A Deluge of Grace, Grace, GRACE!

Here are reflections from my morning quiet time with God today. To see how I approach quiet time, see here.

Look: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5, NIV)

“And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.” (Romans 5:3-5, The Message)

“Deep and wide / Deep and wide / There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.” It’s the words of that old Sunday School and camp song that come to mind as I read these amazing words of Paul, beautifully rendered by Peterson in The Message.

In the first two verses of Romans, chapter 5, Paul comes to one of his important therefore statements: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”

When I compare my life and how I conduct it to the Law of God, I fall short (Romans 3:23). As we confess on Sunday mornings, “We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” But, just like Abraham, the patriarch of Biblical faith, Paul says, we are accounted righteous by God through faith in God, Who has now revealed Himself to all the world--Jews and Gentiles--through Jesus, true God and true man. God graciously offered His Son for us so that all who believe in Jesus--Jew and Gentile--share in His victory over death and enjoy eternal reconciliation with God (Romans 5:10).

Paul says that I not only can now boast in my hope of a life of perfect righteousness beyond my grave because of Jesus and my faith in Him, I can even boast about Jesus in the midst of my sufferings.

Why? Because, God forges my character and fits me for authentic human living in this world and in eternity in the midst of suffering as I keep following Jesus!

This results in hope that doesn’t disappoint or put me to shame.

When I go through the worst that this life dispenses, when I experience God’s grace and forgiveness even when I am my own worst enemy and the creator of my own heartaches, I know that God is real. I experience, intimately and first-hand, that God’s grace is real. I know that Jesus’ death and resurrection were for me too.

This is how I have experienced You, God: As the gracious Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Who still loves me, still hears my prayers, still stands by me when I have failed You and I turn back, when I suffer and I rely on You.

It’s through the dark times, as we cling to Your hand, that deeper peace, deeper hope, deeper certainty, and deeper faith are won.

I have come to realize that You love me in spite of me--”...at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Wow!

Listen: All of which is why, Peterson’s rendering in The Message caused me to stand up and take deeper notice of Your Word in Romans 5:3-5 today.

When my suffering--real, imagined, or attributable to the devil, the world, or my sinful self--leads me to a deeper walk with You and often in my life, hopelessness is dealt a fatal blow.

Grace gets the last word over my sin.

Life gets the final say over death.

I find myself, as Peterson renders Paul’s letter to the Romans “...standing where [I] always hoped [I] might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting [my] praise.”

When I trust in You, You set me free to be who You made me to be--Your son--and do what I was made for--reflect Your glory and goodness.

You grant a life-giving tidal wave of living water, slaking my troubled soul with grace. Grace. Grace. Grace! GRACE! 

When I connect with You each day, I find that taking in Your grace and love is far more challenging than the proverbial drinking water from a fire hose. It’s like trying to take in an ocean of fresh water in one gulp. You bring a deluge of grace that Paul talks about in Romans 5:5, observing (in Peterson’s rendering): “...we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!” (A particular challenge for us who are simple jars of clay or paper cups, 2 Corinthians 4:7.)

And, amazingly, that’s in the midst of suffering, as Your grace uses that suffering to forge our characters and deepen our hope. (In the Peterson rendering, “alert expectancy,” is hope, a fantastic way of portraying Christian hope.)

As You daily prove Your faithfulness to me, Lord, I find myself increasingly empowered to live today and am given to standing on tip-toes in alert expectancy of what You are going to do today, tomorrow, and in eternity.

I have often disappointed You, others, and myself. I have sinned. I am a sinner who sins. But when I place my life in Your hands, the hope that You create within me never puts me to shame (Romans 5:5). I, by my actions and thoughts, am the only one who can shame Mark Daniels. But, I thank You, God, that my shame need not define my life nor my eternity. When I trust in You--Peterson renders it as opening the door to You--my shame is erased. My sins are forgiven. You give me new starts. (Romans 5:2, The Message)

Respond: Thank You, God, for undeserved grace. Thank You, Christ, for setting me free from sin and death. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for incessantly pounding through this thick skull of mine that my life is not about what I do, it’s about what You, the three-in-One God have done and are doing for me, doing in me, and my trust in You. I surrender. Now let me bathe in Your deluge of grace. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Ulysses Grant and what we need in presidents

Historian Michael Beschloss posted this on Twitter.

