Who Do You Listen To?

Scripture: Deuteronomy 18.15-20; Mark 1.21-28; Matthew 7.15-20


I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted. I could eat and not have to worry about gaining weight, because my metabolism and lifestyle were active enough to do that. Things change. I used to look at all the people on the treadmills at the gym with mild pity, and vow I would never be some exercise hamster like them. Things change. I do treadmill now. I get on there and I watch that digital calorie-counter with avid interest and when I burn over one hundred I congratulate myself because I can now go home and eat a guilt-free cookie.

Have you noticed all the commercials on television about diets and diet pills? They are on all the time. They all feature success stories, show good looking people, quote experts. Maybe they all work! Maybe none of them work. Who do you listen to?


If knowing who to listen to is important when it comes to exercise and diet, isn’t it pretty important to know who to listen to with even bigger questions in your life? This is exactly what is at issue in Deuteronomy 18. God tells the people that He is sending them a prophet whom they would do well to listen to. And what’s notable is, God anticipates the problem of false prophets, false and misleading voices, to which Israel might be exposed.

“But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak – that prophet shall die.”

Then God gives the people this simple test to know the difference between a true prophet and a false one:

“You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken? If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.”

If the thing spoken of, happens, then it’s a prophet. Pretty simple. And that kind of jives with how we sometimes view a prophet – someone who predicts the future. But a prophet is not a fortune teller. A true prophet brings the power and goodness of God’s Word to people’s lives today. When a prophet sees good things, they give glory to God. When a prophet sees evil, they warn people to turn from their evil or face the consequences, e.g. Jonah and Nineveh.

Let me suggest that the last phrase of verse 22, but if “the thing does not take place or prove true,” then it is not God’s word, is vital for us to understand. What does it mean for something to prove true? Something that is true is good , sound, accurate, even beautiful. Truth has a ring to it, we say. So when we are looking for persons and voices to listen to and rely on in our lives, we should use this measure of truth and apply it rigorously.

If someone is true they speak with authority. When Jesus teaches in the Capernaum synagogue the people are amazed by the experience. “Wow, what a message – and spoken with such authority! That guy knew what he was talking about!”

They literally said this out loud to each other because it was so different from the teaching they were used to hearing, maybe good stuff, but not given with such conviction and application to their lives. This kind of authority is not faked, it comes from walking closely with God, and truly speaking what the Holy Spirit directs. Jesus, of course, is the One who did what the Father instructed him to do, spoke what the Father told him to speak. True authority comes from character, and character is shaped from above.

Authority is not to be confused with charisma or flair. We are such suckers for a slick presentation in this culture in which we swim and are entertained. We are seduced by good hair and shiny teeth and powerpoint presentations. Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that Paul the Apostle was not such a great preacher:

He knew what people said about him – strong on paper, weak in person. Contemptible delivery. In the apocryphal literature Paul was described as “a man of small stature, with bald head and crooked legs. . .with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked.

The last ten years of my life, my theme verse seems to be the one where Paul tells us to be like him. . .I’ve been living that out as literally as I can.

Taylor’s point is that Paul didn’t want to wow a crowd with cleverness or emotion. He just wanted to preach Jesus, and Him crucified. True authority can be found in persons who make their lives about God and not themselves. We would be wise not be distracted by the packaging.

If someone is true, then their lives will bear the fruit of truth. This sounds so obvious that it doesn’t need saying. But it does. We forget that if deeds don’t match words, then maybe the words are wrong, or at least don’t have any real power or meaning in the speaker’s life.

This is a trap for all Christians to avoid, even, (especially?), preachers. You know I want my life to match my words. I want to live the Life, you know? I want to be a good father and a good husband. I try to pull my weight around the house. I want to help out. In fact, I asked my wife a long time ago, “What’s the one thing in housework that you really don’t want to do?”

She said, “The dishes – I don’t want to do the dishes.” And I’ve got to hand to it to her, in ten years of marriage, she hasn’t done many. And they’re really piling up too. It’s a mess in the kitchen. The prophet has spoken presumptuously, don’t be frightened.

