thought I'd share this - it is a favorite of mine... He says, "Listening is a rare happening among human beings. You cannot listen to the word another is speaking if you are preoccupied with your appearance or impressing the other, or if you are trying to decide what you are going to say when the other stops talking, or if you are debating about whether the word being spoken is true or relevant or agreeable. Such matters may have their place, but only after listening to the word as the word is being uttered. Listening, in other words, is a primitive act of love, in which a person gives himself to another's word, making himself accessible and vulnerable to that word." Blessings ~ Steadman

Do any of us really like it when someone throws pop psychology at us in attempt to help us grow? I’m certainly leery when I hear the typical psychobabble of our modern age. I’m not in favor of visiting the local Christian bookstore to browse the ever-growing self-help section and I would greatly prefer it if we check ourselves on the Biblical support for self-esteem. However, when I came across the following advice from psychologist Carl Rogers, one of the founders of the humanistic psychology movement and arguably the most influential psychologist in American history, it stood out to me as sound wisdom. Rogers says, "I come now to a central learning which has had a great deal of significance for me. I can state this learning as follows: I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand another person. The way in which I have worded this statement may seem strange to you. Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think that it is. Our first reaction to most of the statements which we hear from other people is an immediate evaluation, or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling or attitude or belief, our tendency is, almost immediately, to feel "That's right"; or "That's stupid"; "That's abnormal"; "That's unreasonable"; "That's incorrect"; "That's not nice." Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of this statement is to him. I believe this is because understanding is risky. If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding. And we all fear change. So as I say, it is not an easy thing to permit oneself to understand an individual, to enter thoroughly and completely and empathically into his frame of reference. It is also a rare thing." I do endeavor to truly listen, to understand those around me and look forward to opportunities here on the web to both hear and be heard. Blessings to you ~ Steadman

IF we wished to gain contentment, we might try such rules as these: 1. Allow thyself to complain of nothing, not even of the weather. 2. Never picture thyself to thyself under any circumstances in which thou art not. 3. Never compare thine own lot with that of another. 4. Never allow thyself to dwell on the wish that this or that had been, or were, otherwise than it was, or is. God Almighty loves thee better and more wisely than thou dost thyself. 5. Never dwell on the morrow. Remember that it is God’s, not thine. The heaviest part of sorrow often is to look forward to it. ‘The Lord will provide.’ E. B. PUSEY ~ Hope you find these points encouraging.

My oldest son recently had a birthday and was given a gift that he had picked out for himself... Yu-Gi-Oh! cards made by Konami. Now I have heard of Yu-Gi-Oh! and seen the cards and other toys at the stores but I really had no idea what they were aside from being an Asian fad. He really lit up when he opened the present and began immediately to look through the cards with me peering over his shoulder. I was disheartened to see some really warped human like figures (ugly, demented, and not at all like the image of God in which we were created). My immediate desire was to simply take them away but I anticipated a big struggle and lots of tears if I did this. After a few minutes I asked Miles to take a look at three of the cards that I had seperated out. "Miles, do you think it would be a good thing for your friends to look at these pictures? Are these pictures good or evil? Would they be pleasing to God or would they make Him sad or angry?" He thought about it and said that he did not think his friends or his little brother should see the pictures and that they were evil guys - bad guys. Truthfully they were the most demonic, twisted, disturbing characters that I had seen in quite a while... carefully rendered and drawn with great skill but not in line with the Scriptural teaching of "setting our minds on things above". I took a deep breath and asked Miles if I could put up the 3 ugly cards and his response totally surprised me. "You can put them all up Pappa... they are not good things". This father was in tears. My son had chosen wisely. I was filled with joy and immediately gave him a big hug along with an offer to go out and find another special toy to replace the one that needed to be put away. Later in the car on the way to school I shared with him how proud I was that he was growing in Wisdom and Stature. We talked about choosing the good, doing what was right and how this made God happy just like it made his Pappa happy. My little boy was getting bigger and growing stronger both physically and spiritually. I praise God for this little victory and I know in my heart that our heavenly Father is pleased when any of His children choose wisely to put away evil things. I hope I can make Him happy today. Blessings to you this Monday ~ Steadman