Ulysses Grant died today 1885--here a few weeks before the end, completing his memoirs: #LOC pic.twitter.com/qOG2sBivxR

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 23, 2016

That set me to thinking...and tweeting:

[Grant] was, in many ways, a remarkable man, but ill-suited for the presidency.
Of course, that begs question, what suits someone for president?
I feel previous elective office is less a predictor than are temperament, character, leadership record, [and] a willingness to compromise.
Washington, with little elective political experience; Lincoln, with much; FDR, with much; and Eisenhower, with none, stand out among our presidents to me.

Only FDR had been a "successful" pol before taking office. All had successful, significant presidencies.

The one trait they all shared is temperament. Washington & Eisenhower overcame/channeled volcanic tempers to be nearly perfect leaders, Lincoln overcame much and chose his way to a leaders' temperament; FDR had, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "a second class intellect, but a first class temperament."

I'm not sure having an even temperament or self-control matters to voters in these zero-sum days.

"You make me want to be a better man"

There are people who come into our lives who make us feel this way.

Sometimes, we are so confounding for them, so frustrating and infuriating, that we never get the chance to tell them how they make us want to be better people.

Nor do they see what effect they have on our characters, our actions, our thought processes.

I've had people like this in my life. They've never seen how God has used them to call me to repent and how, as the Holy Spirit sent by Christ uses them, calls my attention to the examples of their character, integrity, and honesty, and how God's Spirit is slowly changing me.

This is dedicated to people who have made me and make me want to be a better man.




[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

The Authority to Change Eternity

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, yesterday, January 31.]

[You can listen to the message by clicking here.]

Luke 4:31-44

At first, today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 4:31-44, may seem like a hodgepodge narrative of two days in Jesus’ earthly ministry. But the incidents recounted here are really linked by two strong themes.They’re important for us to remember.

The first theme is authority.

The lesson takes place in the Galilean town of Capernaum. Jesus is preaching in the synagogue and Luke tells us that, as Jesus does so, the people “were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.”

Many people try to speak with authority. In this presidential election year, we see that a lot. But when Jesus taught and preached, it was unlike anything the people had heard.

In Jesus, whether people knew it or not, they heard the voice of the One Who had once said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” That’s authority! 

Later in the passage, a man disrupted Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue. The man was filled with a demon.

We need to stop here for a second because as post-moderns, we may be skeptical about the existence of demons. I don’t share this skepticism about the existence of demonic forces in our world, though.

A few years ago, our son Philip went with his now-wife on a mission trip to Haiti. One day, Philip’s young translator took Phil on a tour of the town close to the school where they were working and later, the translator took Phil to his own home. Near the end of their visit, the translator introduced Philip to his sister. Phil shook her hand and felt that the sister was there, but not quite. Her eyes had a strange look. After they left her, the translator turned to Phil and said, “She has a demon.” Philip knew it was true.

In a culture like ours that has come to doubt the existence of Satan (which suits Satan just fine; he doesn’t want you to think he exists), the forces of hell and the demonic operate more subtly. Satan, the serpent of the garden who was described by Genesis as the most subtle or crafty of creatures, is a master marketer. He understands exactly what is most likely to drive people away from God in any given culture.

In first-century Judea, as in twenty-first century Haiti, one marketing ploy that Satan commonly used to frighten them into thinking that the devil was more powerful than God and that God couldn’t help them was (and is) demonic possession.

But even in the face of demonic possession of a human being, Jesus is authoritative. Verse 35: “‘Be quiet!’ Jesus said sternly [to the demon]. ‘Come out of him!’ Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What words these are! With authority [there’s that word again] and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!’”

