The Painted House

The sign reads, “Paint House.  Not like fence.  No up, down.  Paint house side to side.  (1/2 right hand, 1/2 left hand.)”  Remember the movie?  Of course you do.  All of us “children of the ‘80’s” remember “The Karate Kid.”  I caught part of this movie the other night and realized something I’d never thought about before. Tucked away in the middle of this motion picture is a great Biblical truth.

Now, for those of you who may have forgotten, after Mr. Miyagi rescues Daniel from the Cobra’s, he promises to teach him karate if Daniel promises to do exactly as he instructs with no questions.  Well, Daniel spends the next several days waxing cars, painting fences, and sanding floors.  After spending all day painting the guy’s house, while his instructor is off fishing, Daniel is pretty ticked.  “Did you ever think I might have wanted to go fishing, too?” Daniel asks.  “You not here when I leave,” Mr. Miyagi says.  Daniel says, “I thought I was gonna learn karate.”  “You learn plenty,” says Mr. Miyagi.”  Daniel has had enough waxing, painting and sanding and announces, “I’m going home!” 

          This is the turning point of the movie; where the rubber meets the road.  Mr. Miyagi says, “Daniel-son show me wax on, wax off.”  Over the next couple of minutes those boring or repetitive “household chore”- type arm motions are transformed into karate blocks by the Master.  At the end of this brief training session, Mr. Miyagi throws a flurry of punches and kicks, and Daniel blocks every one!  He walks away amazed at his own accomplishments.

          In the book of James, Chapter 1, verses 2 through 6, it is written: “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. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”

          So many times we ask God, “Why”?  Why am I going through all this?  Well, here’s our answer.  We’re in training!  God is preparing us for the trials that are going to come later.  God may allow us to go through a thunderstorm at age twenty-eight to prepared us for the hurricane that will hit at age fifty-three.  As the verses say, these trials are developing our perseverance (or patience) so that we can be mature and complete.  The verses also say that God is not stingy with his wisdom and will give it generously to those who ask believing.  In other words, He’ll help us to understand the answers to those “why” questions.

There’s another reason we get to go through troubles.  2 Corinthians 1:4 says, “He comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”  It’s all about perspective.  It’s all about realizing that life is about way more than what you’re going through right then and there.  Even those repetitive “household chore”-type things, like Bible study, prayer time, Sunday school, and tithing are only a small part of a bigger picture.

So thank you, Daniel LaRusso.  Thank you, Mr. Miyagi.  Thank you for teaching us that “wax on, wax off” is less about buffing cars to a shine and more about polishing us into the gems God wants us to be.        

Here Comes the Bride

          (I cannot believe I’m about to start a bog with this sentence.)  The other day I was watching The Learning Channel’s (TLC) reality show “Say Yes to the Dress.”  In my defense, I’d just come home from riding horses (that’s a very manly activity, right?), and my wife already had it on the T.V.  (I know, I know, “Sure, Justin.  Whatever you say.  We know you watch it ALL the time.”)  I do admit, however, that it was me and not my wife that picked up the remote and pressed the “pause” button so that I could contemplate what I was seeing and hearing.

          For those who have never seen the show (bless you for your purity), it’s basically a “reality” show that follows “brides-to-be” seeking the perfect wedding dress in the premier bridal salon, Kleinfeld in Manhattan.  You can imagine the drama that unfolds on any episode as drama queens, stage moms, mother-in-laws-to-be, and grooms in waiting use passive-aggressive, or very aggressive tactics to get their way.  It is indeed a train wreck that might be difficult to turn away from.

          As I made my way through the living room pretty much oblivious to the television (stop snickering), I overheard a consultant asking the bride-to-be what she was looking for in a wedding dress.  The woman’s response was “Trashy.”  Insert clip here of consultant in an interview obviously recorded later, “I’ve had brides say in response to that question, “edgy” or “over the top” or even “gaudy”, but never “trashy”.

          Why?  Why would a bride ever want to look trashy on her wedding day?  Well, quite honestly, I don’t know.  I could offer a guess about this woman’s family background, self esteem issues or the persona she wants to project, but that would be total conjecture.  The real question I want to ask is “Are you a trashy bride?”

          I love my bride.  I think she is an amazing woman.  I even call her “The Amazing Kelly” sometimes.  You can talk bad about this broken down, bent-over redneck all you want to.  I’ll even let you get away with talking bad about my snot nosed kids, a little bit.  But talk bad about my bride, talk bad about Kelly, then we’ve got problems. 

