BAD TOOLS

Disclaimer: the tools in this illustration are not bad of themselves. In fact, they’re quite useful when my husband needs to grab his most useful assortment to repair bikes. But I snapped a photo of them as a reminder of a well-used speaker’s illustration of spiritual problems.  The story is called “The Devil’s Toolbox.”  It describes an imagined yard sale in which the Devil had put out for sale the various tools he used against humans. They were labeled “hatred,” “envy,” “jealousy,” “pride” and so on.  Off to one side was a very worn tool with an extravagant price. When customers asked about it, curious why it cost so much when it was obviously in poor shape, he replied, “That’s ‘discouragement.’ It’s worn because it’s my most useful tool. It helps me pry open human hearts when the others can’t.”

Those tools of the tempter came to mind as I read the counsel of psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud about working through emotional pain in the journey toward Christian character. Facing negative things in our lives is hard, he wrote in Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality (Harper, 2006, pp. 198-199). But, to borrow a cliché to emotional healthiness, “No pain, no gain.” He added: "Even the best things in life that are free, as we say, such as love, have big price tags in order to possess. Self-denial, sacrifice, giving, delay of gratification, repentance, forgiveness, swallowing pride and ego, are all among the price tags of making love work. But, in the end, it is always worth it.”

Fixing things that are “not good” in our lives—like a marriage or relationship, addiction, depression, failure, or even a physical injury—happens every day to people who prize character above comfort. “There is no easy street and no shortcut,” he added. “In the end, the short-cut is always the longest route, and people of character know this and it has become a part of their makeup” (p. 199).

He goes on to point out that teaching children about delayed gratification and keeping short accounts are part of the training that goes into positive adult character.  That made me think of the “discouragement” tool. Its blows are felt the hardest by people who haven’t been brought up to learn resilience and forgiving grace, the very character qualities modeled by Jesus. And again, James 1 came to mind: that when trials come, we can consider them a burden or an opportunity to grow in godly perseverance. In other words, saying a firm “NO!” to the threatened blows of the Enemy’s “discouragement” tool.

It’s not always easy, but it’s God’s best way.

FINDING JOY

Blind since infancy, living to her nineties, Fanny Crosby 

showed the power of praise in her thousands of hymn texts,

like this one

My first job (no surprise) came with its share of humbling and challenging experiences, plus a fresh appreciation for the practical wisdom in the epistle of James.  Like this: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

Pure joy? Who was he kidding when I trudged home at night reeking of my colleagues’ second-hand smoke and nursing a headache from the press of deadlines and constant phone ringing?  This was newspaper work in the early 1970s—but I had a job! That was the joy. I remembered how I was hired—a series of “just happened” things.  Disheartened by “not hiring” answers to my job queries at local papers, faced with impending joblessness as my studies ended in mid-March, one day between classes I just happened to go down the hall of offices for journalism professors. One of my profs just happened to have his door open. He told me it just happened that a managing editor from a mid-size daily was interviewing that day for their summer college intern. The job wouldn’t start for three months, but it was something. 

I signed for an appointment, and showed up in business attire with my resume and writing samples. A few days later the editor called and offered the summer job. Plus, their women’s editor needed time off for surgery. Could I come early (like March 17!)  and fill in for her?  By mid-summer, my “intern” job became permanent.  Not only did I grow professionally but personally and, most important, spiritually, as I connected with a Bible-teaching church.

POUT OR PRAISE?

In my five years at that job, I began learning that God was ready to patiently teach me how to “do life.” One big lesson was to look for the little blessings. Despite all the pulpit-pounding admonition I hear in the book of James, there are “look-up” messages. “Is any one if you in trouble?” James asks, “He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise” (5:13).

Decades and several jobs later, I am still learning that. But it is a sweet lesson. And I am learning to pray-through-the-day, not just during the get-down-to-business “quiet time.” I wake up (praise!) and step in the tub for a quick shower (praise: Hot water! Towel! Clothes!). I fix and eat breakfast (praise: food, appliances). I plan my day (praise: I have the health to do something useful).  Things happen, and I find myself saying, “Thank you, Lord.”

William Stoddard, a pastor and teacher of a previous generation, observed in his devotional  First Light (Multnomah, 1990, p. 349): “Prayer is the time to be renewed in our love for God.  Think of all the gifts we have received.  Think of the days of sunshine and blessing.  Think of the cup that overflows with the joys of health and family and loving companions.  Think of the times that love warned us and, to our good, we heeded the warning. Think of the open doors we might never have entered without the gentle and persistent nudge of God’s love.”