Whatever evil afflicts you, whatever temptation dogs you today, whatever sin has overtaken you, Jesus can have conquering authority over it, if you will let Him.

Not long ago, I was talking with a man who told me that over the course of several years, there had been a steady, almost imperceptible decline in his faith life and his character. He was still in worship. But he didn’t pray very often. And he found himself toying with temptations and sins he never would have previously considered. In the process, he became more cynical, more critical of others, less patient, more selfish.

The horrifying thing is that he was enjoying it. His increasing slavery to sin felt like freedom to him. This is how sin and the devil can mess up our thinking!

Fortunately, the man still did occasionally feel prompted to pray. (Remember that our prayers are always responses to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We wouldn't know or feel drawn to pray otherwise!)

One day he was praying. In the middle of giving God a laundry list of things he wanted in his life, he stopped cold.

“I was walking into my living room,” he told me, “when suddenly, there were tears in my eyes. I felt totally convicted by God for how I was living. I called out to God, ‘I don’t want to be far from You, Lord. Help me to be a man of God again!’”

That man gave me permission to tell his story so that you will know that there are more subtle ways of becoming demon-possessed than the way recounted in today’s Gospel lesson.

The God we know in Jesus Christ will never force Himself on you; God only goes where He’s invited.

And when almost imperceptibly, we walk away from God--neglecting worship, the study of God’s Word, prayer, receiving the sacraments, or caring for or serving our neighbor--we create vacancies in our souls that become footholds for sin, darkness, and the devil.

When that man came to God in Jesus’ name, even though he prayed selfishly, he was actually inviting Jesus back into his life. For the first time in a while, this man felt truly free of the sins that were destroying his character, his relationships, his self-esteem. Jesus has the authority to do this in all of our lives.

Jesus speaks the Word of God with authority. Jesus also speaks with authority to defeat Satan. But that’s not the end of the authority theme in our lesson.

Starting at verse 38, Jesus enters the home of Simon, the apostle Jesus would rename Peter. There, he found that Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a fever.

This was no demonic invasion. This was physical illness. Illness is another manifestation of evil in our fallen world, but most physical illnesses don’t come to us because, like the man I just mentioned, we’ve sinned. People get the mumps or chickenpox or cancer usually simply because illness happens in a fallen world. Physical illness is a consequence of living in an imperfect world. One day, those who entrust their lives to Jesus Christ will live in an eternity beyond the reach of illness. But this isn’t heaven.

Yet in Jesus, heaven comes to this world, as it did that day in Simon’s house. Verse 38: “...Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.”

In His own authority, Jesus signified the power He ultimately will wield over our common human enemies--sin, death, darkness--by restoring the health of Simon’s mother-in-law.

Jesus still conquers illness today.

Great doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals know this.

In hospitals here in Dayton, I have experienced more than in any other place I’ve served, doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists who join patients, families, and me in praying before surgical procedures.

When competent, trained medical professionals also pray in Christ’s name for their patients, those patients can great confidence that they are in God’s hands as He guides human hands.

After healing Simon’s mother-in-law, Luke says that Jesus brought healing and deliverance to many more in Capernaum.

Early the next day, He went off to a quiet place. Crowds found him and tried to convince Him to stay. But in verse 43, Jesus says: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

And this is the second important theme of today’s Gospel lesson. The preaching of Jesus, the exorcisms He performed, the healing He brought, and everything Jesus did that day in Capernaum and everything He did while on earth, were really about one thing: To bring the good news of new and everlasting life to all who dare to turn from sin and believe in Him. Every miraculous thing Jesus ever did was meant to be a sign pointing us to Him as the way, the truth, and the life, to Jesus as God the Son and Savior.Every person Jesus healed, brought back from the dead, or from whom he exorcised demons, had one thing in common. They all eventually died to life on this earth. Jesus exercised His authority in these ways not because life could ever be made perfect in this imperfect world, but to point to the good news that can change the person who believes for all eternity!

