One of the blessings in writing this every week is some times you feel that
there are things you need to say, other times there are things you want to say.
In the Bible's New Testament, the Apostle Paul had times like that. Some of his
writings were from the Lord, some of the writings was from his heart. I feel
that last week what I had to say was from the Lord, this week, well this is
something I feel I have to say in a certain way. I know of other ways to say it
but---!
This week we come to the next principle of Enterprise Symbiosis: There is no free lunch. A corollary might
be, You get what you pay for. Perhaps no other of our principles points us
directly to the great leadership problem facing the nation and the world today.
There is a dearth of true leaders and those who are in those positions do not
have people around them with the stomach, or the backbone, or the grit to say
what they believe and stand by it. Where are those who are led by the spirit of
conviction. No where to be found for the most part, for everyone ways the cost
of the meal and expects it to be free, or at least very inexpensive.
We are not talking about natural stuff at all. Real food and gristle. That
substance will take care of itself, once the fortitude to take a stand is
present. I have always taught that the opposite of faith is not unbelief, but
fear. The understanding of that beyond yourself (faith) is really not that
difficult of a concept. The difficult part is stepping beyond your fears into a
realm that is beyond your control. That is a learned concept. To understand the
difference between faith and presumption. But really it is an art of doing, and
learning through practice and more practice. People do not have the skill
because they have no examples to follow, or have not been made aware of a prize
worth the risk.
On one of the few radio programs I listen to anymore, they close some of the
programs with the statement, "Grace is free,
but air time is not." My point is not to cast discouraging comments
except to note that, the Grace they are talking about is only free because, it
is so valuable that if it was available at its true price, no human would be
able to afford it. Really, this statement is really a symptomatic response to
the age in which we live. Every thing has a price, so if it is free it must
have little, or no value. Those who have read these articles for long know that
isn't what what is believed here. The costly gift provided through Jesus Christ
is not a free lunch, it is a freedom lunch. But great faith is required to move
beyond our fears, to truly understand the security that is truly available from
no other source, now just not in the world to come.
In my younger days, I played enough basketball at a high enough level to
understand that it really is a game of fractions of inches. The key is to get
your opponent thinking about other things, like the last time he went up for a
shot, you knocked him on his butt. This time is mind is on that possibility, instead
of the fraction of an inch needed to achieve "nothin' but net."
Today's trash talking is just a verbal way of trying to achieve the same end
without the skill the game truly requires and when you learn the game as
"rat ball" in the streets, that early education is something that is
hard to outgrow. Well disciplined coaching is required, but many coaches today
are really overpaid and shallow cry babies themselves.
I've been thinking about one of the gifts that this freedom lunch has given
me, even though it is apparent not in usual ways, I really like kids, and dogs
too. It was always my dream to be happily married with a couple of kids to
teach the ways of life. Like my dad taught me. For example, I've always
wondered what it would be like to teach a girl how to play basketball like a
guy. I've known girls that can play softball as good as guys, in fact Mary is
one who gets this letter. They are as good as men in other sports too. But all
girls basketball looks like girls basketball. Pastor Wayne's daughter Amy, just
signed a letter of intent for a scholarship to play round ball at Oregon, while
I have not seen her play, perhaps she can be the first.
That brings me back to why I don't have any kids. The short of the story, is
that I just could not see that fathering children with a non-Christian wife
when we were already having problems was a good idea. (There were of course
other serious issues also.) This would be one of those attempts at a free lunch
on my (our) part. That gift God gave me, means I never had to fight over how
the children were to be raised. Children need to be raised up in the fear and
admonition of the Lord, not in if it feels good do it. I have been spared all
that stress. But more importantly I have spared those, my potential children,
the grief of being raised in that type of home. Not having grown up in a
divorced household, I can not fully understand the heart break of having to
choose between two parents who you love and who love you. While my parents had
there problems, a family home too was a great gift.
This brings us to the meat of the luncheon
plate. Fear itself. Since we are created male and female, we know how to
feed on each others insecurities. In my case we had those who advised us to
have children. But they were dead wrong. For a type of death, would have been
the result. Two wrongs never make it right. It just pushes right farther beyond
the ability of us to cope with the solution when it comes along, and hurts the
innocent caught in the middle. What is true for worldly men and women, it too
is perhaps as common for the church going variety. They use the Bible out of
context in the name of submission, instead of the Biblical concept of
submission. Christian males too must learn that in surrender to God, service to
church, and family is the eternal strength that all the macho of the world can
never develop.
Family is the heart and soul of mankind's
enterprise. As goes the family,so goes his (and her) other enterprises.
Guys are good at intimidation, because they are bigger, sound tougher, and are
generally more insecure. Therefore they must resort to these sinful techniques
to get their way. If they get away with it in the home, then they try the same
garbage at work, and if it works on the job then they really think they are hot
stuff. They are the Gary Patton of industry. That is until some one who really
understands the game enters the court. Just like Gary would do on the court,
(knock him on his butt and glare down at him), the real point guards of
industry slice and dice his insecurities into ham salad, and this is really not
a game that will end in a matter of minutes.
So where does that leave us in our pursuit of the freedom lunch. First that
accommodation to the world no matter how wise it may sound, will never result
in anything but heartache, in family, work or any other enterprise. Secondly,
it is not our faith that is being tested, but our ability to overcome our
fears. Just how bad could it really be, if we truly face the obstacles ahead
realistically, are they not worse, than right and truth leading beyond to a
land we cannot see. We continue in a lie because we are trying to achieve a
free lunch instead of a freedom lunch. The paths are divergent not convergent.
They are tough choices, but making the wrong one only gets tougher the next
time around. And the next time around our sin of selfishness may make the pain
of others deeper and also increase the breath of those effected. As much as in
our sinfull hearts may afirm it, there is
no free lunch.
This week I was personally overwhelmed by some
circumstances that I was not expecting. Perhaps I had counted on certain things
as free, when only freedom was a possibility. This I do know however, or should
I say I have learned as the above testimony states, those decisions I have
made, that were the hardest to make, were beyond my understanding to
comprehend. Fear is not something to be feared but we need to learn to overcome
them., knowing that the costly Grace of God on the cross is the only thing of incomparable
worth, that can overcome our self and our attraction to the world and its
pleasures.
So now I truly am not sure how or if to proceed, whatever the path, it will
require help from others beyond my ability to secure, or now even to
contemplate, or hope for. Please intercede for direction and provision, not so
much financially, perhaps I've seen enough of that provision not to fear, but
for the family of God to provide support and encouragement, to allow for the
freedom lunch.