Paul Harvey had a radio show called “The Rest of the Story.” He would start with news that was known and ended with the facts or persons in the story that were not so well known.  I have always thought that the story of the prodigal son was incomplete, especially regarding the older brother.. The older brother showed up to find a father grandly and excessively celebrating the son who was so bad and so wasteful in his life. The story stops after the older son was offended and was confronted by his dad, saying the lost was found. 

My prodigal son story didn’t end there. I have an older brother. He watched my father sacrifice so much of his attention on to me when I was sickly and when I was horrible. I consumed much of the energy that dad should have spent on my brother and other family members. My behavior became so bad that my father had to remove me from the family and the family inheritance. I was notified through letters from my dad and his lawyer. It was a grievous time for all of us. I was bitter, and my family was hurt. I was eating the fruit of a history of bad choices. They had to eat some of that fruit with me.

The Lord turned my life around and upside down from what it was. I had found repentance, life, and hope in Him. I wanted to, and worked to, become the person I could be instead of the person I had been. My life change became evident after a time. I became employed, sober, engaged to my wife, and active in the church where I received counseling and assistance crucial to God’s work in my life. I am grateful for God’s appointed counselor and His community. Dad contacted me as he learned about the change and gave me another chance. I would say second chance because it is the normal phrase, but we had long passed second chance. I’m sure we were in the three or four digit range, easily. 

My war with dad had injured all of the family as well. My older brother was one of those who was injured. He had suffered loss as I had betrayed my family values, my family, and myself. He had watched as I had used up every bit of other people’s help and wasted it on the bad life I continued to live with vindictive determination. He saw my return. Had I been him, I would have been highly suspect and considered my return a design to further abuse those who were willing to sacrifice and love me when I neither deserved it, nor was I likely to respect it. Had I been him, I would have resisted all attempts to have me return to the family. I am glad that I am not him because he was much better.

This is where the story continues from the one in scripture. My brother forgave me and became the person I trust for true leadership and advice. He openly confided his hurt to me and his forgiveness. He has proven his forgiveness many times. I think I have always been an inconvenient person. Add that to the injuries I provided before my growth in Christ, and you have a reason to avoid, not embrace. Yet, in the early years of my marriage, when my wife and I were dead broke, we would go to my brother’s house for a weekend’s rest and a few fabulous meals with my brother’s family who totally took us in.

My father died. The family went through his possessions. My brother determined that I should be given dad’s second wedding band, which should have gone to him. I was embarrassed, when my mom died, to consider receiving anything from my family because of who I had been and what I had done. My brother was the one who talked me into receiving it with open arms because they wanted it, and I had changed. He led me through a stage of self forgiveness, which I had put off.

I love the scripture story of the prodigal son, but I love the way God worked it into my life even better. I am grateful for the courage of the hurt to embrace, love, and forgive the prodigal. I am grateful for the strength and wisdom of older brothers whose love is stronger than their hurt and manifest a true example of Christian love and forgiveness. And that is “The Rest of the Story.”

What if I were one of the heros of the Bible? What if I were to think like Harry thinks in real time as a major miracle is taking place? What if I couldn’t see it in the 20/20 hindsight that the finished story gives me?

Genesis 41-43, the end of the story of Joseph and his brothers.

I consider and put myself in the shoes of Israel or his son Reuben. Joseph is gone, believed dead. The famine has come. Egypt is the only place with food. My sons have gone to buy food and come home without Simeon and with the demand that Benjamin be taken to Egypt. I have lost a favored son. Reuben betrayed a favored son. I am in misery because of the loss of the favored son or because of my faithless betrayal to father and brother. Benjamin is now endangered, and I, Israel, will sacrifice all to keep him safe, even to be unwilling to risk him to save the rest of the family. Now Simeon is in jail in a foreign country, so the possibility is the loss of three sons and/or all starving from the famine. 

