I Do, I DO!!

This is the wedding season. Dear young friends were married April 10 in a beautiful ceremony, another couple will wed this next weekend, my own son Jacob and his beautiful bride-to-be Jessica will take the plunge May 22, and then more this summer. As I prepare for all these promises, I have thought how in a world where commitments are increasingly short-term, the words "for better or worse, as long as we both shall live" sound beautiful, but realistically unlikely to most people. We push those thoughts to the back of our minds in the midst of the celebration. But as we look at broken promises on all levels, not just marriage, we wonder, "Does anyone keep promises anymore?"

Yes, some people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised to see it through. They stick to causes that seem lost. They hold on to a love that seems sadly cold. They stay with people who have become royal pains in the neck. They are brave enough to make a promise, and have enough integrity to keep the promise they have made. Lewis Smede challenges me when he says, "If you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you cannot abandon, then you are like God."

See, when a person makes a promise, that person reaches out into the unpredictable and unertain future and makes one thing certain: I WILL BE THERE.  I will be there even when it costs me more than I want to pay. In a world where most things seem out of my control, when I make a promise like this, I control at least one thing: I will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be. Smedes says, "When you make a promise, you take a hand in creating your own future."

This spring and summer is a great time to reflect on the promises we have made to God, to people, to the church--and to focus our energy on keeping them. There is nothing more fulfilling than working with God to keep your commitments, and receiving the reward that comes from being a keeper of covenants, a person like God.

I promise. Better than that, it is HIS promise.

Earning Trust

Stories of outrageous and indulgent demands surround celebrities,  and many are actually true. Some of the most amazing (e.g. bottles of the priciest spring water to wash dogs) swirl around musical artists and their contracts with concert promoters. A notorious story came from the wildly popular band Van Halen. Each concert promoter had to sign a contract,  specifying  a bowl of M&M's be provided backstage for the band, with every single brown M and M removed. If the band arrived for a concert and there was even one brown candy there, they were alowed by contract to cancel the gig and receive full payment. Diva behavior, right?

In the words of the commercial ads, BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE.

There actually was a method in the madness. To the band, the absence or presence of the brown M&M's was a matter of life or death. Atul Gawande in his book, The Checklist Manifesto,quotes lead singer David Lee Roth's memoir:

"...Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with nine 18 wheelers, full of gear, where the standrad was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors---whether it was the girders couldn't support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren't big enough to drive the gear through. The contract read like a... Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings needed to make it function." So, just as a little test, buried somewhere in the rider, would be Article 126, the no-brown-M&M clause. "When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl, well, we'd line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem." The mistakes could be fatal. In one Colorado concert, the band discovered the promoters had failed to read even the weight requirements, and the staging would have fallen through the arena floor.

Hmmm. There may be more to what you and I consider a ridiculous demand more often than one might think. In this case, it sounds as if Van Halen was actually on page with Jesus: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." Luke 16:10

Tim Tebow's Super Bowl Ad

Tim Tebow--if you have even a small love of football, you know this guy. He's been everyone's darling, the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback for the Florida Gators. He's clean cut, an engaging all around nice guy. His faith in Christ is strong, and he has never hidden it. For the Super Bowl, he has recorded a pro-life ad, not condemning anyone, but stating his gratitude that his mother, a missionary, didn't choose abortion for him when her medical team advised it. Everything hit the fan. Suddenly the media is all over him, accusing him and the network of being "anti-family, anti-women" for airing such an offensive ad. He's the talk of the nation again, much of it extremely negative. One commentator I heard questioned "why Tim had to do that. He is risking his popularity, his income, his future, and even the popularity of his next team with this public stance." Wow--that guy misunderstands the goal of the Christian life that Tim embraces. Here's the thing: Though we are called to love everyone, the goal of a Christian's life isn't to be loved or even liked by everyone. The story of Jesus shows that he certainly wasn't. As Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to courageously stand for what we believe, speak truth even when it is unpopular, and defend the helpless. Certainly we have to balance this reponsibility with love and compassion, and season our words with care. But trying to avoid controversy is not an option. It lacks courage AND character. No one who actually is thinking with the mind of Christ will choose it.