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A
man named Bruce Waldke made an interesting observation about life. He told
about the day his cat caught a bird in its mouth and brought it inside,
still alive. He got the poor bird out of the cat’s mouth and tried to
tend to it. The bird had a damaged wing, and Waldke tried to do what he
could without really being an expert in bird orthopedics, but he noticed
that the more he tried to help the bird, the more it tried to struggle and
escape from his grasp.
He
contrasted that story to the time he had to take his little daughter to
the doctor, who diagnosed her with strep throat, and the doctor decided to
give her an antibiotics shot. The closer the doctor got with the needle,
the more his daughter cried “No Daddy, no daddy,” but he noted that
she just kept gripping his hand tighter and tighter.
The
story has a lot to do with how we are when life takes a turn for the
worse, when things start to get really oppressive in our lives, they just
haven’t turned out the way we planned, or worse still, when real tragedy
overtakes us. People basically can react in one of two ways—they can
either run towards the loving arms of God, or run the other way. The
choice they make says a lot about the level of wisdom in their thinking.
If
you haven’t guessed already, wisdom is the sixth of seven stops along
this series I call Building the Christian Character. Last week I talked
about courage, and in previous installments we’ve looked at kindness,
patience, peace and faith. Next week I want to wrap up the series with the
ultimate attitude a Christian should have, in this life or the next, and
that is joy. But for now, wisdom is our topic. What is wisdom, anyway?
It’s a bit difficult to put our finger on a definition, but one of the
meanings listed in my dictionary is “the teachings of the ancients
handed down from generation to generation.”
To
me, one of the great stories of wisdom in scripture comes to us from the
Gospel of Luke—most people don’t see the story of the two thieves as a
story of wisdom, but let me make my case and then you decide. Luke tells
us that two other men—the Good News Bible just calls them undefined
criminals—were led out to the Place of the Skull to be crucified with
Jesus, one on his left, the other on the right. And Jesus said, “Forgive
them, Father, they don’t know what they’re doing.”
One
of the two thieves mocked Jesus and hurled insults at Jesus, saying,
“Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other thief
rebuked his companion, saying, “Don’t you fear God. You received the
same sentence he did. Ours, however, is only right. We are getting what we
deserve, but he has done no wrong.” And the thief said to Jesus,
“Remember me, Jesus, when you come as king.” And Jesus, his body
broken, his spirit overwhelmed in despair, said to the thief, “I promise
you, today you will be in Paradise with me.”
Now
here’s what I know without hesitation: each of us will take our turn on
the cross. It might come sooner or later in life, it might come in
differing ways, but Christ told us, “In this life you will have
troubles.” But he added, “Take heart, for I have overcome the
world.” How did he overcome the world? By his death on the cross. Each
of these two men are going through the same circumstances, but one of them
allows the anger of the moment to make him bitter, and the other turns to
Christ and begs for redemption. Which one seems to be wise to you?
We
face the same choices that the two thieves faced, being bitter, or getting
better. We face the same choices Bruce Waldke outlined when things get
tough, either running into God’s arms of forgiveness and protection, or
running away and taking your chances alone and helpless. In my eyes,
making the right choice is what wisdom is all about. I have five points I
want to share with you about the nature of wisdom in our every day life.
Ready? Here we go.
The
first thought is that life isn’t fair, so get over it. So many people in
today’s world expect life to work out even for everybody, every time.
They want God to make things fair for all, and that’s not what God is in
business for. God promises that he would walk with us, he promised to
console us, he promised to love us, but nowhere did he say life would be
fair 100 percent of the time, or even 10 percent of the time.
I
read a magazine article a few years about a man in prison who won the
lottery. My reaction was the same as probably 99 out of 100 people,
“That’s not fair!” And I don’t even play the lottery. How many of
you would be honest enough to admit that you don’t think some of the
things that have fallen your way in life were quite fair. Good people
often have bad things happen to them. In this world, fairness is often
obscured. I promise you, there will come a time when justice will reign,
but it won’t be in this lifetime. If life seems unfair to you, it’s
not.
Here’s
a perfect example of how life is unfair sometimes. In 1972 the United
States and the Soviet Union played for the Olympic gold medal in men’s
basketball. The American team trailed most of the game, but rallied at the
end to trail by only one point with less than a minute to play. The
Russians had the ball, and took a shot that Tom McMillan blocked back to
the Russians. This time they tried a pass that Doug Collins intercepted at
midcourt. He went streaking towards the basket, and one of the Russian
players just tackled him. Collins made both free throws as the U.S. took a
one point lead.