I was talking to a good friend just the other day. I asked him how his kids were doing – he is the father of three small children. He said they were whiny. He asked me if my kids are ever whiny. I said no. We laughed because what usually happens is our kids are usually wanting our attention and time and we don’t give it, which makes it worse, and they get frustrated and we get mad and end up shouting at them something like,

“Will you just be quiet and leave me alone, can’t you see I’m trying to prepare a talk for my Parenting Class?”

If we are in the truth, our lives will reflect truth - not moral perfection, but evidence of a life being transformed by the power and word of the living Christ. If someone is true, then their lives will bear the fruit of truth. If someone is true they speak with authority. “You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken? If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.”


The living Christ once said, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.” Matthew 7.15-20

Every one of us in this room is here because of true people bearing good fruit in their lives. And every one of us in this room continues to need good people to look to and listen to.

Who do you listen to? Avoid fancy packaging and easy answers. Find people you know to be faithful, good, selfless, caring. Find people who’ve “proven true.” Look to character and integrity and above all a heart for God. Find those people and try to be like them. You won’t go wrong.

God Calls: Overcoming Your Circumstances

Scripture: Jonah 3.1-5, 10; Romans 8.28


I said last week that God speaks to those who will listen. Sometimes God speaks to those who pretend they’re not listening, who don’t want to listen. Jonah was such a man. God’s assignment for Jonah was to go to Nineveh, “that great city” for its wickedness had caught God’s attention. I mean, the implication is, the city was so evil that the stench was wafting up before God. It was becoming unbearable.

God gives the task of notifying the Ninevites of their sin to Jonah. It must have seemed like Mission Impossible to our man. For Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a powerful enemy of Israel. Assyria would later subdue the Northern Kingdom of Israel and threaten Judah as well. Assyria was powerful and ruthless. And Jonah was being commanded to go to its capital and preach against their people. Its like being asked today to fly to Damascus or Riyadh, walk the streets and call Muslim extremists to repentance. Any takers?


Father Mapple, the preacher in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, says God speaks to us in commands because He knows that what he wants of us is difficult. “If we obey God, we must disobey ourselves. And it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.”

And of course, Jonah responds to God’s command by running away.

If we’re honest, we can’t really fault Jonah. Because we’ve all done it. We’ve run away from taking God’s commands seriously. We’ve assessed the situation of listening to God, following the call, acting in faith, and deemed it all too risky, unlikely to succeed.

There’s the Seinfeld episode where Jerry recounts beating his old grade school nemesis Duncan Myer in the 100 yard dash. The rub is, Jerry accidentally got a head start and so beat his rival unfairly. The rival repeatedly challenged Jerry to a rematch but was always rebuffed. Jerry knew that on a level playing field there was no way that he could win. So the answer that he gave Duncan was, “I choose not to run!”

That’s our answer to God’s call more often than we would like to admit. I choose not to run. I choose not to walk. I choose not to go.

Churches are good at saying no to God. Of course, we don’t say it so boldly. We point out many good reasons why we can’t speak to the people of Nineveh. We say we don’t have the time. We say we don’t have the money. We say they won’t listen to us. We have lots of excuses. Sometimes we blame it on the system. You know, we’re too small of a church. Other churches have advantages that we don’t. Or, nobody wants to go to church anymore.

Jim Collins notes that all groups, businesses, organizations have limitations, constraints, and problems. He calls them systemic limitations. But he also points out that any organizations can create their own pocket of greatness in the midst of all these limitations. Then he asks this question:

Do you know what was the most profitable company in America in the last thirty years?

Was it Wal Mart? No. Was it Home Depot? Was it MicroSoft? No. The most profitable company in the last thirty years was SouthWest Airlines. If, thirty years ago, you have bought $10,000 worth of SouthWest stock, you would now be worth $10 million. Think about that! The most profitable company in this time was an airline, an industry known mostly for struggles, incompetence, and bankruptcy. But somehow, while many other airlines could not turn a profit, pointing to fuel costs, insurance, the government, the consumers, as all reasons why they could not succeed, Southwest found a way to create a pocket of greatness.

