Reminders
Remind me please, why we so easily drift toward darkness
Remind me please, why we so readily love evil
Remind me please, how to love past hatred
Remind me please, what to do after the other cheek has been
turned and struck
Remind me please, why there is a need for forgiveness
Remind me please, why your name is Redeemer
Remind me please,
Remind me
An unusual event occurred in our house today.
Our dog threw up.
How is that unusual you ask? Don’t all dogs throw up once in
a while?
As a matter of fact, yes, all dogs throw up once in a while. The fact that she threw up is, for her, somewhat
unusual, but that isn’t really the unique aspect of the situation. It’s more what she puked.
It was poop.
The stuff that’s supposed to come out of the "pooper" end of
the dog rather than the "eater" end. Which
would indicate that the poop went in to the eater end after it
came out of the pooper end. This is
disgusting.
Now let me be clear: I love dogs. I think they are one of God’s greatest
creations, and great companions to humans as a whole. I’ve had a dog for most of my life, and they
have all been good to have around. But,
being animals, they have some habits that my human sensibilities find…. Unfathomable.
Like the sniffing of butts and crotches.
Or dragging their butts across the carpet. (“Hey stop that! That’s disgusting!” “No, it’s not. I don’t have opposable thumbs so I can’t use
toilet paper.” “Point taken.”)
Or rolling around in really stinky stuff, and then running
up to rub all over you to share it. (“This
smells SO much better than that stuff you put on, doesn’t it?!”)
Anyway, you get my point.
There are some of you who will insist that your dog would NEVER eat
poop. You are clearly lying to yourself.
There may be some nutritional aspects to this that I am not
aware of. Or it’s possible it’s just a
flavor issue. She seems to do it more
after we’ve given her some tasty fish or chicken scraps in her bowl. Maybe it tastes better after it’s had time to
go through the “fermentation” process. I
heard an interview once with a fighter pilot who was talking to a newscaster he
was taking up on a demonstration flight.
Newscaster: “Are there any foods I should eat or avoid
before the flight?”
Pilot: “If you have to eat anything I recommend bananas.”
Newscaster: “Why bananas?
Are they good for motion sickness or something?”
Pilot (smiling): “No.
They taste the same going down as they do coming up.”
So, it ain’t bananas, but maybe it’s the same for poop. I don’t know and don’t care to.
There are some of you who own cats and dogs in the same household. There was a day when you wondered why your cat
wasn’t using the litterbox as much as she used to. There just weren’t as many cat turds in the
box as you expected. You looked around
the house desperately trying to find the new spot she must be using to no
avail. You concluded the cat must be
constipated. You started looking at products
to “get things moving again” to relieve the cat’s supposed suffering.
Then one day the dog looked at you and said, “Hey, just so
you know, the cat’s ok.” You accepted
this as a true statement because the dog had kitty litter on her nose as proof. The cat was as relieved as you to be spared
from the approaching enema.
So, when the dog pukes poop right in front of you, it’s
really better for you to just accept the clear evidence and admit that he did it, than to keep insisting
he would never do anything so offensive.
Dogs will be dogs after all.
©Dan Bode 2023
I live with kindness on a momentary basis.
I decided a while back that kindness was a better motivation
for living out my life than most of the alternatives I’d been trying up to that
point. I tried anger, then sorrow, then confusion. None were satisfying, or good for my health,
because they all take a physical toll as well.
I started thinking about this the other day when a lady cut
in front of me in line at the store.
There were two lines next to each other, and when the person in front of
me left the register, she jumped lines right in front of me. It was so unexpected that I was a little
confused at first. Then I realized what
she had done, and I had a momentary flash of irritation. I was at the end of a frustrating series of
events that morning so I was already a little tense, and I’m kind of a big guy
with a resting face that I don’t think people find generally comforting. I started to take a step forward and opened
my mouth to say something (it would have been a real zinger I’m sure), and then
felt like God just tugged the back of my collar and set me back. We had a bit of a conversation.
“Hey, have you looked at yourself this morning?”
“I’ve been trying to avoid that, thank you very much.”
“Yeah well, it’s not your greatest look right now. Just sayin’.”
“Your point being?”
“My point being that if you’re talking to GOD like this
right now maybe another human being might have some trouble dealing with that
attitude, don’t you think?”
“Good point. Sorry.”
“Good answer. So,
what do you think I want you to do right now?”
“Uh… nothing? Probably forgive her?”
“Another winner! Very
good!”
“But I don’t want to look like a chump that people can just
walk all over!”
“You realize you’re the only one who thinks that right? There is literally no one else around who
thinks that. Everyone else who is
thinking anything about it is irritated at her.
She’s making her own trouble right now.