My circumstances are devastating. The famine is here. All appears lost. There is nothing to eat. Loss, failure, and more loss are the only visible possibilities. Where is hope? Where is my vision of the Lord and what He wants? The son who had a vision was lost. How can the family bow down to one who has died? Am I to send my children forward into death and loss without choice because not sending them guarantees death and loss? How can I see the Lord in this time and situation?

What has the Lord kept behind the curtain in my circumstance? What has been the secret of His faithfulness that my faith should have trusted? What is the personal knowledge of Him which should have kept my heart standing on the solid foundation? How can I trust Him when I failed Him during and after His many provisions in my life? How could we have had confidence in Him when the entire world around me spoke confidence and assurance of our death and devastation? How could I now have faith in a turn around when I have suffered years in the loss of Joseph and the devastation of unanswered prayers (unanswered in my experience because the Lord held His miracles behind the curtain for a future moment)? I have had many past miracles and horrors. I have gained my family position through trickery. My sons destroyed a city because of Dinah’s rape. With all the confusion and the way things have taken place, how can I trust God? My sons and I have done terrible things. Is God still working on our behalf? 

Now is the finale when all turns around, and I see the completeness of what the Lord had in mind, the unveiling of Joseph.

What can I do when I am Israel, the father who has failed and lost, to provide and protect? What do I decide to do when no solution will work completely? Should I send the youngest to Pharoah and loose him, Simeon, and possibly more? Don’t send them and see the family I have, including Benjamin starve in the famine with our flocks and all that provides our finances? How do I gamble this while still suffering the loss of Joseph and the personal sense of failure that what the Lord gave me has been degraded by loss and other failures?

Why do I see Jacob/Israel as a man of confident always-faith and myself as no-faith at the point of testing? Why do I have confidence that Jesus will work it out and everything will be okay for Jacob/Israel, and not for me when we face the same type/form of catastrophe/devastation? Am I different from Jacob/Israel? Is the promise of God less for me? Is the presence of God less for me? How do I answer all these questions to find the faith that Jacob/Israel and I need to stand, love, walk forward, trust, and be faithful to Christ our Lord?

Jacob/Israel and all his failures is the answer to this last paragraph of questions. God has given us scripture and the story of his people to teach us about His love and faithfulness. I can trust Jesus through my failures because I see how He has led and kept all these others in scripture through their failures and successes. Jesus has provided a diary of His love and work with people just like me so that I can have confidence. The insight isn’t about Jacob/Israel. The insight is about the character and love of Jesus. Jacob/Israel is the story, but the revelation is about God. It is God who overcomes all the best and worst in humanity to prove and provide His love and redemption. It is Jesus who can overcome any obstacle and accomplish every hope and joy. 

I can rejoice because my life is also growing a birth to grave testimony of the faithfulness and overcoming grace of Christ. 

“But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.” 1 John 2:27 ESV https://www.bible.com/59/1jn.2.27.esv

Today I began to reminisce over a healing which began a long time ago and continues to grow in my life. It was connected to Hebrews 6, which was laid on my back like a whipping as I cracked and broke at the end of my sojourn at the Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas, in the early 70’s. Verses 1-8 are heavy on the heart of someone who has failed in his own eyes and heart. They say, “crucified Christ afresh.” “can’t be renewed again to repentance,” and “near to being cursed,” and “its end is to be burned.” Haunting words at a time of a shattered life, and my life was shattered at that time. The words provided a sense of complete hopelessness because God became out of reach and beyond reconnection. I was being told that I was going to hell without possibility of salvation, a living death prior to a permanent death.

Those words have come back to me again and again through the years. I remember a Baptist former pastor who came to me in the mini-market in Boger City, North Carolina back in the mid 70’s. I was working the cash register as an assistant manager, earning a small amount larger than minimum wage. He read the scripture to me and told me the tale of his fall from the ministry. His sin had caught up with him. He was broken from the church, out surviving in the world, adrift from his beliefs and faith — cast out from his calling, bereft of any form of self respect or sense of dignity. He was a man trying to conjure appearances for himself and for others that the hollow in his life wasn’t real or wasn’t important. He wanted to think that he had a reason to live and not to fear dying with the expectation of hell.  His church had given him those words as they had been given to me.

