Old What’s Her Name

Have you ever felt stuck? 

You have a sense that God is calling you to move forward…physically, vocationally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually…yet something is holding you back.  You know there is a life ahead of you requiring you to embrace change…do something different, go somewhere new…but you are reluctant.  Maybe you’re more than reluctant; maybe you’re flat out defiant.  Your life as it exists now is less than ideal but at least it’s predictable.  There’s something comfortable in predictability.  To have to give up something, maybe everything that is familiar makes you uneasy.

Do you have faith to trust God for change?  Or do you drag your feet?  Maybe it’s fear that’s holding you back, or perhaps a lack of clarity about where you are headed.  You tell yourself there’s no harm in waiting a little longer…when God makes it obvious to me WHY He wants me to move or WHERE He’s taking me, then I’ll go.

But what if tarrying comes with a price tag?  What if it disobedience to God’s call to move forward…even to a place unknown…costs you everything?

Do you remember Lot’s wife’s name?  NO?  Neither does anybody else. She was so insignificant that the Bible writer doesn’t bother to call her by name.  In Genesis 19:16 & 26 she is referred to simply as “Lot’s wife”. I’ve dubbed her “Old what’s-her-name”.  Not only do we not know her name, we don’t know much about her at all. She was a wife, a mother.  And when God asked something difficult of her, when she faced His call to move on with her life, her longing for the security of sameness destroyed her.

God said, It’s time to move. Your family depends on it. Your life depends on it. DO NOT LOOK BACK. Just MOVE!   Old-what’s-her-name was not a woman given to immediate obedience.  Can you imagine the fit she threw before she finally got on the road with her family… WHY ME?  WHY NOW?   I don’t want to move.  Where are you taking me?  What if I don’t like it there? Why is this happening to me?  Can’t this WAIT? I’m not ready to let go!!  By the time she set out, begrudgingly following her husband I would imagine that she had worked herself into quite a tizzy.

Picture it: they’re finally fleeing Sodom as God had commanded. With no time to pack, Old-what’s-her-name has left everything behind.  We know how women are. Our home is our sanctuary. Our stuff defines us. Our friends affirm our value.  We yearn for that house and neighborhood where we hang our hearts. We desire our old friends.  We crave our creature comforts. We languish for the security of familiarity.  “Old what’s-her-name” was no different. She longed for her home, the things she was leaving behind. She hated the thought of starting over!!  Having previously been an Army wife through multiple moves, I can certainly relate.

But in her pain &/or rebellion, Old-what’s-her-name made two major blunders: first, she tarried behind her husband.  She refused to walk beside him on the journey.  She hung back, probably whining, dragging her feet, and slowing down everyone else in the family as they were sent racing out of Sodom. Second, she turned around. I read a Biblical scholar who described her turning not as a glance over her shoulder but as a physical stop and turn around. She not only stopped moving forward, she turned to go back the other direction!  The result was that she was left standing there dead in her tracks-literally! 

It’s no secret God created women with a high need for security and sameness.  But men can be equally guilty when it comes to a reluctance to relinquish the things of the past and move forward.  Our Creator understands our longings and desires–He’s the one who gave them to us in the first place! He knows YOUR longings just as He knew Old-what’s-her-name’s.  Still, He gave her a journey and her journey had a purpose {to save her life}. Likewise, He has given you a journey and your journey also serves a purpose. Though it may remain unclear to you exactly what that purpose is you can be sure that God has only your GOOD in mind. God doesn’t want you to be destroyed in this process of change & uncertainty. He wants to stretch you, to grow you and ultimately to bless you & bless others through you.  In order for that to be accomplished, you cannot make the mistakes of Old-what’s-her-name.  You must not tarry and you must not look back.

In Luke 17: 32 Jesus warned about such self absorption when He said, “Remember Lot’s wife.”  {Gees, even Jesus didn’t give us her name!} I believe He wants us to remember Old-what’s-her-name not because she was anything special but because she is a classic example of how devastating it can be to live life with one foot in the future and one foot in the past.  We must trust the Lord’s plan & purpose for the future rather than trying to hold on the things of our past, including our very life as we have come to know it. Jesus was clear… “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.”  {Luke 17:33}

Contrast Old-what’s-her-name with Abraham in Genesis 12:1.  God told Abraham “Leave your country, your kinsmen, and your father’s house, and go to a country that I will show you.”  Did you get that?  Abraham had no idea where God was taking Him!  Yet in Genesis 12:4 we read,  “And so Abraham set out as the Lord had bid him…”  With no clue where he was going Abraham put one foot in front of the other and moved in faith. Only through obedience to what God had already instructed Abraham to do was he able to learn where God was taking him.

The choice is ours…either move in faith as Abraham did or tarry like Old-what’s-her-name. It’s the choice between experiencing freedom or being rendered permanently stuck.  We needn’t worry that we don’t have all the answers…God is not going to reveal more of His will until there is obedience to what He has already commanded.  But every child of His can be assured He will give just enough light for the step you are on and He will be the Wind that propels you forward when you are feeling stuck.

Angels and JOY Rides

I’m having one of those weekends where I found myself with a huge internal ache generally curable only by remote seclusion and a box of soft tissue.  Deciding on the road to respite that I might find happiness in turning loose 330 horsies under the hood of a cute little sports car, I took myself for a drive in the mountains.  Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping quite like the challenge of staying in your own lane, running 60 through a series of 25 mph high altitude curves while listening to Tracy Chapman’s “You’ve got a Fast Car…so remember when we were driving, driving in your car, speed so fast I felt like I was drunk’…”.  My sincere apologies to the elderly man driving a whopping 5 mph in his 67 Chevy truck who had an expression of sheer terror as I blew his doors off.  I promise there was no alcohol involved.

