THOSE 'SOUR' SORRYS

 My young-mother years sometimes required settling sibling disagreements. This often ended by my requiring brother and sister to apologize face-to-face in the hall between their rooms. Whatever else could be credited (certainly the Lord's help!), I'm grateful they grew up to be good friends and responsible citizens!

Spats between young children are inevitable as they learn to navigate life. What has saddened me are the apologies (of sorts) I've experienced from adults who, it seems, had too much “save face” blocking the path of genuine repentance. Their replies went like this: “Sorry I got mad at you, but I was having a bad day.” Or, “Sorry to offend you. I didn't mean to set you off.”

I call them “Sour Sorrys” and they are nothing new. One Biblical example: Saul, a tall, handsome guy who had a good start (at least from the “looks” of it) to be Israel's first king. But as his royal life softened with extra wives and servants, fame went to his head. He got so jealous of David, God's choice for the next king (instead of Saul's son), that he repeatedly sent assassins David's way. One time, he asked that they capture David alive—at home in bed--so Saul could have the honor of killing David himself!

Then Saul sent the men back to see David [after David had escaped one assassination attempt] and told them, 'Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.' (1 Samuel 19:15)

Like, how low can you go?

A little later, Saul's anger toward an elusive David caught up. One hot day, while combing the desert to find and kill David, Saul went into a cave “to relieve himself” (1 Samuel 24:3), probably meaning he needed a quick, private "rest stop" in the coolness of the cave. Saul didn't know David was in the same cave, and could have quickly killed him. Instead, David chose the higher road of not harming the king.

This is when I turn to Psalm 63, one of many that David is believed to have written during his lonely, scary time as a wilderness refugee before becoming king himself. The psalm has this preface: “A psalm of David, when he was in the desert of Judah.” As a shepherd, David knew how to survive in the parched, dirty desert without today's “cool-packs,” cell phones and camper snacks. But he also had a God who was watching him. He expressed it in this psalm:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me....You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways....(Psalm 139:1, 3)

This psalm and the one preceding it bring me hope and comfort when I deal with those who can't say “sorry” from the heart. Who can't honestly admit, “God has shown me my sins against you” nor name at least a few of them as part of the apology. Instead, they revert to “save-face” admissions—some of which we've seen in recent high-profile crime cases.

“Sorry” has become such a feeble word. It's more than “sorry, excuse me,” like when you try to avoid smashing someone's feet or purse-slugging heads when you're moving down a row of chairs to an empty seat. For deep emotional and spiritual hurts, just saying “sorry” is like a band-aid on an open surgical wound. Old Testament Hebrew has several words for “sorry,” including one whose meaning includes the idea of sighing or breathing strongly, such as when the words one needs to say are painful to get out. That's intense “sorry.”

Sadly, when we are wronged, we won't always hear a genuine “sorry” (with sorrow, from which we get our word “sorry”) from the offender. But God knows our anxious thoughts (Psalm 139:23) and hasn't stopped His intention to “lead [us] in the way everlasting” (v. 24). And that includes resolving differences...His holy way.

PRIORITIES

It's late August, and we're going through our annual late-summer “heat waves” with 100-degree temperatures. I'm grateful for today's “air conditioners,” recalling my younger years in stuffy, low-budget rental apartments without “A/C.” Instead, a noisy box fan helped move air so I didn't sizzle like bacon on a hot pan.

Our current blistering-hot days find me thinking of a psalm in which a deer's thirst becomes a spiritual analogy. You probably know the one, which starts:
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Ps.42:1-2)

This bold, young deer visited the back yard
in late winter, obviously hungry (those
are rose bushes behind him--ouch!)

If you can remember back to the 1970s to the emergence of contemporary Bible choruses (many out of the Southern California “Maranatha!” ministries), you're probably humming that chorus. It's been running through my mind, too, as I go about my tasks. I recall how this psalm reflected a challenging time in David's life. His comfort and prestige were stripped away, and he was enduring the hard, hot life of hiding in the desert from insane, murder-intending King Saul. Food and water were precious and rare. Yet David found his hope and practical supply in God: The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. (Psalm 28:7)

I suspect that Psalm 42, with its downcast tone (like verse 3: “My tears have been my food day and night”) isn't apt to inspire upbeat “life verses.” The ticking away of days and years has its hard spots, and it's easy to think sadly about past “Glory Years.” Maybe we had more friends. Respect from others. A secure job we enjoyed. Health. A place to live which brought us comfort and happiness. A satisfying purpose for living. Or maybe a measure of fame.