He was already there — hell was burning every moment of his life in his state of disassociation from his faith home. He wanted his faith home. He wanted to come back. He missed being a person of purpose and destiny. He wanted to be a full person and not a cracked shell around an empty space. He wanted to be sharing his soul with God again. I knew this place. I lived there. Built a shanty on a rock outcropping at the desert there. Walked the tracks that circled the shanty and went nowhere, many times – years. His story made me touch my lips to see if they were still chapped and cracked from being parched from thirst and burned. I was stirred and felt like Sampson having my eyes gouged out. I wondered, had my hair begun to grow out again: Had I gotten out of that place? I faced the man, the word, and my death in a mini-market in a small town, a big moment in a small place for two weeping souls. 

A small word drifted up towards my mouth from some place deep inside. I barely heard it before I spoke it. I said, “God doesn’t play jokes on people.” The idea began to form around what the words meant, and a rock began to give water. I understood and explained. You want to be back with God. The only reason you would want that is because God is calling. No man feels that urge without the Holy Spirit’s work. Sin and humanity will never give that urge. God does not call just to have the desire quickened and then God tell the soul, “No, I was just joking. You can’t come back. You’re doomed.” God doesn’t do that. The man’s call and hope was restored in the call of God, “Return to me my sheep. Leave your desert that I might lead you by still waters and rest you in the grass. I will restore your soul.” This poor man was sent to me so that we could be freed. God wanted both of us to leave that barren place. 

The revelation began to tumble into other revelations. I had only perceived myself alone and without God. He had never left. I could see it as the fog blew away. I was convinced my relationship with God was beyond fixing, and lived and thought that way. It was a lie. A lie that became so big that it shaped the world I lived in. I finally saw that I had been protected through my journey in that dark land until the Lord used His own voice in my heart to free two of us to see again. It became obvious to the two of us that we had lost nothing during the darkness, but rather had gained a deeper respect for the love of Christ. We had walked deep in the enemy’s territory and came out with the knowledge that God is greater passing through our lips in praise. 

I continue to learn from that experience as I consider it. I’ve come to understand the probable reasons behind those who placed those words on my back. They are forgiven, joyfully so. What they said to me was a reflection of their own fears and feelings of helplessness. I really understand that. God is greater.  His smallest light is brighter than the enemy’s darkest night. There is no empty place or desert when God inhabits the heart.  I’m sure this experience will continue to teach me. God is generous that way. He is also generous that I can share this with those who have found a patch of darkness. God is greater. He hasn’t left you alone. Open your eyes and heart to Him and be restored to your faith home. He is working on your healing and redemption, even if you can’t see it right now. He does not fail or falter. God is greater.

parable | ˈperəb(ə)l |

noun

a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels.

ORIGIN

Middle English: from Old French parabole, from an ecclesiastical Latin sense ‘discourse, allegory’ of Latin parabola ‘comparison’, from Greek parabolē (see parabola).

I’ve decided that I will coin a term for my blog, harrable, a combination of Harry and parable. Basically the plan is to use this term to label life experiences which the Lord has turned into teaching stories for me like He used parables in scripture to teach the disciples and all of us who came after. You may very well decide to take and adapt this term with the beginning letters of your first name like bobrable, bilrable, sarrable, or whatever suits your fancy. I’m sure that your life experiences are being turned into teaching stories, if for no one else, for yourself, your friends, and your family.

The first harrable I wish to share is a Christmas story, since it is the season. 

