Marble Elephants

I love quotes. If you've known me very long, you've probably noticed I post them regularly for instant messenger and facebook statuses; if you took a look around my room, you would find them posted to my wall, on the bulletin board, and on my desk. Some are funny, some are inspirational, and most I can't remember. Still, I'm always on the hunt for new quotes and clever sayings.

So it was that in my recent quote hunting one morning I came across one that made me laugh. Not so much because it was funny...it was ridiculous.

"A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

That piece of advice seemed laughable to me. A huge block of marble does not resemble an elephant in any way, shape, or form to begin with, so chipping away everything that does not look like an elephant is likely to leave you with...a large pile of marble chips? Maybe it's just me, but that seems like doing things backwards. It would make more sense to look at a picture of an elephant and chip the marble to match.

Strangely, though, we seem to live our Christian lives with a similar motto.

"A fool-proof method for sculpting a Christ-like character: first, get a huge block of sinful humanity; then chip away anything that doesn't look like Christ."

Isn't is absurd? But tell me you haven't done it. I know I have. I look at a lump of bad habits, thought patterns, and sinful tendencies and think, "If I could just get these things out of my life, I wouldn't have such a hard time being a Christian. Just quit doing this, thinking that...Shape up, Character!" And that's when I set about to chip away every bit of marble that doesn't look like an elephant.

Why don't we quit trying to do it backwards? Progress in our Christian walk simply won't happen by carving off whatever we think doesn't look like Christ. To be formed in His image we have to follow the pattern and pray, "Let this mind be in me which was also in Christ Jesus."

Next time you start focusing on ridding yourself of the bad, try refocusing. Just follow the pattern. And remember, Jesus is the Master Sculptor. Let Him guide the fashioning of your Christian character and it will come out to be a replica worthy of the Original.

New Light

Twilight was beginning to descend on the countryside out my car window as I drove back from working in a town in the north section of my district. I reached to turn the knob on my dash for the headlights and then stopped to look at the vertical selector knob to its right. Of course it wasn't anything new, it had been there the whole time. I don't know how many times in all the nearly 30,000 miles I had sat behind that wheel I had seen the rolling selector knob mutely staring at me from the dashboard .

But for some reason I never used it...not even once. For a few seconds I put my hand back on the wheel and watched the fall colors whiz past in the glory of the last rays of the October sun. I tried to remember what that knob was supposed to do. I wasn't sure. I'd never used it. Why? I wasn't sure of that either. Presumably because I thought I already knew everything the car did. Or maybe it was because I when I went down the checklist of locating all the necessary functions of my car (brakes, windshield wipers, stereo volume, etc.) I found everything I thought I needed--before encountering that odd little vertical selector knob.

I looked back at the knob. It could have been a brand-new addition to my dashboard for all practical purposes. Obviously, since I had been driving thousands of miles without it, it was rather insignificant. That or it was an emergency activation switch to launch my car into oblivion.

Was that to deter me? Of course not. My initial incredulity at the realization that there was actually something about my car I didn't know only stunned me for a second, and then I reached forward again to experiment with my discovery.

Tick. The knob rolled up to a level even with a small white circle beside it. I stared at my dashboard in disbelief and then laughed. For two years I had wondered why, whenever my headlights were on, my dash lights would dim to almost no visibility. A simple flick of selector knob, and suddenly my dash lit up, as bright as the Fourth of July, except in neon green only.

Pushing the selector up one more level added an overhead light that otherwise operated separately. Imagine that. Not only did the knob resolve a known problem, it added an entirely new capability.

For the next several minutes I drove along quietly admiring all my new lights. I couldn't help smiling when I thought how long I'd driven my car without ever trying that particular knob.

Then I thought of my Bible study contacts. I thought of all the people who turn down studying the Bible because they've "already read it from cover to cover." And I drove my car for 30,000 miles thinking I knew everything there was to know about how to operate it. Guess what--there just might be some new light you didn't already know about.