She’s not even aware she did anything wrong. She’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“Got it.”
I’m always amazed at how much dialogue God can fit into one
second.
So, I let it go, and felt better about it.
When I got to the register the clerk asked how I was doing
today, and I replied,
“Not bad, how about you?”
“I’m doing well,” she said, “but I get a little irritated
when people feel entitled like that one.”
(God: See? Told you,
didn’t I?)
“I know, me too. I
guess everyone has their issues. I just
decided not to make hers, mine this time.”
In the grand scheme of things this was a very minor incident. A drop in the bucket of my entire life. There have been so many times in my past
where I have taken some small thing and replayed in my mind to make a bigger
issue, and then justify my anger about it because, “it’s the principal of the
thing!”
I was stupid.
My principles are there to guide my life, and my
actions. They are not to be forced on
others.
When I removed the anger from my thoughts in that moment it
created a vacuum. I internally expected
some kind of response, so I chose to replace it with kindness.
And that made all the difference.
My body relaxed, my thinking cleared (because my thought
processes were definitely muddled right then) and the rest of my day followed a
much better path that it would have if this had not been pointed out to me.
I will be faced with these choices again and again. I hope to have many more years to practice. There will be incidents of far greater
importance to use it.
I’m not saying that God wants me to allow others to walk all
over me. I will always defend myself and
others when necessary. We are sometimes
faced with unnecessary, and sometimes relentless, cruelty which we must all
fight against.
The questions this raises for me is this:
Why is kindness difficult?
Why isn’t it my first response?
When someone is kind to me, it gives me joy. The kindness of others tells me that at some
level I have worth in their eyes. It
shows me that they are willing to expend some effort, some part of their own
value, to increase mine - whether it’s someone I know well, or someone in
passing who I’ll never see again. It
comes with no strings, and at no cost to me.
When I practice kindness with others, it actually enriches
me. If I’m kind to you, you are kind to
another, and eventually it becomes contagious enough that changes can occur
around you.
Our society seems to have abandoned any pretense of kindness
for our self-interest. We seek justice
for ourselves against those who offend us, but only justice by each person’s
own definition. We easily forget that, from
a Biblical perspective, justice and mercy are a package deal.
Justice comes with forgiveness. This is how we survive together, and yet in
recent years we have chosen so many times to completely abandon any pretense of
compassion, even within the church. We
attack each other and end relationships over what should be simple
disagreements which have instead been turned into life and death arguments. I mean, seriously, did you think if you
profess love for someone, you will never disagree with them? Is that all your friends are: clones of
you? If you only love those who are like
yourself – well, maybe you should look up the definition of narcissism.
Who did Jesus argue with and attack? The religious leaders of the time who lorded
their authority over those they deemed less worthy than themselves. The ones who effectively cut everyone else
off from God.
Who did He love and spend time with and forgive? Everyone else. Every sinner who the religious leaders
refused to see, or hear, or touch. The
worst of the worse. The ones the
Pharisees reviled are the ones Jesus loved.
Me.
To be clear - He loved the Pharisees as well, but He hated
what they were doing. He really loves
everyone, regardless of how I or you feel about them. No one gets to be the gatekeeper for access
to God. The application of that in real
life is me being compassionate to those who need it, rather than only a
specific subset of society that I somehow deem worthy. God is above our societal norms and traditions. Jesus never identified Himself as conservative
or liberal. I think any label I tried to
apply to Him would make Him roll His eyes as He turned to talk to someone I
disliked or vehemently disagreed with the most (whoever that happened to be at
the moment).
He asks us to love our neighbor.
“Who is my neighbor?” we ask.
He answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke
10:25-37), and the neighbor was “the one who showed him mercy.”
He asks us to love our enemies. (Luke 6:27-36)
It seems ironic to me that no one asked, “who is my enemy?”,
because we already have that figured out, don’t we? We seem to find enemies everywhere
nowadays. All it takes is to find
someone we disagree with.
He asks us to lay down our lives for a friend (John 15:13)
It stands to reason that my enemy, once I learn to love
them, could be my friend, and then we may be asked to lay down our lives for
those who were once our enemies. Is it
really worth it to hate a person or group so much that it kills you?
He asks us to honor one another, and to outdo each other in
honoring each other! (Romans 12:10)
Am I doing that? Are
you?
I have in the past been rather politically “adamant” in my
views. I went along with the group that
held similar views who claimed we were “right”, and everyone else was
“wrong”. Anyone who disagreed with any
single part of our thinking was automatically pushed out in the cold and
labeled the “enemy”. Because they didn’t
agree with everything the other side espoused, they were not accepted there
either. They were left to be victims in
the crossfire of ideological warfare.