I don’t know when it started, but I determined to hate Christmas. It must have been a long time ago because I don’t remember a time in which I didn’t hate Christmas. I’ve seen the pictures and movies of me and my family when I was small. It seemed that I might have loved it then, but I may have only been in the greed of the season. I know that my parents loved Christmas and did everything to make the season as joyful as possible. They were thoughtful gift givers and generous people who loved to celebrate and wrap the family up in all the joyful experiences of the season, including, and especially church. 

About the age of twelve or thirteen, I decided on being an athiest and rejected church. Christmas and Easter were about the only times my parents could get me to go. Maybe it was during this time that Christmas became unpleasant because I had become so unpleasant. Athiesm didn’t work out for me. Jesus is too real and overcame every argument, internal and external, which justified not believing. 

However, becoming a Christian did not take away my Christmas frustration. I saw every negative aspect of Christmas and overlooked the positives. I saw that it was the season of the most suicides during the year, but did not see that more people were being helped on the streets. I could see the financial and emotional depression caused by overspending and unmet expectations, but could not see all the drives by some rough bikers and other unexpected groups to provide generously to those who would receive nothing. My selective hearing and seeing caused Christmas to be a dark place. I went from pronouncing my frustration to everyone to finally trying to stay out of everyone’s way so as not to interrupt their Christmas.

The day of reckoning finally arrived through divine insight. I heard the thought in my prayers, “Well, Harry, are you happy now?” It was Christmas season, and I was edging toward the annual gloom. Why would I be happy? The inner thought continued, “You have finally become all that you hate about Christmas.” My years of bad attitude and self serving, self imposed frustration finally stood on stage in my mind and heart as though all the spotlights had found the performer who had been hiding behind the props. There I was in the glaring light. Nothing to hide behind, my attitude, the way I twisted my experience, the thoughtlessness I had placed on others, the demands I had made on others through my temperamental moods were devastatingly clear and obvious. It wasn’t about what Christmas was to me or to anyone else. It was who I was to be during Christmas or any other season of life. Christmas didn’t have to please me. It was my job to be the person I believed I was supposed to be. 

That divine revelation shook my insides. I had been carrying a lot of trash for a long time. My repentence was real, but I wondered if it would be enough after all this time, with all the baggage. My perspective took a massive change. The change opened a world which had been around me all the time. I began to see all that I had tuned out and refused. I began to see that Christmas was really a time to be refreshed in my faith and relationship with Christ. I became stunniingly cheerful. I was surprised by grace.

The final decoration on the Christmas gift Christ gave me was Santa. I was asked to play Santa at the museum and for an elementary school group. Everywhere I went that Christmas, people identified me with Santa. I spoke with little people riding in shopping carts, eating at restuarants, and walking in parking lots. I had more fun than I could have ever expected. 

I think of this experience as a harrable because there are many lessons woven in to the experience for me. I am still unraveling or unwrapping some of the lessons. The biggest lesson for me is that Jesus is the real gift, and He is new every day. He is the one who blows away the dark clouds and creates the joy worth having. Circumstances come and go, are anywhere from glad to sad, but He is always, and in every way, faithful.

I always wonder how people relate to the Lord in their personal inner selves. Do they talk to a modern image of Jesus or to a Jesus in Biblical robes. Do they even talk to an image or just an idea of Jesus through the words He spoke or the character He showed us through scripture. How do people relate to the always present, always available, always involved, perfect God through His Holy Spirit in the middle of their imperfect lives? How do they reconcile their imperfection to His always present perfection. How does Jesus constantly communicate through the darkness to create His light in us, despite all the clutter and misunderstandings we must carry toward Him and the heaven that is our future? Weighty questions for me. Maybe I don’t need to know the answer to them for anyone other than myself as I discover Christ living within me as I grow forward.

I often think of Jesus coming and living inside me as He came and lived physically on this planet. He walked the roads and paths of Israel doing amazing things. He walks through my soul doing amazing things. Jesus was in ministry for three years on earth as the physical Jesus, even though He was there at creation and all other times. He walks in any time, experience, thought, or anything else in my soul any time He wants. He was at my beginning and is at my end, and all times in between. There is a definite ability to create a comparison of Jesus’ life in me to His ministry on earth with the apostles.