No doubt many in Capernaum wanted Jesus to stay because they saw Him as the cure for their earthly afflictions. We human beings are always more impressed by flashy, easy to observe, earthly things. You’ll remember that Jesus once sent His disciples out to replicate His ministry--to heal, to cast out demons, to preach and teach. They came back to Jesus excited about the authoritative signs that they’d performed in Jesus’ name. But Jesus told them, “...do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” [Luke 10:20] These are good words for us to remember!

In this life, nothing will ever be perfect.

Our prayers will often seem to go unanswered.

Evil will often seem to win.

We may be tempted in the face of these realities to wonder whether God is there or if He is there, whether He cares.

But every time, in the name of Jesus, sin is forgiven, relationships are mended, healing is granted, God uses us to feed hungry people or helps us tell a friend about Jesus, whenever God empowers us to fight for justice for our neighbors, and whenever lives are made eternally new through faith in Christ, we are given signs that, beyond this life, those made righteous by faith in Christ will live a resurrected life with God and in the company of the saints and that all that hurts us--that hurts God Who stands with us--will be gone for eternity.

In the meantime, may we live under the authority of Christ Who saves us from sin and death and may we share the good news that all who turn from sin and surrender to Christ can have this same everlasting life with God! Amen

Saturday This and That

These are some of the things that caught my eye this past week.

Ever wonder what that extra shoelace hole is for?
It isn't just for show.

Are fountain pens the next big thing?
In A Primer on Fountain Pens, Brett and Kate McKay share the writing instrument's history and tell us why, at times, they should be our instrument of choice for writing. Somehow, I don't see the fountain pen taking off as a fad.

Denzel Washington's recommended number 1 priority for college graduates...
...put God first.

Letter to JetBlue...
...from the grateful mother of an autistic child.

"How is it that really, really smart people can come to believe really, really stupid things?"...
...The revered journalist, Seymour Hersh, seems to have been looking for the "big story" for decades and, in the process, produced some embarrassments, including his just released story alleging that Osama bin Laden's death was less of an American achievement than a Pakistani government gift. Marc Ambinder suggests that, in his long journalistic career, Hersh has often been right on facts, but often way off when taking about motive, leading him to believe crazy things.

The US is "less Christian"...
...so says a new study.

But the sky is not falling...
...So shows Ed Stetzer.

The US restaurant business is stagnant...
...because millennials don't go to restaurants as much as preceding generations did. One factor that might explain this, not mentioned in the article, is the plethora of cooking shows. Cooking has become fun and hip, whereas in previous generations regarded it as a necessity and a chore. So, millennials might actually prefer eating their own cooking at home.

$179.3-million is no abstraction...
...That's how much Picasso's Women of Algiers brought in at an auction this past week.

Has the decline of baseball...
...corresponded with the decline of American character?

Hillary would, if he weren't a competitor, likely advise Jeb to watch out for questions...
...Clinton has only answered eight from the media since her campaign began, preferring to take questions from folks at town meetings. On the other hand, Bush's most challenging questions have come from "ordinary" voters, not the media, and as he answers them, seems to get himself into increasingly deeper waters. I wrote here:

While it may be in a candidate's interest to speak to the press, Clinton isn't legally bound to do so. If she wants to reach the public with town hall meetings, advertising, conventional campaigning, and social media releases, that's her choice. But it's likely to backfire on her...

Now, Bush seems to be showing us that answering any question from anybody can produce its own backfires.

While I recognize that there's a good chance that anyone who runs for president is either (a) filled with megalomania or (b) racked by feelings of inferiority, I nonetheless feel badly about the meat grinding analysis and tedious verbal parsing to which all candidates for the country's highest office are subjected.

A legend has died...
...B.B. King passed on Thursday. Love this article about him from USA Today.

Do What You Fear

Good thoughts from Geoff Talbot.

Reputation versus Character

I've been hearing a lot lately about an outfit called Reputation.com. It's in the business of "reputation management," which their web site describes as "the practice of making people and businesses look their best on the Internet."