Many times throughout scripture, the church is referred to as Jesus’ bride.  Revelation chapters 19-21 is the picture of a wedding ceremony between Jesus Christ the bridegroom and we, the church, his bride.  Ephesians 5:25-27 reads, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her  to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”  Doesn’t sound trashy to me.

Listen to Chip Ingram’s thoughts on this subject as related in “Living on the Edge.”

          In our efforts to…become relevant to “the culture,” it appears we have fallen into it.  I fear we have become a generation of Christians convinced that sex, salary, and status are the real keys to a life of fulfillment and happiness.  The average believer, according to research, does not live in any appreciably different way from those outside of Christ.  The culture’s promises…have resulted in unprecedented divorce, financial collapse, disenfranchised children…The church of the twenty-first century is weak and worldly…At the heart of “worldliness” is who you love and who you trust to meet the deepest needs of your life…If we would begin to feel deeply sad about running into the arms of (this other) lover (called “the world”), and comprehend how deeply this grieves our God who loves us and longs to give us the best, I think we would see a lot more Christians living like Christians.

In the fourth chapter of James, the Bible says that anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  There’s an old country song that says, “I like my women just a little on the trashy side.”  Maybe so………but God doesn’t.

Economics, Thanksgiving, and A Great Deal

I love my job.  I believe that God has gifted me with the ability to teach.  God has given me, I believe, not only the ability to convey information but also to make it interesting and memorable for students.  I cannot imagine making a living doing anything else.  I cannot imagine anything I would enjoy more.  One of the first lectures I give in my Economics classes is about the different sectors of the economy and their conflicting goals. 

I explain that, on the one hand, we have consumers.  That would be you and me.  Our goal is to maximize satisfaction.  We do this through a process called cost-benefit analysis, CBA.  It sounds more complicated than it is.  In fact, everyone uses the process several times each day.  It’s just that we don’t call it “CBA”.  Cost-benefit analysis is the process of comparing the additional cost that I will have to expend because of a decision, versus the additional benefit I will get to enjoy because of that same decision.  An example would be when Kelly and I went on our honeymoon cruise.  My travel agent said that we could book a room in the bowels of the ship for one price, or get one with a balcony view for $1,000 more.  (My initial question was something about whether these two rooms were on the same ship going to the same places!)  I had to decide whether the additional benefit of sitting on the balcony, and sipping hot chocolate and watching Hubbard Glacier calve off into the ocean was worth the additional cost of $1,000.

On the other hand, however, we have producers.  Their objective is to maximize profit.  Profit consists of two elements, revenue and cost.  Revenue is the amount of money earned by producers from the sale of goods and services.  Costs are the expenses associated with running a business: rent, electricity, salaries, etc.  In order to increase profit, a producer would increase revenue, or decrease cost, or some combination of those two procedures.

I then tell my classes the story of the first Thanksgiving Kelly and I spent together as a married couple.  We spent this time with her family in Hiram, GA.  We had a huge feast on Thursday evening, and I went to bed in a near comatose state.  I slept well that night.  I vaguely remember drooling on my pillow so much that I flipped it over in order to enter into the next phase of sleep.  All of a sudden, prior to 5 AM my new bride jumped out of bed like she was being shot at!  She left the house almost immediately.  No coffee, no make-up, no nothing, just left.  And she was gone all day!

You know what she was doing, right?  She was shopping.  This is the day we call “Black Friday”.  Contrary to some, it did not come by this moniker from shoppers becoming black and blue fighting over great deals on consumer goods.  It is called “Black Friday” because it begins that amazing time in the world of retail where producers move from loss to profitability.  To use an accounting term, they move from the “red” into the “black.”

For me, the most intriguing part about this day and those ensuing is that both sectors of the economy are excited at the same time.  Consumers are happy because they are maximizing satisfaction by getting great deals.  We feel we are paying less and getting more in return.  Businesses are excited because most of them generate more revenue in these few weeks, than in the six months prior!  It’s a win-win.  Both sides feel like they’re getting a great deal!

Do you know who else gets a great deal?  Those people who choose to put their trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.  Mark 8:37 asks, “..What can a man give in exchange for his soul?”  As a Christ follower, we trade our sin for His righteousness.  We trade our righteousness, which is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), for His holiness.  We trade our poverty for His riches (2 Corinthians 8:9).  We trade places, and He received the wrath of God for our sins that is due us (Galatians 1:4 & Ephesians 5:2).  What a great deal!  Now that’s worth getting up early for!