I don’t normally drive fast.  Okay, that’s a lie.  It’s the one vice I indulge myself in when on remote back roads and no one else is in the car with me.  I call it taking my guardian angel for a JOY Ride. And if anyone turns me in to a state trooper, I’ll vehemently deny this as a piece of fiction. 

I have no idea where I was but I came upon a river and turned onto a dirt road that held me side-by-side to raging waters decorated on both banks by golden aspen and celebrated by a host of avid fly fishermen.  So beautiful and serene was it, I felt I had stumbled upon a living Fall Foliage poster.  I parked the Infinity “leer jet”, grabbed my Bible and headed for a quiet rock by the water’s edge.

Prior to arriving at this place my mind was racing even faster than the V6 engine.  A series of unrelated events in the past 4 days had left me feeling as if I had been through a tornado that blew me to places I did not want to go and an earthquake that shook my world.  Emerging from those I found a fire had ignited some painful things in my heart that I thought I had dealt with years ago.  At a loss for anything to say to God, I prayed a Mercy Me song… “Word of God speak.  Would you pour down like rain, washing my eyes to see your majesty…to be still and know that you’re in this place.  Please let me stay and rest in your holiness.  Word of God speak…I’m finding myself in the midst of You.  Beyond the music, beyond the noise. All that I need is to be with You.  And in the quiet…hear Your voice…”

When everything else around me ceases to make sense I follow the example of my Jesus who made a practice of getting alone with the Father.  Though some are great listeners, friends are for the most part unskilled at offering counsel.  And therapy can be expensive.  Jesus knew where to turn for the source of his strength and He must have treasured those times of aloneness with God.  I used to resist these ventures, telling myself I am too busy to escape for any kind of spiritual respite, trying to “make do” with a quick quiet time or a few minutes in the prayer closet at home.  Eventually I learned that these moments of separation…a week, a day, a few hours even…are God’s best opportunity to speak into my soul.  Today, He did not disappoint…but then, He never does.  While I looked to God, listening for His voice in my tornado and my earthquake and even in the fire, I didn’t hear Him.  It was in the quiet by the river as water crashed onto huge boulders that I heard Him whisper and His words were as clear as the sky above me…

“And he said, go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord.  And the Lord passed by, and a great strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.  And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire, a still small voice.”  I Kings 19:11-12

My heart knows there are no substitutes for purposeful time alone with my Lord, to listen for that still small voice.  My soul rejoices every time He speaks.  May this Mercy Me video be an encouragement to you that when your engine gets all revved up, refreshing & restoration come when you permit your circumstances to drive you into your own time alone, shift into neutral, cool your jets and allow the Word of God to speak into your journey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JK_6osCH74&NR=1 

Exceeding the Speed Limit: The Jerico Scott Dilemma

Nine year old Jerico Scott can’t pitch for his Little League team anymore…the Youth Baseball League of New Haven threatened to disband the team because the coach of Jerico’s team allowed him to take the mound in violation of a regulation that considers it unsafe for a pitcher to throw a fastball in excess of 40 mph.  Now the heat is on.  Jerico’s mom pitched a fit.  Other parents are crying foul, accusing opposing teams of refusing to play them because they’re afraid of getting beat.  Still a majority of comments batted in are centered in “it’s not fair”, “a kid is punished for being too good”, and “no one has ever gotten hurt”. 

 

The argument “he’s never hit anyone” is irrelevant.  It only takes one child getting nailed  by a stray ball to set off an unpleasant chain reaction…courts are packed with people who sue over that “first” accident.  Yes, this boy is good, wonderfully talented even.  The proof is in the team’s is 8-0 winning streak.  I’ve got no problem with this team handing out repeated defeats.  Kids need to learn how to lose graciously.  It’s called “sportsmanship” for a reason.  But what about winning at the expense of the rules? What no one seems to be acknowledging is that the 40 mph speed limit is a League Regulation.  Right or wrong, it’s the rule.  If we don’t like the rule, we take action to change it.  That’s part of the beauty of living in a democratic republic {at least for now}.  We accomplish nothing positive by whining & complaining about how “stupid” the rule is, especially in front of our children!  What are we teaching them if we go off into a rage, as Jerico’s mother did, demanding “fairness”, screaming about how ridiculous the policy is?  Can you just picture these kids 10 years from now?  Yeah, I know underage drinking is against the law but my parents say  that rules are for sissies.  They don’t apply to me…  Don’t kid yourself, our children are watching, listening and taking notes. 

 

It’s not like Jerico is without options.  No one is asking him to go sit down.  He could play other positions for the team.  Or perhaps he could play for a team of older children that does allow for faster pitching.  However, simply because he is talented does not mean the rules should be broken for him.  For those screaming about how unfair it is to this one boy, how unfair is it to the rest of the athletes who follow the rules?  And truly, should “fairness” even be an issue here?  The sooner our kids learn that life is not fair, the better off they’ll be.  There’s no such thing as fair in life.  Fair is a place where pigs win ribbons.

 

I applaud the parents of Jerico Scott and others like them who are investing time & energy in their children to develop their God-given abilities & help them become great athletes.  Can you imagine what kind of world these kids could grow up in if these same devoted parents poured as much energy into teaching the fundamentals of character?  Obedience to rules, respect for authority, self-control…if we fail to instill these traits in our children, the ramifications are significantly more important than whether or not a kid gets to play ball.