There must be a place for such a business these days, I'm sure. Anyone who's ever found themselves the focal point of gossip or unfair misconstructions of their actions or beliefs, can understand how, with the Internet, which allows lies to fly a million times faster than the truth, will know this.

But sometimes managing a reputation in itself often entails a little misconstruction, a little fudging of the truth, doesn't it? It seems that many today are more concerned about looking good than they are about being good.

None of us is perfect, least of all me! I am a sinner saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. I wrestle with temptation and sin every day of my life. I am quite conscious of my faults and sins and occasionally reference them in my preaching and teaching. (By the way, I wouldn't be wrestling with temptation and sin if I weren't a Christian. The closer we seek to follow Christ, the more conscious we are of the evil that resides within us and the evil that lures us. Christians who claim they don't wrestle with their own sins and temptations are either liars or deluded.)

But what all of us need more than someone to make us look our best--a reputation makeover--is someone to help us be our best, to help us boost our characters after we've fallen into evil or when we allow ourselves to be lured by it.

So, out of curiosity, I did a Google search. I looked for a Character.com and found that such an outfit actually exists! It sells kids' clothes that have the logos and images of fictional characters like boy bands, wrestlers, and movie and comic book heroes. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I had something different in mind.

Fact is, I already know a character-builder. (You knew I'd get to that, didn't you?) His Name is Jesus and He has shown a facility for rebuilding the characters of the most unsavory characters you can imagine.

For example: A man named Saul, a persecutor of Christians who approved and facilitated their punishment and murder, became Paul, a name meaning small or humble in Latin. The change in name wasn't about image. (In fact, in an era that valued arrogance, Saul/Paul's name change was bound to cause most people to look down on him, not look up to him.) The name chance was about a change God was making on him from the inside out. From being a guy who was certain of his own righteousness, he became a guy certain of his own faults and sins, but more certain still that the God he came to know in Jesus had died to atone for Paul's faults and rose to give Paul an eternity with God he didn't deserve. By His forgiving love, Jesus transformed Saul/Paul's character.

A woman who slept around and was shunned by others met Jesus and became an evangelist, spreading the news of the forgiveness and new life He brings to those who repent and believe in Him. By His forgiving love, Jesus transformed the woman's character and her daily life.

A thief on a cross saw Jesus being crucified next to Him, understood Jesus was faultless, and asked, in repentance and faith, that Jesus would remember Him in His kingdom. Jesus told the thief that that day, when he died, he would be with Jesus in paradise. Jesus used that man's repentance and belief to change his character, even if the man's reputation as a ne'er do well remained intact for the crowds watching his execution.

In the Old Testament, we're told about how God sent the prophet and priest Samuel to anoint a new king for Israel. God had revealed to Samuel that the new king would come from the family of a man named Jesse. When Samuel caught sight of Eliab, one of Jesse's older sons, Samuel thought to himself, "This must be the guy!" Eliab looked like a king.

But Samuel sensed God telling him, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

Reputation--how others see us--can be built up, torn down, and even built back up again by us, by other human beings.

But character--who we are on the inside--is something altogether different. We can tear it down ourselves readily: by our thoughts, words, and actions, by the company we keep, by the thoughts we allow to govern us, by the gods and godlets we choose to give dominion over our lives. But only God can build up our characters. Only God can help us be our better selves. God gave Jesus Christ as "the way, and the truth, and the life," to amend, rebuild, and make new our characters. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation," Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Let the God we meet in Jesus Christ go to work on your character. No one else may notice it. But as you follow Christ, you'll be set free from the opinions of others, from the norms of society.

A good reputation is a good thing. Proverbs 22:1 in the Old Testament says: "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold." But reputation purchased at the expense of our character is worthless, even if it lines our wallets with cash. Jesus asks, "For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" (Mark 8:36).

In the end, there's a bigger, eternal payout for focusing on character--daily submission to the forgiving God we see in Jesus--than there is for looking good to a world that is lost and rudderless anyway.

Jesus is the only real character.com. 