People, even His disciples, were unaware of the immeasurable power and authority Jesus had. They argued, misunderstood, were amazed, and frightened by things Jesus did. He often had to pull them aside and explain things so the disciples could understand. They spent a lot of time with Him doing menial and uneventful things, like walking from city to city, eating, and other common life activities. I find all this comforting. Were I truly aware of the power, authority, and presence of the Lord who has chosen to make my heart a manger for His birth into my life, were I truly aware of all that He is and has made available in my life, all the time, I can not imagine how I, or anyone else, could function. Jesus, who could overwhelm the entire planet, chose not to overwhelm His disciples. He put enough of Himself on display to grow them into an eternal awareness of who He is, but was so gentle that He did not crush them with His glory.

There are moments in my life that are every bit as exciting as the feeding of the 5,000 or the healing of the lepers. There are times in my life in which I walk with Him, unaware of His constant presence. There are times that I am aware that I am in training and being taught or corrected. There are times I read scripture in which it seems electric, right out of Jesus’s mouth. There are times that reading scripture is a discipline that might show me something sometime. I walk with Jesus as the disciples did, experiencing the quiet non-descript moments to the moments that I, like the disciples, say/think “Who is this man that even the seas and waves obey Him.”

One of the most amazing proofs to me of the greatness of Jesus is His tenderness. I am a broken person with all the faults common to humanity. Jesus came into my life and walks with me, transforming my life. Yet, like when He came to walk on the planet, He choses to work with me gently without crushing me with His greatness. I consider that this world wants all the power it can get and to wield it without control. I see Jesus with all the power which could ever be gained, gently, with great tenderness and control, shepherding His many children into heaven. Jesus is truly worthy of worship.

Feeling used is probably a pretty normal experience. Consider the pretty girl who isn’t treated like a person because someone can’t think past her appearance. Same experience comes to handsome men or for anyone who is dealt with according to their appearance instead of their personhood, for good or bad. Pretty normal. The word stereotype operates in so many directions that it can be turned on anyone at just about anytime.

How many have been misused through broken perception because of the overwhelming need of the person they are facing instead of for the purpose of the get together? Maybe individual needs get in the way of seeing others or being seen clearly by others.. Human beings are pretty complicated. Sometimes it ends up being funny, things you laugh about together afterwards. Sometimes not.

Being outgoing and humorous always gets me into trouble. I feel like I live from “I Love Lucy” embarrassing moment to the next embarrassing moment. My tendency to want to lighten a tense situation has caused others to use me to lighten a situation, often causing me to feel belittled or to feel that I am being joked at instead of joked with.

These kinds of thoughts make me want to understand relationships better. I want to be better in the relationships I have and the ones I’ve yet to build. I want to find all the humor, purpose, joy, empathy, and compassion and all the other good things that make relationships so crucial to a healthy life. I want to find them, and I want to give them. I want to be able to give mercy where misunderstanding would otherwise swallow or destroy a relationship.

Recently, I realized that my relationship with Jesus was prone to all the disadvantages of my person to person relationships. It showed up in Matthew 14. The beginning of the chapter explains how and why John the Baptist was arrested and killed. I always got lost between the death of John and the feeding of the 5,000. Herod was a bad guy, but Jesus was a good guy and fed 5,000 with a powerful miracle people are still talking about. 

Between these two events, I missed Jesus. John the Baptist was His cousin. He was also the first prophet in 400 years for the Kingdom of God. Jesus was told about John’s death. He, “withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by Himself.” John was a great loss to the Kingdom of God and to Jesus personally. He referred to it later. “But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.” Matthew 17:12-13 ESV Jesus was also facing His same-type future at the hands of those who would murder Him. He deserved and should have had some time to Himself. You can see the person and caring nature of Jesus in His response to the loss.