Because I am a Christian, I obviously had God on my side, so
the people I looked up to must be speaking the truth. So, I prayed for the salvation of those "outsiders" so they
would vote the way I thought they should.
But then…
I found myself examining what Jesus actually taught about how
to treat others, and found some pretty glaring differences between His
teaching, and mine.
I became more vocal about those differences, and many of those who I’ve
known and loved for years, and who I still love, pushed me out into the cold
“in-between” of their own fears where I had to try to protect myself and my
family from both sides.
Ironically it was when I started talking about not hating
each other, and loving our enemies, that I found myself pushed out of my
"tribe". I have discovered – much
to my surprise – that this is not the wasteland I was led to believe it was,
but more like the “land of milk and honey” that I always sought. I just never really thought to look for it
here.
I’ve had cause to wonder lately – if Christ came today –
would we listen to Him and live as He asks, or would we crucify Him?
Listening to some of the things I’ve heard from folks lately
who say they follow Him; I think there are many who might be willing to pound the
nails. Because they don’t necessarily
follow Him, but only their own idea of what He should be in their opinion. It seems as though many have given up reading what He actually said.
I think most of the people who say they would die for a
cause, or man, today (other than our military and police who have already made
that very real commitment), are lying to themselves and the rest of us just to
try to drum up support, because they don’t really believe they’ll be asked to
make that choice. I think faced with the
threat of death they would change their minds in a heartbeat. They might be willing to die, or even kill,
for their family, but for a mere cause?
It’s just bravado.
Because hypocrites and martyrs die the same.
The sacrifice of my life guarantees no one's salvation. Are you willing to die for someone who isn’t
even aware of your existence, and no longer be with your family? Are you that selfish?
Even my God doesn’t tell me who to hate, so why would I
listen to a politician doing just that then?
You want a real example of sacrifice and commitment?
Look at Jesus. He
forgave the ones who killed him. While
they were killing Him.
I have found that there is an insurmountable difference
between clinging to the Cross, and being the One nailed to it. And I so desperately needed Him to be pinned
there.
Remember that it was His own people that He came to save
that demanded that He die.
Remember all this as you seek to foment rebellion, all the
while claiming to follow the Prince of Peace.
And yes, all this came up just because some lady cut in
front of me.
Life lessons are everywhere, I guess.
©Dan Bode 2023
Occasionally I make some very important realizations about my life. Sometimes someone says something to me that sets off some line of thought that seems completely random at the time, but turns into something significant to me.
There are other times when it seems like a boulder just gets
dropped on me out of a clear blue sky, and I have no choice but to drop
whatever I’m doing and deal with it.
Regardless of how they come to me they are usually things that in
retrospect are pretty obvious. They were
there all along but I simply never noticed them. This was one of those things.
I realized one day that even the mere presence of Christ
will change anything.
I think the apostle Peter was familiar with what I am
talking about.
In John chapter 21 Peter is dealing with the aftermath of
the Crucifixion. He has no hope. The one he gave everything to is dead. With the death of his future he returns to
his past.
“I am going out to fish.”
He trudges down the beach and begins to run the strands of
the nets he hasn’t touched for three years listlessly through his fingers. Before Christ (B.C.) this was what he always
did. Up until he’d heard those two
fateful words “Follow
In the intervening years he saw the dead raised to life,
water turned to wine, and lepers healed.
One miracle after another had been performed in his presence. The Pharisees and Sadducees, the powers of
his society, had been repeatedly challenged and shown to be the greatest of
hypocrites. The foundations of his life
have been completely changed. But even
with all these things the greatest change is what has happened within.
Peter made the sacrifice of believing in someone other than
himself.
In moving the focus of his belief he had done things at the
request of He in whom he believed, and he did it regardless of his own agreement. In so many ways his motivation has been to
satisfy his own dreams, but now he comes to understand the root of his
problem. Belief in someone other than
yourself is only half of the process.
The other half demands blind dependence.
Peter believed in someone else, but he believed in Him because he
thought the other would accomplish Peter’s own desires. So belief is one thing, but devotion requires
taking on the beliefs and desires of the object of your belief as your
own. Peter, as is often the case in my
own life, had not done this.
Now, without Christ, he seems to have lost it all. Having believed in someone else, yet still
applying his own conditions for believing, making Jesus merely a vehicle to
reach his own goals, he has not only lost everything, but he has failed himself
as well as Jesus.
Imagine climbing in the boat and setting the oars, using
muscles gone stiff after years of inactivity and thinking all I can do is fish.
Without purpose, without Jesus, he simply went back to what
he knew. The problem was that now,
having known the ultimate reason for existence, this basic fundamental task
could no longer provide any meaning to what was left of his life.
Into this situation Jesus becomes Present to him.