Sometimes its people who have the most going against them that have the most to teach us. It’s the person who missing an arm who learns to swim. It’s the blind man who learns to read. It starts with taking responsibility for ourselves. It starts with confronting our reality and looking at ourselves honestly and hopefully.

Even though Jonah had his own sin and limitations to confront, it never occurred to him that the wicked people of Nineveh would actually come clean about they’re sin.

In some ways, Nineveh was the Las Vegas of its day. It had every vice that a human being could want. I laugh sometimes when every new generation that comes along Baby Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, thinks they invented some sin that they’re parents never knew about. I don’t think we could shock Sodom or Nineveh or Corinth with anything. The people of Nineveh were fond of saying, “What happens in Nineveh stays in Nineveh.”

Only, that isn’t true is it? Sin never stays put for us. It has a way of seeping out, following us around. It turns up at embarrassing and inconvenient times. Or, if we are really good sin managers, all that we accomplish really, is keeping the sin submerged and festering just beneath the surface of our persons. That’s where it does the most harm.

If we would obey God, we must be honest about our sin and our selves. If we are cowardly, God knows it, we should just say so. If we are in addiction, there is no hope in running and hiding. Freedom lies only in going forward, with eyes wide open.

Remember, to obey God, we must disobey ourselves. That’s hard to do. If it were easy, we would have done it, (because it’s the right and good thing), and God wouldn’t have to command it.

But here’s a bit of good news for us. It’s not as easy to run away from God as some might think. Oh, you can do it initially, but the Hound of Heaven follows the scent. You or me running away just makes God want to try harder and love us more. When we get the first ship out of port, God sees it as a whale of an opportunity!

And as I’ve said before, some people eventually listen to God’s persistent call. Nineveh listened. Though they only got a sermon five words long, they listened like their lives depended upon it. And they were right.

“And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone great and small, put on sackcloth.”

Sackcloth and ashes is the traditional sign of repentance in the Middle and Near East. The whole city repented. They turned around from the direction they were going in. They stopped doing sinful, wicked things, hoping, just hoping that maybe God would change his mind and not destroy them like his prophet said.

And guess what, their hope was not unfounded. God saw their repentance, and He repented. God repented of the evil he was going to do. Nineveh was saved! Nineveh was changed!

Jonah should be ecstatic, right? Jonah should be going around doing seminars called “How to Tackle a Whale of a Problem and Come Out Smelling Like a Prophet”, but he wasn’t. In fact, when Jonah heard the news of Nineveh’s salvation, he got angry. And then he sat down and pouted. This was not what he expected, and frankly, not what he wanted.

Ironically, the only person in this story who didn’t repent was the guy sent preaching repentance.

Jonah had all the outside circumstances going his way, but the most problematic and troubling circumstances remained – the circumstance and condition of his heart.

Jesus said, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe. . .” What ? “The good news.”

Jonah forgot that God’s call is Good News. It’s Good News if we will really give him our hearts obedience, our feet, our hands, yes, but most importantly, our hearts.

“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8.28)

Overcoming circumstances and living a life of purpose starts and ends with a heart for God. Are you ready to give Him your heart?

God Calls – Six Weeks on How God Speaks to People

Scripture: 1 Samuel 3.1-20; John 1.43-51


Have you ever wondered whether you heard something right or not? You know, maybe you thought you heard something that didn’t sound quite right, like a word was out of place?

The Washington Post sponsors a Mensa Invitational word contest. In this contest respondents are asked to take any word out of the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some the past year’s winners:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone (n): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit (n): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider’s web.

Beelzebug (n): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.


Hearing the word accurately makes all the difference. This was Samuel’s situation. It’s the end of a long day of routine duty in the temple. It’s very late. Everyone is asleep. And Samuel hears a voice.

“Samuel.”

Samuel runs to Eli the priest. “Here I am.”