Now
it was the Russians’ turn to scramble, and they tried to get off a shot
as their coach frantically tried to call for a timeout with three seconds
left. But the players on the floor didn’t see him, and there was a mad
scramble for the ball as time ran out. The Americans won, right? Not so.
Out of the stands came a man named William Jones, an Englishman who was
the head of the International Amateur Basketball Federation. He had no
authority at the Olympics at all, but he ordered the referees to put three
seconds back on the clock and let the Russians inbound the ball.
McMillan went to
guard the man in bounding the ball, and he was told to back off 15 feet
away. There’s no such rule. Then the man in bounding the ball stepped on
the line, which should be a turnover. He threw the ball the length of the
court to a teammate who was guarded by two defenders. The Russian knocked
both of them down, which was one foul, and caught the ball, shuffling his
feet as he did so. That’s three turnovers on one play, and none of them
were called. Instead the Russian laid up the ball as time expired, and his
team won.
The
American coach, Hank Iba, was going nuts on the sidelines, and he insisted
on filing an immediate protest with the Olympic Committee. And as he stood
at the scorer’s table filling out the paperwork, a pickpocket stole $370
from him. Now that’s what you call a bad night. Would you say this whole
scenario was fair? Of course not. Neither did the American players. To
this day not one of them has accepted the silver medals for second place.
But it doesn’t matter. Sometimes life just isn’t fair, and you can
either be bitter, or get better. The choice is yours.
Second
thing I would tell you is that you can’t control your circumstances, but
you can control your reaction to those circumstances. We really don’t
know why those two thieves were being executed. What in the world could
they possibly have stolen to deserve death? We do know the Romans had a
way of making examples out of troublemakers to keep the rest of the rabble
in line. All we know is that they were on the cross, and nobody came down
alive from the cross. That they could not control. But one chose to end
his days in anger and bitterness and one chose to end his days rejecting
his own sinful past and embracing God’s love.
We
all have opportunities for reacting to our circumstances every day of our
lives. We can have a negative, angry attitude if we’re foolish, or a
positive attitude if we’re wise.
A
man purchased his dream house late one summer, and he was excited. He was
older, and had never owned his own home before. He knew it was close to a
junior high school, but he didn’t think of the consequences until
September arrived and school was back in session. Each morning and each
afternoon kids would walk down the alley behind his house, and they would
beat on the trash cans the way kids do. The noise was horrible, and the
man thought he would go crazy. Now what would you do in those
circumstances? Would you run out and get mad? Start to yell and threaten?
This
man got an idea. He went out one afternoon and told the boys, “Hey guys,
I love the way you play the trash cans. You’ve got great rhythm. I’ll
tell you what, you come by and beat on the trash cans every day, and
I’ll pay you a buck each every day.” “You’re kidding, you’ll pay
us a buck apiece.” “That’s right.” So for several days the boys
came by and really beat on those trash cans, and the old man came out and
smiled and clapped and gave them a dollar each. But then he came out one
afternoon and said, “You know boys, I’m on Social Security. I can’t
afford to give you a dollar. I’ll make it a quarter.” “A quarter?
I’m not doing this for a lousy quarter.” And his trash cans have been
left alone every day since.
Third
point for today is that bitterness only makes your injury worse. How many
of you would be brave enough to admit that you have punched a wall in your
life? Or kicked something? Made you feel really dumb, right? Not only did
you possibly injure yourself, you’re still stuck with the original
problem. Well, I can go you one better in sheer stupidity. Once I punched
a glass door in anger. Literally. I got mad and put my hand through a
glass panel, severing the tendons in my wrist, to say nothing of shedding
what looked like a bathtub full of blood.
I
have done some stupid things in my 52 years, but that really took the
cake. And what was I so mad about? Somebody had locked the door so I
couldn’t get to the college snack bar. It really underscores my point:
bitterness only makes your problem worse. The wise man will try to solve
the problem.