On Character

This statement bothers me, but I believe that it's true: "Those who have a loss of character make a choice."

I know that when I have lived "out of character," opting to do things I knew to be wrong, I was really acting "in character," willfully so.  I can't claim that the sins I have willfully or knowingly committed were aberrations. They were expressions of my fallen human nature and so, consistent with my fallen character.

That's why I ask God everyday to show me my sins, lead me to repentance, and empower the Holy Spirit to help me amend my ways. I want my character to be more and more like that of Jesus. Psalm 139:23-24 are important verses of Scripture to me:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Read this excellent piece on character by Cindy Hess Kasper. But be sure to read Job 1:13-21 first. (The "his" in the first sentence of the passage from Job refers to Job himself.)

Feeling the Heat of Adversity? That May Be a Great Sign

The opening illustration of today's installment from Our Daily Bread may be trite, but the entire piece makes an important point.

God is in the business of strengthening and purifying the characters of those who believe in Him. I love the last line: "The only way God hurries holiness is by turning up the heat."

If you're a believer in Christ feeling the heat these days, lean on God a little harder; He's up to something in your life!

Read the whole thing.

**********************************************************************************

It's based on Isaiah 43:1-13, written about 500 years before Jesus' birth to God's chosen people:

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. ²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. ³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. ⁴Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; ⁶I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— ⁷everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! ⁹Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble. Who among them declared this, and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them, and let them hear and say, “It is true.” ¹⁰You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. ¹¹I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. ¹²I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses, says the Lord. ¹³I am God, and also henceforth I am He; there is no one who can deliver from my hand; I work and who can hinder it?

Keep trusting in the God Who has definitively disclosed Himself in Jesus Christ; you and your character, the most important thing about you, will always be the better for such trust!

"Unfortunately, some of you are bound for early success..."

"...in ministry," says Pastor Chuck Swindoll in the video embedded here.

The insights he offers here are good for everyone who experiences success in any sphere of life, not just ministry. Success can be dangerous to one's character, relationship with God, and relationship with others. Learning to be successful as a human being and at one's calling may be the hardest lesson of all.

"Experience is not enough"

Charlie Lehardy hits yet another home run.

Also see here.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones Once Tried to Indict Him...

...but former Cleveland Mayor Mike White says that he and the Congresswoman tragically felled by a brain aneurysm earlier this week remained friends. WKYC talked with White on his alpaca farm.

I had an acquaintance with White back when we were students at Ohio State, something I talk about here.

Even as a twenty-one year old, White was not just ambitious, but also capable, smart, and confident in interacting with people of all ages. He had political success written all over him. I envied him, to tell you the truth.

When the ardent Democrat White was selected by the Republican mayor of Columbus--Tom Moody--to run an urban homesteading program, I wasn't surprised. He was too capable for a little thing like party labels to impede the mayor from bringing him into the city administration.

Nor was I surprised that, after returning to his native Cleveland, White was elected to the State Senate and subsequently, to the office of Mayor.

I was surprised that he was nearly indicted and that his once seemingly inevitable political progress ended. Life can take unexpected turns and none of us can predict what will happen tomorrow.

But the WKYC interview with White held more surprises about this guy I knew thirty-six years ago. The first was Mike White, alpaca farmer. I never could have seen that coming.

The other is the apparent forgiveness and grace which he and Tubbs Jones bore for one another, likely a tribute to the characters of each.

Character is the thing that endures after a career has ended, meaning that it's vastly more important than a career.

And it's one of the things that has the most impact on the living even after we leave this life.

"God seems to value character more than our comfort...

"...often using the very elements that cause us the most discomfort as His tools in fashioning that character." A tough, but hopeful lesson taught by God.

Check out what Paul writes in Second Corinthians (New Testament):

Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. [2 Corinthians 12:7-10, The Message]

"It's Character, Stupid"

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

The writer was President Abraham Lincoln, speaking of the cataclysmic Civil War, initiated not by Lincoln or the government he headed, but by insurgent forces who attacked a United States military installation on US soil.