“There you are,” says Eli the priest.”

“You called me,” Samuel says.

“No, I didn’t. Go back to sleep.”

Again, Samuel hears a voice call his name. He gets up and goes over to where Eli is sleeping.

“Did you say something?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, cause I thought I heard something.”’

Samuel doesn’t know it’s the Lord’s voice, cause the boy doesn’t know what the Lord sounds like. He doesn’t yet know the Lord.


God calls lots of people (everyone, when you get right down to it) but lots of people don’t recognize that it’s the Lord calling because they don’t know the sound of his voice. They don’t know what to listen for, what to look for. We don’t recognize. We don’t know what to listen for. We see Jesus everyday, but we say to ourselves that’s just Bill or that’s the old lady that’s always lived there.

There is a branch of social science called Semiotics. Semiotics, simply defined, is the art of paying attention. Noticing signs that you never noticed before, particularly as you find them in the culture. You can get your Ph. D. in Semiotics. I mention it because Semiotics is a vital part of hearing the call of God in your life. For example, prayer is paying attention. Semiotic awareness of people, events, and spirit around you and giving that to God.

“The Soul you get is the result of what you’ve paid attention to,” Len Sweets says.

I’ve talked a lot about Boredom in recent weeks. Boredom is simply “Semiotic Breakdown” - not paying attention. See, ‘cause this world and our lives are infinitely interesting if we know what to look for, and know what to listen for. You can walk out on your back porch at night and hear nothing and see only darkness. Or, you can walk out on your porch that same night and see thousands of stars in the night sky, moonshadows in the lawn and the wood, and hear the soft call of an owl on the ridge. If you are paying attention.

I am not overstating the case that that kind of attention can make the difference between a strong faith that hears and follows the voice of God, and a weak faith that slips into apathy and boredom because there seems to be no One out there to listen to or speak to.

It seems to me this is what was going on in Samuel and Eli’s day. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; there were not many visions.” Maybe because people walked around like they were there own kings and authorities. They walked around with their eyes closed and their ears stopped up. No wonder they didn’t hear any words!

As I said last week, tapping into the Spirit’s power starts with a desire for relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If we want to recognize Jesus, we will. If we want to hear His voice, we will. God speaks to those who will listen.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10.27)

Eli finally realizes that it is the Lord speaking to the young boy Samuel. Eli encourages the boy to listen to the Lord and obey, even though it means bad news for Eli’s family.

Samuel is a perfect example of this irony – when we learn to listen then we also learn to speak so that we will be heard. Our words and actions, our very lives, take on a power and significance far greater than we are capable of on our own.

“The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground.”

May Lord call us and use us to such effect!

Surfing the Spirit

Scripture: Genesis 1.1-5; Acts 19.1-7; Mark 1.4-11

The summer I spent on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was the summer I learned how to windsurf. Windsurfing is a water sport, using you and a board like surfers use, and attached to that board, a sail, like you might find on a boat. The sail has a long handle that you hold on to. The really good windsurfers also strap themselves into a harness that they sit down in and lean back to maximize the wind for increased speed.

But it’s pretty much the same for everyone – the board and sail, you, and the wind. It also requires balance, patience, understanding. But once you get the hang of it, it can be really exciting. It can also be really frustrating and boring. You know when it’s frustrating? When there is no wind.

Jesus says that those born of the Spirit of God are like the wind, you don’t know where they’ve come from or where they are going. And I think He meant that in a good way! Spirit, pneuma, of course means wind. The presence of God in this world is like the wind. He is an invisible Spirit. And so, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood person of the Trinity.

The Holy Spirit is a person, not an “it.” The Spirit is not just the warm fuzzy feelings we get when we’re spiritual. He is not the personal massage therapist for our souls. He does not conform to our personal agendas or opinions. Although we would like Him to.

The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is the mystery of the Universe – Jesus Christ alive in us!