Fourth,
are you feeling picked on? It’s only natural to think that nobody
understands. But the one who always understands is Jesus. After all, they
picked on him, too. Luke says the Roman guards threw dice to claim
Jesus’ clothes. They spit on him, laughed at him, gave him cheap wine
and vinegar to drink. When it comes to being picked on, Jesus can say,
“Been there, done that.” The wise man gets over feeling persecuted,
and seeks God’s counsel even when events are at their lowest.
Finally,
the last point I want to share with you on wisdom is, God did not
orchestrate your tragedy, but he does provide for your victory. What is
invariably one of the first things out of any believer’s mouth when
tragedy occurs? “God, how could you have allowed this to happen.” Look
at me, church. Every one of us must struggle with tragedy. That’s part of living in a fallen world. It’s not part of
God’s plan that you or anyone should suffer tragedy. God does not allow
it to happen. God does not will it to happen. God did not create the
universe for his people to suffer. But it’s part of what happened to the
world when man sinned.
Nevertheless,
when God saw how man had rejected his will for the world, he didn’t just
turn his back and walk away and leave us abandoned. He provided—and
still provides—the means for each of us to triumph over our tragedy.
It’s called grace. But wisdom is needed to accept that grace, and put it
to work to redeem the brokenness and ugliness of our lives. Two thieves
hung on crosses with the crucified Jesus between them. They both knew they
deserved to be there. One chose to be bitter and mock Jesus. The other
chose to seek forgiveness and redemption. Which one do you think was wise?
Donna
Showalter grew up in a highly dysfunctional family, with a father who
denied her the love and attention that any child needs to grow up with a
healthy spirit. But it wasn’t until she was 27 that her anger really
started to spill out. Mostly that anger was directed at some family
members who had sexually abused her as she grew up. This anger drove her
into therapy, and one wise therapist suggested that she work on a collage,
a group of images that would depict the various roots of her anger. Then
she could start to root them out, one by one.
Donna,
being a visual person, said “That’s for me,” and she set aside one
Saturday to work on nothing but her collage. She asked her husband to stay
home, not to help, but just to have his comfort and protection nearby. She
worked all day on the collage, accompanied by what she said was an ocean
of tears. When she was finished, her husband asked to see it, and Donna
hesitated. What if he said the wrong thing or somehow triggered more pain?
But he looked at the collage and said, “Honey, that’s great. There’s
just one thing missing.”
And
he went off for a minute and came back and she could see him adding
something to the collage and writing on it. When he stepped back she could
see that what he had added was a little band-aid in the corner, and on the
band-aid he had written the single word, “love.” Donna wrote that,
“At that moment I knew that my past was finally behind me. I had a
future filled with hope. I had someone to walk with me every step of the
way. In spite of everything, I knew I was loved.”
My
brothers and sisters, you do have someone to walk with you every step of
the way. He is the same God who was present at the dawn of creation, and
the same man who hung on the cross despised and rejected by the world he
loved so much. Yet that love continues even today. This morning I implore
you, let Christ become your wisdom. I’m convinced that people really
aren’t as dumb as they seem to be. They love to act dumb, but inside,
deep inside, they know that their actions are foolish and
self-destructive. That’s what Paul was trying to tell the Corinthians,
“Let Christ become your wisdom.” Give up the phony hollow culture of
the world, and take up the true culture of Christ.
Every
person’s dilemma, certainly my dilemma, is summed up in a proverb you
might have seen if you have traveled in Pennsylvania Dutch country: “Too
soon old, too late smart.” Who will not admit that this can be a
stumbling block in life? One of the problems attached to growing old, like
getting old needs more problems, is that there is no guarantee that wisdom
will accompany the graying process. How many of us know people who are
getting older and still don’t have a lick of common sense, much less
wisdom?
I
wish I had all the answers for why we must suffer in this world. Do I
think it’s fair that I got polio? No. Do I think it’s fair that some
of you are struggling with what I know you’re struggling with? No. What
I know is that life sometimes has crosses along the road, and all of us
must take our turn on those crosses. I don’t know why God didn’t make
his chosen people exempt from this fate. I do know that he didn’t even
make his only son exempt from the same destiny—and that has made all the
difference, for all of us. In this world, you will have troubles, Jesus
said. But I offer my arms of comfort and my eternal love. Just beyond this
valley of tears is your home in paradise.
You
can run to those arms, or you can run from them. Make the right choice,
and you, too, can be as wise as Solomon.
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