Tune My Heart

Recently, as I was puttering around in the barn on a rainy day, I came upon a nuisance that I’ve been avoiding for several months. My predecessors at Shamayim Hill accumulated a lot of debris and detritus. A good bit of that has been pitched or repurposed, but one issue remains. These people, it seems, had a gas can fetish. At various points around the property, I’ve found some dozen gas cans. How old was this gas? I had no idea. Was it straight or mixed for a chainsaw? No clue. Was it unleaded or diesel? Again, I couldn’t be sure. Throw in the presence of a kerosene heater, and my lack of certainty grew even greater. In short, I could not put this fuel into any engine with confidence that it would not do harm, blow up, or otherwise spoil my day.

Even after sniffing at some cans to identify contents and using one can to start a number of fires–singeing the hair off my right arm once–I still have three partially full containers. What’s a farmer to do? Although it would be completely illegal, I could find an undesireable spot on the property and dump this stuff. If I had the morals of a Wall Street CEO, I could carry it over the fence to my neighbor’s place and dump it there. But, in the end, I simply can’t do that.

I can’t dump harmful chemicals on my property because I know that these poisons will eventually get into plants or the water supply or both. Moving the harm over the fence is only slightly less troubling. In short, I’m avoiding breaking the law because I know that breaking this particular law will have small but negative consequences on me. If I were still in the city, where the chances of being caught pouring noxious substances into a storm drain are much higher, I might be most motivated by the fear of law enforcement’s hairy knuckles on my door.

All of this has me thinking about why we don’t do what we don’t do. Do I avoid illegal and/or immoral activities because I know they’re just plain wrong? Do I avoid them because I fear the negative consequences of the act itself? Or do I simply fear the consequence of getting caught? Take an example: I don’t use heroin. Good choice, right? Do I avoid it because I just know it’s wrong? Am I afraid of becoming a junkie? Or am I afraid of becoming an inmate? In the end, I guess I don’t do heroin because I have no desire whatsoever for it, but there are other evils that I do not find so easy to ignore. Why don’t I do them?

Somebody defined integrity as “what you do when no one is watching.” The reality, of course, is that somebody is always watching. If I truly believe that God is watching over me and that He cares how I behave, then shouldn’t I act like it? There’s virtually no chance of anybody catching me dumping chemicals on my land, and realistically I wouldn’t do much harm if I did, but should that relative impunity to consequences be enough to have me getting  rid of gas, paint, and other nasty items in some secluded spot? I don’t think so.

Frankly, if my fear of the authorities is greater than my fear of the ultimate Authority, then I should definitely re-examine the foundations of my faith. Sin has consequences. How can I take a cavalier attitude toward it?

I haven’t posted to Tune My Heart in ages, somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 months. What happened? Did I just succumb to the old worn-out-on-blogging bug? Not exactly.

Around August 1 of last year, my family and I moved from a lovely house in Raytown, Missouri–Yes, there are lovely houses in Raytown–to a semi-blighted parcel of land just outside Bates City, Missouri (population 255). Think of Oliver Wendell Douglas moving to Hooterville and you get the picture. Since that time, I’ve been driving forty miles each way to school and then hurrying home to attend to matters on the farm. We endured an experiment in getting our Internet connection via a cell card. That was a failed experiment, I might add, as we achieved speeds from ATT that NetZero would find humorous.

When we arrived here, we had a derelict mobile home to demolish and remove, a major problem with our water supply, a serious infestation of wasps, and a thousand other tasks to attack. By the time winter rolled around, I had gotten thoroughly out of the habit of blogging.

One evening, probably back in October or so, I remember walking outside after a long day of physical work. I’d been hard at it with my chain saw, trying to build up a supply of firewood. As night settled on the hill outside my house, I stood there, looking off into the gathering dark for a moment and considering the jobs I had left to do. “I have enough work to last me until . . . ” I said to myself. I nearly said, “until December,” but I stopped short, smiling. “I have enough work to last me forever.”

My domain consists of sixty acres, mostly in scraggly timber. I could spend the rest of my life, eight hours a day, cleaning up woodlands, pulling vines, cutting downed trees, thinning the interlopers to give the desireable trees a better life, and generally being a steward of the forest. I could spend the next ten years just collecting rocks! My work will never end, and I love it.