Things happen over which we have no control and much of life is composed of our response to events. "If you want to make God laugh," said Father Myke, a World Trade Center hero on September 11, 2001, "tell Him what you plan to do tomorrow." This echoes wisdom found in the New Testament book of James:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)

And it isn't much different from the words of John Lennon in his song, Beautiful Boy: "Life is what happens to you, while you're busy making other plans..."

The point?

Stuff happens.

Even to presidents.

This is important to remember as the 2008 presidential campaign unfolds. In town hall meetings and debates, candidates are asked what they would do about the economy, the war in Iraq, the struggle with radical jihadists, global warming, and a whole host of other vital national and international concerns. Candidates respond with everything from sound bites to detailed programs on their web sites. And all of that's fine.

But beware! Events have a way of overtaking even presidents.

Franklin Roosevelt ran as a balanced budget conservative in his 1932 race for the presidency. But by the time he took the oath of office in March of the following year, he had come to believe that Keynesian deficit spending was necessary to give the economy a major boost. He also saw that the nation needed a major infusion of confidence and steel, assets he had in abundance as a result of his, by then, decade-long battle to overcome polio.

Because much of what happens during a presidential term of office can't be anticipated, there is something far more important to consider when deciding who will get our votes for president. In short, the characters of the people who vie for the presidency are more significant than their political philosophies or their position papers.

Character is forged in personal experience with adversity, not only in the adversity we personally experience, but also in the extent to which we're willing to stand with others in their adversity.

Often, the United States has been lucky. The presidents we've elected have largely, been unknown to us and what we have known of them has often been a public relations smoke screen.

Today, smoke screens are out there. But in this era of multiple information outlets and YouTube videos, we have a much better chance of knowing what makes our candidates for public office tick. We can get a better fix on their characters.

Hopefully, as this presidential election process continues, we will pay heed to the candidates' positions on the issues and look at their resumes. But more than anything, I hope, we'll consider their characters. It's their characters that will give us the best indication of how they might respond to the unknown events that loom in the futures of us all.

[By the way, here are links to a series I wrote that features one of Abraham Lincoln's most remarkable and laudable character traits, his capacity to change and grow:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7]

What We Learn About 'Character Issues' from Pass Being Given Schwarzenegger

You're the governor of the nation's most populous state, candidate for re-election after winning the post in a special recall vote three years earlier. Less than two months before this election day, a former live-in lover publishes a lenghty memoir recounting your drug use and enjoyment of pornography, which she observed, and infidelities, which she didn't observe until after the relationship had broken up. In response, you:

a. Issue a heated denial ("I did not watch Deep Throat with that woman, Miss Outland.")
b. Hire a political dirty trickster to undermine the credibility of the memoirist
c. Start a war with Nevada
d. Grant an interview to the former lover and write the foreword to her book

If you answered d., you're either Arnold Schwarzenegger or you've read the story recounted here. (Which, by the way, my blogging friend, John Schroeder linked to on his blog today). By all appearances, it looks like Schwarzenegger's response is the politic approach...at least in Caleefornia.

In fact, far from being upset with Schwarzenegger, California voters seem prepared to give him a gigundous re-election victory. So, is Schwarzenegger outfitted with Ronald Reagan-like Teflon? Maybe not. And I'll give you three possible explanations of why it isn't Teflon that accounts the governor's apparent imperviousness to attack over things alleged in the book by his former lover.

Maybe, for one thing, voters already thought their governor had engaged in the behaviors recounted in the memoir and have decided that they don't care. I'm reading Laurence Leamer's 2005 bio of Arnold right now. It's definitely not sanitized and was researched and written with the cooperation of Schwarzenegger and friends.

It's filled with revelations of the governor's departure from good behavior, some of which came out during his 2003 campaign. So, there's really nothing new that Schwarzenegger's one-time lover, Barbara Outland, can tell us.