Paul asks the question of the Ephesians, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

Spirit, whaa? We never heard of such a thing. The Ephesians ignorance is probably best explained by the spontaneous and unorganized nature of the early church witness. The only “governing board” was the twelve apostles in Jerusalem. They were responsible for everything - maintaining the church under intense persecution, caring for people’s needs, and taking the gospel into Judean and beyond. There were increasingly more believers and more people teaching and witnessing in Christ’s name. Some teachers were more equipped than others. Some things, important stuff, got neglected by some. Apollos and Paul were contemporaries who brought didn’t strengths and gifts. It could be that Apollos witnessed to the Ephesians about Jesus, but never taught them about the Holy Spirit, maybe because Apollos was a little lacking there as well.

The Holy Spirit is, however, not an optional belief or doctrine for any Christian. Scripture makes it clear that if you are in Christ you have the Holy Spirit. (No one can say, “Jesus is Lord!” without the Holy Spirit in them) But the Holy Spirit is not only the mark of a believer, the Holy Spirit is the power in a believer to live the life to which God calls them.
In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings the small hobbit named Frodo Baggins amazes his companions with his wisdom and toughness and courage. His mentor and friend, Gandalf, says to him, “There is more about you than meets the eye Frodo Baggins.”

There is more about us than meets the eye. This is what I mean. Listen – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Stop. Have you ever tried to wrap your mind around that one? The beginning. Nothing but God. Then creation – worlds, stars, galaxies, earth, heaven. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

I love that image. The Holy Spirit, He is about to do some creating. He is rubbing His hands together. His speech is about to give birth to what His mind has conceived.

This same power that was there at the very beginning is the power that lives in you and me!

I am convinced that this power, for many of us, remains a largely untapped power. I think this is so because of sin and because of ignorance or immaturity.

Let use another surfing metaphor. The medium is not water or wind this time, but rather ISP’s, gigabytes, and URL’s. I’m, of course, talking about surfing the Internet. I know someone who has had a computer at their home for several years. Not too long ago they complained that the computer had completely shut down. Boom. Lights out. Called it a life. Dead.

Now I knew this person had a dial-up Internet connection and regularly surfed the net, so I asked them if they had run an anti-spyware program at all – no, they didn’t. I asked them if there anti-virus program was up to date. They never got around to getting one. The autopsy on their computer was, “death due to bugs. The cause – neglect.”

I am convinced that many of us neglect our relationship with God this way. We don’t feed and nurture our spirits with prayer and the Word. We allow sin to hang around and multiply. And once sin gets a grip it becomes harder for us to hear the voice and sense the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Have you ever wondered why you don’t have the passion and fervor in your faith you once had? It feels like you’re windsurfing and there’s no wind. Your out there, stuck, just drifting and waiting. What is required is balance, patience, and a dependence on God. What is required is a return to the fundamentals of prayer, study, service and the sacraments.

A Life lived with passion and purpose doesn’t depend on innate talents or a great job or ideal circumstance. A Life of passion and purpose starts with God and ends with God.
Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great says, “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.”

Maybe you need to choose holiness over sin today. Maybe you need to choose spiritual discipline over winging it. Maybe you need to simply enjoy being in the presence of the Holy Spirit today.

Is It Going to Be Boring?

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3.1-13


Anytime the Morris’ family is going someplace, the first question that comes up is, “Is it going to be boring?” And sometimes the boys ask this question too. Really, it’s the kids who are worried about being entertained all the time, especially when where we’re going or what we are doing is unfamiliar to them.

The worst thing that can be said of a place or event, in their minds, is, “It was boring.” The place could be expensive, stupid, or dangerous, as long as it’s not boring. You could say to them – we are going to this place where you will be dunked in a big tub of goo, covered in live maggots, and then hung upside down by your toes, and they would say, “cool.” Just so it’s not boring.

In a culture of round the clock entertainment and new tech toys seemingly every week, we are amusing ourselves to death. And we are still bored. “We are bored because we’re overstimulated rather than understimulated,” says Richard Winter.

