TILL HE COMES Blog

God is a stripper. No, not that kind. (Though if you believe Jesus, strippers are probably closer to the Kingdom of God than many religious people - Matt 21:31.)

When I say “God is a stripper” I am reminded of a “looking for work” advertisement I saw in the newspaper a few years ago. At the top of the ad in big bold letters it said, “I’ll strip for you!” This ad was placed by a lady who owned a furniture stripping company. She was offering to strip and refinish your wood furniture. If you have ever tried to refinished your furniture, you know how valuable her services are. If I had to refinish the antique table my wife and I own, I would hire a stripper.

But all of us have something more important than our furniture, and that is our life. And in the life of every single one of us there are blemishes and defects. We all have areas of our life that need to be refinished, refined, or removed. And when we pray, “God, make me usable to you! Make me into the kind of person who can do great things for you!” He comes in and begins stripping away all in your life that holds you back and drags you down. He makes you into something useful.

Such a process is long and painful. It feels as if God has abandoned or forgotten about you. But when you emerge out the other side, you are beautiful and usable for His purposes.

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For the past six weeks, I’ve had an all-out war with a family of squirrels. Sometime last fall, or over the winter, they decided to make our home their home. We certainly enjoy opening our home for guests, but a squirrel family, though cute, are unwelcome guests.

When I first discovered the holes they were chewing through our house, my thought was to get out my gun and shoot them. That’s what I would do if I were still in Montana. But being in a suburb of Dallas, I thought that the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate me shooting a gun next door, and so went down to Home Depot to get some poison. As it turns out, it’s illegal to poison squirrels in Texas. Instead, I was supposed to use to a live trap to capture them. So I went to the Irving Animal Shelter to get my trap.

I caught the first squirrel in about two days. I used apples and peanut butter as bait. Then I reset the trap and waited. For a week, I never heard another squirrel, so I figured they left. I returned the trap and got up on our treacherously steep roof to patch the holes, then went into the attic and put screen over the other holes.

The very next day, I heard the squirrels chewing new holes to get out of our house. Since I had closed off their exit doors, they decided to make new ones. So I went back down to the shelter, got the trap again, set it, and caught another squirrel, then waited and waited, and not hearing anything, patched the new holes, and returned the trap. 

The very next day, I heard the squirrels chewing new holes to get out of our house. Since I had closed off their exit doors, they decided to make new ones. So I went back down to the shelter, got the trap again, set it, and caught another squirrel, then waited and waited, and not hearing anything, patched the new holes, and returned the trap. (Yes, I meant to repeat the last paragraph. Do you see a pattern here?)

Two days ago, I got up on the roof and through some super-sleuthing, figured out where the nest was, and tore part of the roof off to get at it. I spent an hour or more pulling nesting out of my roof. In the process I found two dead squrrels. (I didn’t kill them, honest!) Today, I patched that hole in the roof and will return the trap to the Animal Shelter. Tomorrow, I fully expect to hear squirrels chewing holes in my house.

Why am I sharing all this? I believe that God wants to teach us things through nature. It is, of course, one of the four primary ways God teaches us things (the other three being Scripture, conscience, and other people). These squirrels have taught me that when a door is closed, sometimes you just have to chew a new one. If you throw up your hands in defeat and say “God’s not opening any doors for me!” you’ll starve to death.

I’m facing a time in my life right now when all the doors seem closed, and have been wondering why God doesn’t open one for me to walk through. “I’ve got a family to feed!” I tell Him. But I’m beginning to think that by listening to squirrels chew holes in my house, God is telling me He doesn’t want me to go through any of those doors I’ve been knocking on. Instead, He wants me to chew a new one. I’m excited to see where I come out, but I hope the owner of the house doesn’t get too mad…

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Some days, I’m ashamed to be a Christian. Today is one of those days, and I want to issue a public apology to all people everywhere who were ever hurt, slandered, abused, or hated in the name of Christ. I am sorry for what has been done.

The reason I feel this way today is because of a website I ran across which is solely dedicated to spreading the terrible idea that the God of the Bible hates everybody. The site is so mean and hurtful and angry, I kept wondering if it was just a terrible, horrible, awful joke. I am not going to post the site, because I don’t want anybody to go to it. It is the most despicable, hateful, hurtful, angry, website I have ever come across, and it is all run by “Christians” who claim to be working for “the Gospel.”

