Triple C News - July 10, 2021
Hey, everyone!
What an awesome weekend on the way!
An awesome weekend of news, weather, and sports!
News? Good news! God will be causing all things to work together for good to those who love God! (Romans 8:28!) That includes all this weekend!
Weather? “Saturday: A mix of clouds and sun…Highs in the middle to upper 80s. Lows in the upper 60s Saturday night…”
“A mix of clouds and sun”…Just like life itself! If it was all clouds, that’d be kinda sad! All sun? We’d be so used to it that we wouldn’t appreciate it after a while! So just the right mix is awesome!
Sports? Lake Day! After worshipping our Lord together we’re headed out to Clark Park in the afternoon for swimming, tubing, and other Olympic sports!
(“Is tubing really an Olympic sport?”)
Speaking of sports…
I saw something super unusual the other night on the game between the Braves and the Marlins.
A manager got ejected!!
That hardly ever happens any more!
With instant replay and video reviews of close calls at the bases made by a secret committee in New York, managers just don’t have lots of opportunities to register emotional upset.
But Don Mattingly got thrown out for yelling at the ump!
So “old school”!!
And it was on the very first pitch of the game!
The Marlins pitcher hit our Ronald Acuña Jr in the middle of the back! The Marlins have had a history of “beaning” him and folks were ready for it to happen again.
Right after the ump hollered, “Play ball!”, it did!
The umps decided, determined, and/or discerned that the “plunk” was intentional and threw the pitcher out. The Marlins manager came bellowing out of the dugout and colorfully “opined” until he got thrown out!
These things used to happen daily.
Bobby Cox, the Braves manager through the amazing 90’s holds the record for managerial ejections in a career (161!) He was threw out of a World Series game! Twice! Once in a seventh game!
One time a Braves player, Jeff Francoeur was thrown out of a game and he was pretty upset about it.
“Ah, just go home, have a coupla beers and ferget it!” Bobby said. “But be ready for a $500 fine coming your way. Or you can do what I do. I write ‘em a check for $10,000 and tell ‘em to let me know when I’m getting low and need to make another deposit!”
Umpires are so important!
They’re the ones who tell you if a pitch is a ball or a strike…
if a hit is fair or foul…
and if a player is safe or out.
There a place in the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians where he says that peace is like an umpire!
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart!” (Colossians 3:16)
Back in those days, when they talked about “peace” they really meant more than we do.
If someone wished you “peace”…or “shalom!”…they hoped for you “well-being, wholeness…even joy”!
The Greek word “rule” is really the word “umpire”!
“Let the peace of Christ be the umpire in your heart!”
That opinion you’ve been sharing…
That attitude you have…
That stuff you watch…
That thing you’ve been doing…
Is it good or bad?
Fair or foul?
Safe or out?
Ball or strike?
Let peace make the call!
Are you more full of peace, light-heartedness, even joy after?
Or are you angry, unsettled, upset, huffy-n-puffy?
Like a few weeks ago, I remember encouraging folks to take a seven-week break from watching cable news.
“I promise that if you’re a daily cable news watcher, either the left ones or the right ones, if you take a seven-week total break from watching it, you’ll feel better, think better, and your relationships will be better!”
“You’ll have more peace! More joy! I promise!!”
And let that peace make the call!
Psalm 1 tells us that the blessed and happy person is the one who “delights in the Law of the Lord and in His law meditates day and night”
One scholar says that when Paul speaks of the “Law of Christ” he intends us to think of the words of Jesus this way!
Loving His words and thinking about them day and night!
If someone were to ask me, “I want to be a better student (that’s what “disciple” means) of Jesus. I want to know His words and His wishes and His ways from the Gospels so well that they fill my heart and live there! What do you think I should do?”
If I had the opportunity to answer this for anyone, the first thing I would say…even before I told them to start memorizing His words and ways in the Gospels…would be, “If you watch cable news all the time, pleeeeeeease stop!”
The reason I would say this is that cable news isn’t news; it’s a “narrative”. It’s an over-all comprehensive explanation of all things.
“The real problems in America are this, this, and this. And the answer is this, this and this…”
The other side says, “No! The real problem is this, this, and this and the answer is this, this, and this!!”
And like most narratives, it divides the world into the good people and the bad people, the ones who are right (“us”) and the ones who are wrong (“them”).
But the narrative of Jesus is a COMPLETELY different narrative!
It divides the world into the bad people (all of us) and the Savior, Who loved us so much He gave His very life for us!
And His narrative isn’t an over-all comprehensive explanation of all things. Sometimes things happen to me that if Jesus is the Lord of all and if He did love me so much, it doesn’t seem like that thing would have happened! It just doesn’t make sense! That’s why I have to believe His narrative and hold on to it by my faith in spite of how things look!
For me, HIS is the only narrative I want in my heart and mind!
I have to tune out all other voices if I truly want to hear the Voice that says…
“Take heart! Your sins are forgiven!”…
“My peace I give you!”…
“My sheep hear My voice”…
“I tell you this so My joy might be in you!”
“Judge not, lest you be judged”…
“It’s not the healthy who need the doctor but the sick”…
“Everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they’ve said”…
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”…
“When you care for the poor, the prisoner, the immigrant, you care for Me”…
I need to shut out other voices that are harsh and hurtful, that say “We’re always right!” so I can strain to hear the voice of the One Who is “meek and lowly of heart” and the narrative of a cross that tells me that on my own, I’m almost always wrong.
This is why I never watch cable news!!
Along with posts on social, it seems like cable news has done its part to help fill our country with super animated animosity…
with folks judging each other and smudging each other…
talking at each other...
talking about each other...
and talking past each other!
All you have to do is mention, for example, “CRT” and it’s like setting off conversational TNT!
I know people really love their “side” depending on which 24-hour news they watch, but James says that lots of times, there’s a “wisdom” that seems like it is but really isn’t! (James 3:13-14)
James said that whenever “wisdom” is expressed in ways that are harsh and hurtful, with a “We’re-always-right!-They’re-always-wrong!” attitude, that doesn’t come from Heaven! In fact, that “wisdom” comes from…well, check out. It ain’t good. (James 3:13-14)
James tells us that the kind of “wisdom” and opinion-sharing God approves…
the“wisdom from Heaven” is…
pure of heart…
kind and sweet…
peace-loving and peace-making, not peace-breaking…
It listens to others and learns from them...
without judging them…
and is “full of mercy and good fruit…
Peacemakers who sow in peace…”
(James 3:17-18)
This is how our Savior wants His kids to be, to think, to talk!
You may be able to find something like this “wisdom from above” on the cable channel but unfortunately, Mr Rogers died in 2003.
If I could persuade anyone who loves Jesus and who might be willing to listen to me, to make one change in their life, I would beg them to stop watching cable news.
Or at least take the seven-week challenge!
“Stop watching cable news completely for seven weeks and instead spend 40 minutes a day reading and meditating on the Gospels and the words, ways and wishes of Jesus you find in them.’
After this time, you’ll think better, feel better, your relationships will be better and the peace and joy of Jesus, umpiring in your heart will assure you that you’re…
“safe at home!”