Open doors!  Yes, even praise for an open faculty door in 1970 that led to my first full-time job and a writing career. 

In praise of red cabooses

More than half a century ago, a publisher risked starting a children’s book series with a non-traditional format: kid-size at 7x8” and full of colored art with text. Today we know them as “The Golden Books.” Among the early titles was The Little Red Caboose, about the last car on a train with quite a “woe-is-me” attitude because he wasn’t “important” like the engine, boxcars, oil cars, coal cars, or flat cars. Then one day the engine didn’t have the pull to take its heavy load up the mountain.  It started to slip down, threatening a runaway train situation. The little caboose slammed on his brakes and kept everything on the tracks long enough for two big engines to come up behind and push it all up the mountain.  When it was all over, the “rescue” engines give the caboose credit for saving the train.  His new-found fame meant that children now waved at the "important" caboose as he passed them on the tracks.

Of course, it’s a children’s story, but one of the truths behind it is this: do not underestimate your role in life. Persevere when it gets tough.

Dan's sense of humor led him to feature
this fun photo of his son and granddaughter
on the book cover

One of my heroes of perseverance is a polio overcomer named Dan Miller. We met about twenty years ago when he spoke at a volunteer banquet at my church.  His story is that he contracted polio right after high school graduation.  He had planned to train to be a physical education teacher—he was a star in sports at his local high school—but polio left him with severely impaired arms and legs. In those pre-mobility-scooter days, he got around with great difficulty with crutches. Still, he pursued his dream.  His college adviser, while acknowledging Dan’s physical impairment, cheered him on with a simple statement:  “Let’s see what you can do.”  Even though Dan had to work harder than other students, and improvise for his handicap, he still graduated from college and was hired as a physical education teacher!  Eventually he became an award-winning elementary school principal. I helped him write his autobiography—a blend of fun and challenge—which sold by the thousands when he traveled as an inspirational speaker. 

This spring, the stories of two more overcomers came to my attention. One had his story published in the magazine highlighting events and people at Washington State University’s new School of Medicine. Abel Saba grew up in Burkina Faso, a West African country with one of the world’s lowest literacy rates.  The son of a pastor, oldest of six siblings, he counted going to school a privilege. At 18, he founded a primary school just outside the capital city.  To raise money for it, he hauled and sold water. Then he helped build the first schoolhouse.  He arrived in the U.S.  on a visa in 2009, working at entry-level jobs but still managing to send money home for his school.  Fluent in French and his native language, he had to learn English after arrival in the U.S.  He worked overnight shifts so he could attend nursing classes during the day. Now he’s pursuing the long and difficult path of getting a doctorate in the family nurse practitioner program with the goal of establishing a health care center next to the school.  One of his WSU instructors remarked, “He has a very gentle spirit, but a directed purpose.” 

The other story was an essay in the Seattle Times by Ater Malath, originally of South Sudan, part of the swath of Africa (including Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria) facing famine and mass starvation. It’s estimated that in South Sudan a million children are acutely malnourished and at risk of dying. Ater, who came to the United States as a refugee, says his first name means “perseverance.”  He described himself as “a tenacious person—an attribute that helped me survive war, starvation, and the trials of refugee camps.”  At nine years old, he lost his parents to a village massacre. With his uncle he fled bare-foot for hundreds of miles through war-torn countryside, then lived in several refugee camps. Twelve years ago he was among the wave of children allowed into the U.S. from Sudan.  He arrived alone, a teenager, in Fargo, N.D. Without the cultural supports of home, he forged a life that included working “at horrid meatpacking plants, and a long series of filthy, backbreaking jobs. But I was grateful to be in a country not wracked by warfare, famine, extreme poverty and hopelessness.” He later brought over two sisters and a brother to America. He and two siblings earned college degrees; one returned to South Sudan and runs a small market.  His essay was a call to action to help peoples half a world away in a crisis of horrific dimensions.

To compare these remarkable overcomers to a “red caboose” may seem ludicrous. But I think there’s a point here.  Most of us probably know people who are stuck in negatives that are trivial compared to what these people have gone through. But no matter where we are in life—and for Christians, there's the anchoring truth that God knows exactly where that is—there is hope if we take life a positive step at a time, keeping our hands in His.