One entire section of the site is geared toward helping Christians gather and picket people and businesses with signs that say “God hates _______ (fill in the blank).” I am astounded at the people and places they are planning on picketing, and the way they do it is despicable. They call such events “Picket Crusades.” It’s very reminiscent of the actual Crusades, except that swords and horses have been swapped out for signs and bullhorns.

Personally, I think God hates “Christians” who do such things. Maybe some of us other Christians should get a group together and go picket these picketers. We could write signs that say “God hates people who make signs that say ‘God hates _____ (fill in the blank).’” I’m jesting, but that would be quite a circus.

The truth is that while I feel very sorry for what has been done in the name of Jesus, I also feel very sorry for the people who do it. What is going on in their lives, hearts, and minds to cause them to say and do such things? I feel awful that they think this is the way God is. I wonder what can be done to show them the true love and grace of God?

Anybody want to start a ministry focused on reaching Christian picketers?

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OK, this crisis series is starting to depress and bore me, so this will be my last post on it. I’m learning more and more every day, and so I am realizing the series could go on forever. But I want to move on. So in this post, I will close with three things: Some advice for those who have friends facing a crisis, some advice for those facing a crisis, and a story my wife ran across yesterday which sums it all up for us.

1. For those who have friends facing a crisis.

If you have a friend facing a crisis, just go be with them. Just listen to them vent. Don’t chide them for their emotions, fear, anger, hurt, despair. Please don’t quote Scripture unless they ask you to. Don’t offer theological truths which you think will help them. Don’t ask them what sin they might have committed to make God discipline them. In other words, don’t throw rocks. If you are afraid of saying the wrong thing, don’t say anything at all.

Most of the time, hurting people just want others to be there. If you see something tangible that they need, offer to provide it for them, food, clothing, money, helping hands, resources. The only intangible aid you should offer is prayer, and only say “I’ll pray for you” if you are also thinking of ways to be an answer to your own prayers.

Though our crisis is not catastrophic, my father died when I was two, and my mother says that what I have written above holds true in that sort of crisis as well. A friend of mine lost his brother in a hiking accident a few years ago, and he confirms this as well.

2. For those facing a crisis.

One of the things that bothered my wife and I initially is how when we shared with others that we were going through a crisis, they responded by sharing a crisis that they were facing or had faced in their own lives. Our first reaction was, “Don’t try to turn this around to you. I’m the one in pain!” But then we realized, “Wow, how self-centered is that?”

Yes, pain hurts, and sometimes life stinks. But it’s this way for everybody at times. And one way to get over your own pain, fear, hurt, and disappointment, is to realize that it’s part of life, that others are facing it too (and many of them much more than you are), and that you can either have a pity party for yourself, or try to help others through their own pain, which in turn helps you. And to help others through their own pain, go back and look at point number one above.

3. A Story

One day a Rabbi stood on a hill overlooking a certain city. The Rabbi watched in horror as a band of Cossacks on horseback suddenly attacked the town, killing innocent men, women, and children. Some of the slaughtered  were his own disciples. Looking up to heaven, the Rabbi exclaimed, “Oh, if only I were God.”

An astonished student, standing nearby, asked, “But, Master, if you were God, what would you do differently?” The Rabbi replied, “If I were God I would do nothing differently. If I were God, I would understand.”

Like it or not, I think the Rabbi is right. The best we can do in a crisis (and maybe the most we should do) is simply say, “I don’t understand.”

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My wife and I are currenly undergoing the biggest crisis of our lives. I cannot go into details right now, but this crisis is definitely not the biggest crisis that can happen to a family. We are all healthy, no one has died, we still have a home, etc. However, with what we are going through right now, we find it very easy at times to be angry at God and other Christians.

And as we ask ourselves, “Why is this happening to us?” one reason Wendy and I keep coming back to is that God wants us to understand how a life crisis can lead a person to deny and reject Jesus Christ. We haven’t gone through one-tenth of what some people go through, but I think we now have a glimpse of what it is like.

When bad things happen to a person, it seems like God doesn’t care. Then, to make it worse, Christians come along and many of them stab you in the back. In such times, people are prone to think, “God must not exist after all. Or if He does, and this is how He shows His love, and this is how His people treat one another, I want nothing to do with Christianity.” One thing is for sure, as the country song says, “It’s times like these you find out who your friends are.” And in times like these, it certainly doesn’t seem that God and Christians are very good friends. (And for you Christians who think that is a heretical statement, go ahead and prove it true by making a critical comment below or on your own blog.)

So I see why people leave the church. I see why people turn to alcohol and drugs. I see why people become atheists.  As another country song says, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

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