God did not create us to be idle. He didn’t create us to play endless rounds of golf or watch TV all day. I am so richly blessed in having a profession that I mostly enjoy, outlets for my gift of writing, and sixty acres of home to toil over, trying to leave all of them in better shape when I’m done than when I began.

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. –Jude 1:5Jude 1:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5

WP-Bible plugin

On my drive into school this morning, I passed by a light-up sign, the sort that the highway department uses to announce exit closures and accidents. This morning, the sign read, “You drink. You drive. You lose.” That’s straight-forward.

A number of years ago, I allowed my driver’s license to expire and had to re-take the written test. How annoying. Among the many important questions I answered were ones regarding the limits and penalties for drunk driving. They don’t make you know the penalty for running a red light, but apparently they think it important that you memorize the particulars for drunk driving. As a long-time tee-totaler, I thought I might be able to opt out of those questions, but the humorless test administrator didn’t see it that way.

Who doesn’t know that driving while intoxicated is wrong, stupid, illegal, and detrimental to your future? Nobody. Still, people apparently drink and drive all the time.

What believer in Christ doesn’t know that there are consequences for sin? We’ve all seen bad things follow our bad behavior, so why do we need to be reminded? Still, we do seem to need reminding.

Jude is pretty blunt here. God pulled all of Israel out of Egypt, but he destroyed those who didn’t believe. If I understand that correctly, he’s suggesting that everyone with us in the church is not necessarily with us in spirit. Those people will be destroyed in due time. Let’s be sure not to be a part of that group.

For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. –Jude 1:4Jude 1:4
English: World English Bible - WEB
4

WP-Bible plugin

Okay team, here’s the deal. We’re playing according to the Gospel of Grace rules. We’ve been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. Are you ready to go? Okay, then let’s go out there and live like Christians. Go!

Wait a minute. What are you doing? Who said we can’t go to that movie or listen to that music? Who said that only certain clothing is acceptable? And are you trying to tell me that any song that’s not in this particular hymnal is actually of the devil? Who knew? The encroachment of legalism comes fast. It comes when well meaning people start to legislate righteousness. No more legalism, okay?

Whoa! What’s this. Porno movies and Nine Inch Nails? You’re going topless and bottomless? You want to sing AC/DC in church? Where did all of this come from? The problem with Christian liberty is that it can quickly morph into a license for hellish living.

Isn’t it ironic that while Paul is preaching against legalism, Jude finds himself arguing against licentiousness? How do we know where proper Christian living lies? How do we avoid the perils of legalism and license?

I would suggest that there isn’t a thin line we must navigate in order to avoid these problems. Instead, I believe that we’ll find ourselves on a fairly spacious roadway, one that will see us occasionally err too far into license or too far into law. It’s a bit like driving on those buzz strips at the edge of the highway. No harm is done. What Paul and Jude argue against, I think, is driving completely off the road of Christianity. Legalism and License, taken too far, are really about placing control into the hands of the created and away from the creator.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. –Jude 1:3Jude 1:3
English: World English Bible - WEB
3

WP-Bible plugin

Some guy with a name I can neither pronounce or spell called me today with a major sob story. In brief, he needed to get into my online drama course or the world would come to an end. Would I please, he asked, allow him to enroll even though the time for late enrollment had already passed? For some foolish reason, I knuckled under.

When I passed the request on to my department office, the people who would have to push the buttons to bring Mr. Unpronounceable onto the roster, I received a response that I should have expected. “Where does it all end?” my Assistant Dean, Andy, asked. “We’ve been turning people down since Wednesday.”

Andy might have been passing on information about recent research in literary studies or exciting conferences we might want to attend. He could have been sharing the latest, greatest viral video, but instead he felt compelled to explain what should have been obvious to a veteran of the enrollment wars. We don’t enroll people late. We don’t overbook our classes. We don’t make exceptions unless the college has messed up. That’s all.

I get that vibe out of Jude as I read today’s verse. He’d like to be writing about something interesting, but instead he finds himself compelled to explain the basics to his audience. How often does God feel that way with me. Just yesterday, I found myself chastened as God took a pile of stress away from me. “Trust in me! Lean on me! This world is trouble, but I’ve overcome the world! Haven’t you heard that before?”

Wouldn’t it be great if we could stop re-learning the basic lessons? Where might God take us if that ever happened?