Jesus landed on shore only to find that the crowds had raced and beat Him there. He turned from His own need to heal and feed the 5,000. These were people, like me who loved Him for His miracles instead of for Himself. We pull on Him like people pull and stereotype us for the need they have. The feeding the 5,000 was the byproduct. The miracle was that Jesus, the King of Heaven, had such compassion and mercy that He left His own need for a little time of quiet for people who did not understand who He was/is or even care why He was doing what He did. They saw the miracle, but they probably missed Jesus as I have, between the death of John and the great visible miracle. 

I see that I have a lot left to learn about relationships and how to treat people. It is in moments like Matthew 14 in which there is a chance to see the personhood of Jesus the Son of God and realize that there is so much more beauty there than the miracles could ever show.

A little over two weeks ago I had total right knee replacement. Looking back, I can clearly see that I was woefully unprepared. I went into it like heading to Disney. The reality was far more real and a lot less magical. On the outset let me make clear that the doctors, nurses, and physical therapists were all the absolute best, and I gladly sing their praises. The one who disappointed me terribly was none other than myself.

The first jump after surgery had the complication of my allergy to pain meds. Everything was worse from Monday until Thursday when I quit the pain meds all together. I could describe this in detail and let you know exactly how wimpish I was and how miserable I believed myself to be, but you might be eating while reading the blog.

The awareness of the loss of hope arrived during this time. My attitude was saying that everything was bad and wouldn’t get better. I was enduring, not progressing. I felt it would never end. Everything and every thought began to be painted with the dark, depressing hues of hopelessness. It was like I was disolving into a world of agony. I knew that was wrong. I’ve been a Christian for a long time. I became completely embarrassed by my thoughts and feelings, so a war broke out within me.

The first help I received (I’m talking about the inner battle — I’ve had so much support from my pastor, friends, and so forth that I can’t describe it all.) was when I turned on Pandora to praise and worship music and just listened. I found myself weeping and holding on to my phone like I was trying to grab a rescue rope. A short time later, I found that I was far more at peace and rest. Pain had even seemed to subside some, and I was not fighting so hard to find any position that was comfortable.

God encouraged me to remind myself how many things my family and I have walked through. Jesus has walked us through many low areas and provided many generous blessings. This triggered a whole thing of repentence. Look what a bad son I was complaining and whimpering as I was in the current discomfort. I’m glad that the Lord doesn’t think the way I do. I looked at my mesery as a reason to hate me. He looked at my misery as part of the process of His making me well. 

I chose to quit complaining. It was a big step. No matter how much it hurt, I still belonged to Jesus, and He was on the job. I quit putting all my energy into generating dissatisfaction from feeling how I did to how I wanted and expected to feel. It was necessary just to expect Jesus each day. He was here. He is trustworthy. He was on the job. Whatever discomfort I had was where Jesus had taken me so far. I could and would be thankful because despite what I was unable to see or understand, Jesus is God, and I am His. My inability and failure was not a measure of what He was doing and had planned to do.

Praise music was therapy. Thankfulness was therapy. Exercising trust in Jesus for each day instead of my desires and expectation was therapy. The inner part of my life was again painted with the hues of hope. My ability to tolerate the discomfort was holding on and improving. At the start, anything was overwhelming and too much to take on. As time went forward, I found myself wanting to do more and take on more.

Here is the real payoff. For two weeks, I was convinced I was a total failure. I had just come around to wanting to be a better son to a faithful and loving eternal Father. I went to the doctor to have the staples removed. He told me that I had surpassed the goals for two weeks and was rapidly getting my movement back. I was ready to begin transfer from a walker to a cane. All other related information was equally good. Despite all my attempts at a pitiful failure, Jesus was a resounding success. He had turned my attitude around, focused me on the things I needed to do day by day, and given me a better outcome than was expected. He proves Himself to us every day in every way. That is a fantastic and loving heavenly Father.