Maybe, given that what happens in California is often a harbinger of coming trends in the rest of the country, the indifference with which revelations of Schwarzenegger's wild past and his handling of them tell us a lot about how US politics will be practiced in the future. Or, maybe this is how politics is already being practiced across America. Societal attitudes about the relationship between pols' personal lives and how they conduct themselves as public officials, are changing, to be sure.

In 1964, Nelson Rockefeller got no traction for his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, in part because of his divorce and rapid ensuing marriage to another woman. But by 1980, the divorced Reagan ran for President as a family values candidate. Bob Dole's emotionally brutal decision to divorce his first wife had no effect on his drive to the GOP nomination in 1996.

I'm reminded of the lines from the old Randy Newman song in which a father-to-be sings about his prospective son to his wife:

We'll have a kid
Or maybe we'll rent one
He's got to be straight
We don't want a bent one
He'll drink his baby brew
From a big brass cup
Someday he may be President
If things loosen up

Things have loosened up. And at the risk of shocking everybody, this is one preacher who thinks that that's not an altogether bad thing. None of us is perfect. And no one who runs for public office can claim moral perfection.

Having said that, I don't buy the argument advanced by some that what politicians do in their personal lives should have zero bearing on whether we vote for them or not.

It's difficult to erect walls between the facets of any of our lives. Pols' personal lives are relevant to consideration of their fitness for public office when a look at that life shows, not that they've made mistakes or committed sins--which all of us have done, but because patterns, good and bad, are seen.

The important thing to know is if there are patterns in pols' personal lives that bespeak either commendable character or enduring moral blind spots. Do they learn from their mistakes? Do they try to do the right thing? Do they hang in their with their commitments? A look at a candidates' personal lives will answer such important questions.

If a public figure is a serial adulterer, one who bugs out on marriages for no good reason, an inveterate liar, a long standing hedonist, a tax-cheat, an unreformed alcoholic, or whatever, these patterns of behavior will inevitably show up in how they do their work, giving voters legitimate reasons to doubt their reliability. And in the end, I think character is about reliability. My guess is that most voters, although likely to express themselves less long-windedly than I am here, would agree.

Maybe too, the voters of California are disinterested in the behaviors Outland recounts in her book about Schwarzenegger because they're all from the distant past. They would likely be upset if Schwarzenegger smoked pot or watched porn yesterday. But the events Outland talks about took place about thirty years ago.

Voters seem to believe that fairness demands the recognition of a kind of statute of limitations when it comes to looking at past indiscretions. President Bush realized this before many other pols, explaining why, during the 2000 campaign, he refused to answer questions about his life prior to age 40. He wouldn't defend actions he took that came before a defined point at which he started to get his life together. Voters respected that firewall. California voters, though often deemed by Red Staters as being flaky and unconscionably liberal, are really applying the same firewall to Schwarzenegger's life that Red State voters applied to George W. Bush six years ago. I think that's fair.

This last one, in fact, is the likeliest explanation for the pass being given Schwarzenegger.

A final thought: What's not happening to Schwarzenegger's political fortunes will give Rudy Giuliani hope that he can pass muster among conservative GOP primary voters whose concerns are more personal than political. There are questions about Giuliani's personal life and his caustic ways. The pass being given Schwarzenegger will be seen as a positive omen by the former New York mayor preparing to run for President.

Of course, it may be argued that Arnold's indiscretions are not as recent as those of Rudy and that Rudy's decision to leave his wife may indicate greater personal brutality than that exhibited by the mature Arnold. It will be difficult for Rudy to erect a Bush-style firewall for personal actions he's taken since entering public life and which are of recent vintage. But it's possible that there exists such a stockpile of well-deserved September 11, 2001-generated goodwill for Giuliani that he'll get that pass from voters who otherwise put a lot of stock in personal character in their pols.

Californians appear to have decided that their governor has grown up, much the same decision made by US voters about George W. Bush in 2000.

The jury is out as to how voters will respond to Rudy Giuliani in 2008.

[Thanks to Rick Moore at Holy Coast for linking to this piece.]