Certainly “fame” was anticipated for Scotsman Eric Liddell, whose amazing athletic achievements were portrayed in the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire.” He was predicted to win the 100-meter race in the 1924 Olympics. But Liddell, a devout Christian who aspired to be a missionary, withdrew when he learned the race's heats would be held on a Sunday. Instead, he switched to the more grueling 400-meter race during the week.

In the movie script, Liddell was handed a note just before the race. Reportedly from his team's masseur, it read: “In the old book it says, he that honors me I will honor. Wishing you the best success always. 1 Samuel 2:30.” Despite the extra strain for him to attempt a race four times his “trained” length, Liddell won with an Olympic record of 47.8 seconds. It would stand until the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

From sports fame he moved on to mission work in China, dying there of an undiagnosed brain tumor in his 43^rd year. But his dedication to Christ's cause made a difference. Of course, he was asked “post-Olympics” if he regretted leaving behind his Olympic fame for mission service. He replied: “It's natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes, but I'm glad I'm at the work I'm engaged in now. A fellow's life counts for far more at this than the other.”

Powerful words about priorities! The Lord was Liddell's strength and shield. And even decades after his death, Liddell's passion for Christ still inspires.
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Enjoy these links connected to Liddell's story. This one presents the “deer” song: Bing Videos
Then, here is the movie reenactment of Liddell's Olympic race (skip the preceding ads): Bing Videos

EYE CHECK

Fear not, my glasses don't have the moustache...

There's nothing like going to the eye doctor for “seeing” life in a new way. Yep, I made my way-overdue pilgrimage to the great hall of sized alphabet lists and seats with all sorts of switcheroo gadgets that make you feel like your eyes are specimens brought home from a space mission to Neptune.

Wait!  This was a Covid-19-era appointment. My original appointment was canceled twice, including the original Covid scare six months ago.  Finally, at the first door of the clinic, I was met by the first masked interrogator. After passing the key questions except for the one on “shortness of breath” (asthma always makes me flunk that one) “Scotty” (my private nickname for him with his sci-fi thermometer) aimed at me with the magic thermometer and permitted me to enter the second set of doors. At the next desk, I gave all my vital information, then was told to return to door #1 as they wanted patients in this waiting room only 10 minutes ahead of time. Back to “Scotty,” a friendly guy probably in his fifties. Chatting with him during my five-minute “banishment,” I learned he came down with Covid two months earlier. He endured two weeks of utter misery, another two weeks of less misery, and was still feeling punk. I thought how surviving that misery especially qualified him for door duty.

“Scotty” had a chair and a book to while away his waiting time. Wise soul. A few minutes later, when I was granted permission to “check in,” I was taken to another “socially distanced” holding area. No magazines, no view except a construction wall, and the chairs spaced w-a-y apart.  With so few in this waiting room, I thought I'd be in and out. Forty-five minutes after my appointment time, I was ushered into the great skinny dim room with its weird exam chair for quizzes with the alphabet chart and drops that make your eyes yowl. Oh, the decor in such rooms.  Forget prints of Renaissance masters that please the eye. I studied a huge full-color chart describing macular degeneration.

Then came the eye doctor who got down to business with the “what's better, one or two?” lens contraption. The good news:  just a minor tweak so it's looking good for “looking good”' (the vision, that is, not the steady acquisition of gray hairs and wrinkles). Then came the bad news: they weren't doing the “un-dilate” eye drops any more. Did I have sunglasses? Good. In six hours my doe eyes should return to normal.

I had one errand at a drug store on the way home—an over-the-counter medicine. I wore sunglasses as I entered this store whose checkout clerk (a cheerful soul behind her plastic face shield) should have gone into stand-up comedy. When I went to pay, I told her that I was a movie star and was wearing sunglasses so that nobody would ask for my autograph. We had a good laugh. That was the medicine I needed that day, not the generic one in the little bottle I took home.

Yes, Covid has changed things. We're more suspicious and more impatient because things just aren't the way they used to be. I have to go back to “cool your jets” verses like these:

Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. (James 1:2-3)

Yes, I had a few inconveniences in the once-simpler process of an eye exam. But I still have access to eye care. I am still here to tell about it. And a sense of humor always helps!