Recently I had a chance to volunteer at my high school to help seniors. One, in particular, was working on a project that really concerned her, a college application letter. She was stressed. This was a time in which I had a chance to wear my dad hat at the same time I wore my teacher hat.

She is a pretty girl, surrounded by a world and high school boys who constantly push her and value her based on the fact that she is a young, pretty, female. Somehow that gets ingrained. She is labeled and stereotyped by her peers and the false value system of the world around her. But I’m an old guy, a dad type guy. Pretty is nice, but it is a value far down the road from the real ones, the important ones.

It didn’t take long to distract her from the false value system and dive in to the real one. “Who are you? What are your value guidelines? What makes you do what you do? What does your heart say about you?” In short, I began to quiz her about her personhood, the things God looks at in us. The pharisees and sadduccees missed Jesus because their hearts weren’t toward God but were toward other things. This young woman has a great heart and has proven it already.

One of her core values is excellence, a great quality! She has proven it in the way she does school, dual enrollment, sports, and other facets of her life. Easy to verify in a letter to people who will know her by her words and actions and not by appearance, the college. She is a person of compassion and caring, verified by her missionary trip and various projects and life activities outside of school, including a full work schedule. I realized I was in the presence of one of my hero types who was only seventeen, but already great in heavenly stature. 

Her open gratitude for my help was another proof of her personhood. I had only acted as a mirror, reflecting to her the qualities and values closest to her heart. She was empowered to write a solid college application letter, which included the verifications of those qualities in her actions. She was satisfied with the letter and felt it was solid. I was satisfied because I was able to show her that she was so much more than the labels and appearances, a great dad moment type thing.

The real value in this for me was related to my Jesus relationship. I think I too often see Jesus talking and dealing with familiar appearances when I read the Bible. He is not. He is talking to the hearts, the inner being, of those with whom He is dealing. He is not distracted by rich, famous, poor, unknown, pretty, ugly, powerful, weak, or any other appearance. He goes straight to the heart and talks there. I often miss that.

This seventeen year old person, whose stature is already great in the real kingdom, reminds me and preaches to me in her life about the two most important things I need to track all the time. 1. Life is relationship, personhood to personhood, especially with Jesus. 2. It is about the heart, not the labels, stereotypes, or appearances. God is not ashamed of young people and feels free to use them in His plan for His hope in this world. This young woman is already aware and involved with that plan. 

Feeling used is probably a pretty normal experience. Consider the pretty girl who isn’t treated like a person because someone can’t think past her appearance. Same experience comes to handsome men or for anyone who is dealt with according to their appearance instead of their personhood, for good or bad. Pretty normal. The word stereotype operates in so many directions that it can be turned on anyone at just about anytime.

How many have been misused because of the overwhelming need of the person they are facing instead of for the purpose of the get together, or maybe their own needs get in the way of being understood or understanding others. Human beings are pretty complicated. Sometimes it ends up being funny, things you laugh about together afterwards. Sometimes not.

Being outgoing and humorous always got me into trouble. I feel like I live from “I Love Lucy” embarrassing moment to the next embarrassing moment. My tendency to want to lighten a tense situation has caused others to use me to lighten a situation, often causing me to feel belittled or joking at me instead of with me.

These kinds of thoughts make me want to understand relationships better. I want to be better in the relationships I have and the ones I’ve yet to build. I want to find all the humor, purpose, joy, empathy, and compassion and all the other good things that make relationships so crucial to a healthy life. I want to find them, and I want to give them. I want to be able to give mercy where misunderstanding would otherwise swallow or destroy a relationship.

Recently, I realized that my relationship with Jesus was prone to all the disadvantages of my person to person relationships. It showed up in Matthew 14. The beginning of the chapter explains how and why John the Baptist was arrested and killed. I always got lost between the death of John and the feeding of the 5,000. Herod was a bad guy, but Jesus was a good guy and fed 5,000 with a powerful miracle people are still talking about. 