He becomes the Truth.
“Throw your nets on the other side of the boat.”
Only a slight change from what he’d been doing just moments
before. At this point he hadn’t yet
realized that it was Jesus who was speaking to him, but he did it anyway. What do you suppose he thought at that moment? The local fishing industry hadn’t changed in the
time he had been away from it. He knew
what he was doing, but there on the shore is some side-line fisherman who tells
him to throw the net on the other side of the boat? He knows there aren’t going to be any more
fish on one side than the other. Still,
he does it. His pain is such that he
needs something to fill the time. He
needs something to fill the hole left by the absence of his Rabbi.
What did he have to lose?
He was just fishing after all. When
the nets began to fill and as the individual strands began to break as one fish
upon another threw themselves into the net he realized something had
changed. It was the change that caused
him to realize that the voice he’d heard just a moment ago was the same one
he’d heard agonizing in prayer in the garden at
It was then that he realized just how much the presence of
Christ changes the meaning of everything
we do.
He was only doing what he had always done, but it would
never be the same for him again.
As a result of Christ’s birth, the properties of giving
birth changed. When a baby entered into
the world from the womb it was something that had happened countless times
before. Christ was born as every child
had been born, and yet His birth was
the one that negated the cause of the
mother’s pain. His birth gave meaning to
it. The betrayal of trust that occurred
in
Even the act of crucifixion was changed.
The Romans had been crucifying criminals for quite some time
before Christ walked the Via Dolorosa, and they continued for a long time
afterwards. But with Christ involved it
was more than merely a form of painful execution.
Christ gave it purpose.
His impact and influence was so complete when it happened to
Him that even to unbelievers it was forever after known as The Crucifixion. It is no
longer spoken of even in our day without summoning to our thoughts the name of
Jesus Christ. Pilate would never have
given a second thought to nailing another set of hands to that beam, and in
fact would have willingly given the mob its desire if they had asked for
Barabbas to be killed.
Even Pilate knew somehow that Christ changes everything.
Even he knew that crucifying Christ would have unimaginable ramifications.
Christ was not the first person to be resurrected
either. He himself raised several people
from the dead, but as extraordinary as any resurrection should be considered,
no one ever thinks of them when we say The Resurrection.
No one else was sacrificed first.
Two travelers on the road to Emmaus were just traveling
together until Jesus joined them. When
He spoke they knew He was someone who knew what He was talking about. That simple journey completely altered the
course of their lives, not because of the journey, but because of the One on
the road beside them.
Sad to say that knowing
it is not the same as living it, but
I think Peter, when he made it to shore, had finally figured out the difference
between what he had been doing for the previous three years and what he was
doing now, dripping wet on the shore in front of the living Christ. I think he stood before Christ re-examining
every thought or action he had taken during the last three years knowing that
all of his previous ideas were utterly wrong.
It is one thing to nod your head and smile when someone
says, “I will rise again on the third day after my death.” It is a completely different matter when you
meet Him after He has indeed done what He said He would do.
The thought, “You mean you were serious?!” must have crossed
his mind at some point. Peter suddenly had to believe everything he had only paid
lip service to previously. All of the
things that he had believed for his own benefit now had a completely different
meaning that was no longer based on his own needs and desires. Overthrown oppressors were no longer an issue
when the living Christ was sitting in front of him frying fish on the
seashore! Come to think of it I’ll bet
He even fried fish better! I wonder if
he understood then that after three years with Jesus Christ, without Him Peter
was not after all a better fisherman than before. Without Jesus he was merely the same, but now
he understood what he longed for.
Now he knew what he was missing.
I want to know how Peter remembered that day.
What did the rest of the world look like to him after he
realized that all that Christ said
was true? Could the truth of anything
Christ said be doubted if He could overcome the worst enemy of humanity?
Nope.
Suddenly, he needs to worship Him; to give Him something.
But what do you give to the One who has everything?
Everything.
Everything you are, everything you will be.
Everything you have, and everything you ever had.
Every desire, and every dislike.
Every relationship, and every preconceived notion.
Everything good, and everything bad.
All of it.
Everything.
Because it’s all changed, and He’s the one who did it.
It doesn’t matter whether you want the change or not,
because the creation itself has been fundamentally changed by awaiting His
return. The Expectation with which my
very soul trembles changes how I look at Everything.
And at what cost?
A virgin birth, a crucifixion, a death, a stone rolled away,
a resurrection.
Replace the “A” in the previous sentence with “The” and you
know exactly who is being spoken of without ever saying His name, but then we
say it anyway, because the name of Jesus Christ sounds so much better than any
other words that ever passed our lips before.
And the fact that He
lives changes….
Everything!
©Dan Bode 2007