A Fair Trade

You just never know why a person may decide to visit your church. During my surveying today I met a friendly middle-aged woman who told me how she was raised Lutheran, has been one all her life, and has sent her son through about 6 grades of the Lutheran educational system so far. Knowing I was with the local SDA church, she explained how her son is a very dedicated Christian kid, attending church and church school faithfully.

At first I thought she was just telling me all this as a proud mother--when people find out I work with a church they seem to begin presenting their most religious side anyway. She went on to tell me that her son's school offers a yearly certificate to the students who have perfect attendance of Sunday School and church. I nodded, waiting for the punch line: "And he's been awarded perfect attendance consistently for the last 3 years!"

That wasn't where she was going with the story. Apparently sometime not so terribly long ago, the boy found himself upon the horns of a real dilemma. A team performance for a hobby of his was scheduled for Sunday morning, and though he couldn't bear to miss it, neither did he want to lose his perfect Sunday School/Church attendance record. They began to look for some alternative, and found an evening church service on a Saturday. But what to do about Sunday School? Obviously, those are only held on Sunday morning.

Oh wait, there is one exception: The Seventh-Day Adventists. Their "Sunday School" is on Saturday; it's just called Sabbath School. So her son went to Sabbath School at the local SDA church on Sabbath in order to keep his perfect attendance record for his Lutheran church school.

Ingenious. I think it's a great idea. Perhaps the Lutherans could bring about a reformation in private religious education practices. Maybe the Catholic parochial schools could grant merit for students attending Sabbath evening vespers instead of Mass. Mennonite students might substitute attending an Adventist baptismal service for Christian history class. Baptist colleges could possibly grant Public Speaking 101 credit for taking notes on David Asscherick's sermon delivery. Muslim students...well, I think exchanging Ramadan observance for joining a vegetarian fellowship dinner would be an excellent choice.

Like I said, you just never know why someone might be visiting your church. Even if it isn't for any of the above reasons, I hope you make them feel welcome.

Harvest of Blessings

It's fall in Central Illinois, and everywhere you go cornfields are being harvested. Autumn leaves are just starting to show a change of color; pumpkins symbolizing fall festivities squat on every corner. The shrieking winds that accompany the arrival of autumn yield deference to the peals of a church bell. It's small town America at its finest with little trace of finery.

If I have just painted a picture of a quaint country town with religious country folk, it would not be an entirely inaccurate depiction of where I have been working lately. On the surface, one could appreciate the romantic, whimsical charm of the small town atmosphere. The work of a Bible instructor doesn't call for a shallow involvement in any town, however; and the deeper I look, the picturesque scene becomes traced over with reality.

Since I began working in this district I can scarcely get down a single street without being invited into countless homes as I give my survey. The less well-off seem to be the most generous in this respect. Perhaps they just have pity on me as I walk the streets in the increasingly chilly temperatures; in a way, inclement weather is quite an ally.

Sharon* invited me in to talk to her. Already a Christian, she told me how she has struggled to read her Bible; only recently she graduated from a child's Bible to a simple translation of an adult Bible. As health topics came up and I told her about the upcoming cooking school, she informed me that she had been praying God would send a woman into her life to teach her some better cooking to improve her health. We prayed before I left.

Norma* came to the door to answer my survey. In answer to the question, "Have you ever wondered, 'If God is so good, why does He allow so much suffering?'" she responded by telling me she had been asking that all afternoon after finding out that her son had broken his back. She then invited me in to visit, saying that she hadn't at first because she had just decided to get a drink. My coming by, she said, was just what she needed that afternoon and agreed that I could come back to study the Bible with her next week.

So I find that no town is ideal--there is suffering everywhere. There are those who are prejudiced, hurt, confused or simply uninterested. But I have been blessed already this fall to see the promise of two harvests. I am already reaping blessings, and I think that harvest value may be a great deal more significant than the corn being harvested in the field by my house.

"Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!" John 4:35

*Pseudonym