Between these two events, I missed Jesus. John the Baptist was His cousin. He was also the first prophet in 400 years for the Kingdom of God. Jesus was told about John. He, “withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by Himself.” John was a great loss to the Kingdom of God and to Him personally. He referred to it later. “But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.” Matthew 17:12-13 ESV Jesus was also facing His future at the hands of those who would murder Him. He deserved and should have had some time to Himself. You can see the person and caring nature of Jesus in His response to the loss.

Jesus landed on shore only to find that the crowds had raced and beat Him there. He turned from His own need to heal and feed the 5,000. These were people, like me who loved Him for His miracles instead of for Himself. The feeding the 5,000 was the byproduct. The miracle was that Jesus, the King of Heaven, had such compassion and mercy that He left His own need for a little time of quiet for people who did not understand who He was/is or even care why He was doing what He did. They saw the miracle, but they probably missed Jesus as I have, between the death of John and the great visible miracle. 

I see that I have a lot left to learn about relationships and how to treat people. It is in moments like Matthew 14 in which there is a chance to see the personhood of Jesus the Son of God and realize that there is so much more beauty there than the miracles could ever show.

Quite frankly I’ve read the parable of the 10 talents in Matthew 25 and heard it preached more times than I can remember. I always respond to the reading or message with the desire or intent to strive to do great things. Striving never produces spiritual fruit in my life but human frustration. The more I strive, the more I realize my limitations in my own abilities. I don’t know about you, but that becomes a teeth grinder, which makes me want to avoid those verses. It produces a sense of helplessness in me. That changed today.

I have been aware, for sometime now, that my students, my friends, and some others have thought better of me than I felt I deserved. I’m sure that part of that is because they don’t see my insides as clearly or as emotionally as I do. I also realize that love covers a multitude of sins, and those who chose to love me overlook the shortcomings that I think are so obvious, while those who find me obnoxious or irritating may well see all my failings and add to the list according to their preference. 

Even so, loved or not loved, I am able to do more and have more to offer because of the Holy Spirit within me. Sharing in church, at men’s group, and having things suddenly to share when someone provides me with a need are all verifications of me having more than the talents I started with. Jesus has added to my natural ability with His supernatural ability and love for others, allowing me to join Him in His ministry. He strengthens me to love those I would naturally reject.

I am not trying to say I am not troubled or that I don’t come up short on the scale of good, better, best. I am saying that I often enter into a conversation with someone who is struggling and find words of encouragement flowing out of my mouth in such a way that I am encouraged as well. I find myself showing up at a time to help when someone needed it with both of us surprised by the timing. I find an understanding to scripture I haven’t had before just days before someone asks a question about that very thing. I have prayed for people and seen God do things I could only wish for.

I see this as my two talents being multiplied to four by the time Jesus calls on me for an accounting. My natural talents, whatever they are, to whatever strength they are, are multiplied and added to by all the ways Jesus adds to my life, changes my attitudes, improves caring nature in me, or helps me help others. Because He is with me, I am more than I am and able to do more than I can do without Him. He has added to  my talents the fruits of His Spirit. I see the fruits of His Spirit, His work in and through my life, as the added talents in this story. Because of Him, I am more than I am and do more than I can do, not my talents, but His added to mine through salvation and the work of His Holy Spirit.

That makes it all the more sad for the one talent person. All they have is their humanity and whatever they have done with it. They have relied only on themselves and do not have the fruits of the Spirit to bring to Jesus at the time of accounting. His testimony is only who he/she is, and not what God has done in and through them. This is an extremely sad life and an even sadder end. 

As Jesus and the kingdom of heaven are all that is good and truly desirable for life, health, and well-being of any sort, it is extremely sad to live without it and live without it increasing and producing fruit in our lives. 

I pray that all you who read this and all those whose lives you touch will find the joy of Jesus and the increase of the fruits of His Spirit in your lives.