Everyone gets bored from time to time. But boredom is not a problem of circumstance but of attitude and spirit. When we are bored, we are bored with ourselves. There is a disconnect between what our lives are and what we imagine they should be, even if that imagining is unrealistic or just plain wrong. When we are bored we are saying, “Life is disappointing. I am disappointing.”

And I think there is this connection between boredom and depression. Everyone gets depressed from time to time, or has experienced depression at some point in their lives. Some depression can simply be a rut of boredom that a person can’t get out of. We become depressed because we fail to see significance in the daily grind. We can no longer find meaning in activities small and large. The depression becomes serious, in fact, becomes despair, when we no longer see any hope that things will get better.

In dealing with the mild form of depression that oozes from boredom, this is perhaps a good place to start. We must reconnect the daily stuff of our lives with a larger framework of meaning and purpose. We must discover a story.


Let’s all confess and recognize that anything, and I mean anything, can become boring if we let it be so. Climbing Mt. Everest, kayaking the Colorado, jumping out of airplanes, even by accident, can become, almost mundane, if you do it enough times. The thrill factor exponentially decreases each time out. So if this is true of extreme adventure, what chance does your job have to keep your unflagging interest and enthusiasm day in and day out for say thirty or forty years? My son once expressed sympathy for me because I had to go to work at church every day, and I quote, “that must get boring.”

Sometimes change is needed, but more often, the key is to find meaning in the small and routine tasks that we do every day. This is a spiritual issue. Remember, when we are bored it is with ourselves, so the antidote to boredom can be found in ourselves, or more precisely, in finding our true selves through the One who made us.

This Creator says that every time, activity, season, feeling, beginning, ending, and middle has a time and purpose under heaven. Even polar opposites, such as love and hate, war and peace, have their time.

Likewise, buying groceries, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, doing reports ( a personal favorite of mine) each have their purpose. When we are bored, distracted, restless – these are times when we need to remind ourselves of the purpose of these things.

Maybe the purpose is “I want a clean house so that I can have a place of peace and beauty and safety.”

Maybe the purpose is, “I want to get these reports done so I can focus on new and creative ideas and solutions at work.”

Maybe the purpose is, “I want to get these chores done so I have time for special celebration and community.”

Last month Jennifer and I saw Alison Krause and Union Station in concert. It was a special treat for us, and being a bluegrass fan, especially for me. Anyway, Alison introduced her band members one by one, and when she got to her base player, she said, “Barry is a member of that special group of people who, about this time of year, get up very early, while it’s still dark, put on special clothing, go out into the woods, and wait.”
That got a laugh, but it reminded me how much I love to do that silly thing. I went out yesterday for late season muzzleloader, and I have to tell you, walking in the woods, I look at the ground and if I see “deer sign”, I get excited. Do you hear what I’m telling you? I get excited when I see a pile of deer poop.

The day before I do my chores with gusto and try to clean up around the house, because I know the nonhunting adult in our house will be more favorably disposed toward my hunting if I help with the housework. See, I have connected dishes and laundry with the bigger picture of passion and hope. It can get boring in the woods too, but there again, I connect the time to the story of what might happen that day, what I might see, who I was with, and what we talked about. I enjoy hunting because I rarely do it alone. It is community for me.

We need community in almost any way we can get it. Bored and depressed people are usually isolated and alone people. Community not only reconnects us with people, but with purpose as well. I am not alone. And I am not here just to serve myself. So when I see the context of my role, then the simple chore done over and over again, can still provide meaning, even joy.

G.K. Chesterton once said that God never gets bored making the sun to rise and set every day. Every day God says, “Do it again!” Children, also, love repetition in story and song. I once hid the Barney tapes in our house because I couldn’t bear to hear it again, but my kids could. We must rediscover this childlike joy in ritual and repetition.

“God has set eternity in the hearts of men and women; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” In other words, we can’t see the whole story yet, but we know it’s there, and we are a part of it. Our lives are moving on in purpose to a goal.

When we’ve done the laundry for the four thousandth time, and they still can’t clean out their pockets for us first, we might do well to remember this:

“I know that there is nothing better for men and women to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God.”