disingenuousness-ish

Way back when…I helped coach a little league football team. The defensive middle linebacker was new to the sport of football, and was still kind of timid as he hadn’t quite grasped the actual protection of all those pads and covers. Good news was: He always did ‘exactly’ what he was asked to do – Bad news was: he never did anything more than ‘exactly’ what he was asked to do. I am pretty sure he saw his position, as most novice players did, as more of a ‘role’ he was playing as opposed to a critical defensive leadership position. There were also these two brothers on the team that were sons of one of the other coaches. When they got down on the line, just before the opponents quarterback began to do his cadence, they would snarl and growl and twitch around like they were about to explode. Usually this freaked out the kid on the other side. But the middle linebacker simply limited his yelling out whether the offense was strong ‘LEFT’ or ‘RIGHT’ – but that was pretty much it. So during a timeout, I called the young boy to the sideline and I told him “Hey man…you’re like the quarterback of the defense…get these guys amped up with super energy like those two brothers do every time.” He was noticeably uncomfortable about having the added responsibility of being asked to feel emotions in addition to the enormous task of yelling “LEFT or “RIGHT”…but he agreed to give it a try.
The next play came and I could hardly hold my laughter inside. It was SO obvious he was simply acting. He did not have the drive and burning aggressiveness and he was making growling sounds that sounded like a kid imitating a semi truck and his encouragements to the other kids were just as comical -“c’mon fellas, let’s do this” or “Let’s get ’em guys….grrrrr” (Yes, he literally pronounced the word, it was not a sound” – ‘gerr…gerrrr’)! He was trying to imitate the actions of the brothers who clearly had genuine aggressiveness in their hearts and the evidence of that was the sounds and motions they exhibited when on the line. The middle linebacker was simply going through the motions of trying to reproduce what was the evidence of a person who had those emotions in their heart.

Funny as that was (is) I think it is a really good example of how God must feel when He sees us ‘going through the motions’ in our lives as we try to forcibly emulate the attributes of a person who has something special in their hearts.

In the 5th book of Galatians Paul wrote “…do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” The reality is; there are a lot of people who may live a caring, friendly, kind, loving life because they don’t want to lead a life in the ‘flesh’. But guess what? That simply isn’t enough to earn a spot in heaven. And furthermore…it’s not even supposed to be an effort. When a person is truly doing what Paul says in verse 15 “…walk by the Spirit…(then)  you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Once the desire and surrender are in line, the desire to lead a holy life just comes automatically. You don’t need to force it or fake it. Even still…that doesn’t mean a person suddenly becomes perfect when they give their hearts to the Lord…no siree…as a matter of fact I would say “get ready” because you just became what I call “a blip on satan’s radar” Before we commit our lives to Christ, we are just part of the flock that satan sees…he isn’t threatened or scared or challenged…but once you turn your life over to Christ, you are suddenly his most hated enemy. So don’t judge others and even more importantly, don’t judge yourself when you screw up, because…YOU WILL! But that has nothing to do with your ultimate salvation. Luckily Jesus didn’t die for a select number of our sins…he died for them ALL! How can there be dark where there is light!? Jesus said that He is the light of the world; he who follows Him will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.

Back when I was living in Tennessee, I used to go spelunking (that’s ‘caving’ for you safety-minded rational people) and I frequented a particular cave in DeKalb County called “Indian Grave Point Cave“.

I was absolutely blown away with the hidden beauty of underground hills, streams and rock formations. There was one particular cavern deep in the back of the cave  named (according to my grotto society map) ‘The Cascade Dome Room’ it was a magnificent and HUGE room in the midst of this cave where at times you inch along with both your belly and back touching rock at the same time. (Despite being claustrophobic, I did just fine in tight spots) Back in those years, LED lights and incredibly powerful flashlights hadn’t been invented yet so we used carbide lamps which were not very powerful lights. Actually, the room was so big, our lights barely reached the other side. This was not a touristy visited cavern, so there was NO installed lighting anywhere in this cave, But what was awesome was turning off our lights and just standing in 100% nothing-ness. VOID. We could hear each other move…or hear drips of water from adjacent rooms. Dark?…It was almost dizzying to lose all reference of the surroundings…we relied on sound and gravity. Point is this: I had never really experienced utter dark until then. It was wonderous and terrifying at the same time. But what was REALLY cool was how much light even a small flickering match could produce. Suddenly the vast darkness became lit once again and it was like all our senses came back in to operation. So it didn’t matter how dark it was in there…one small simple light was like a lighthouse beacon.

It isn’t necessary to try and be a good person…the natural fruits of the Spirit are examples to everyone around you. They may call it by many names, I even had one person refer to it as my “X FACTOR” but I just smiled knowing it aint ME – it’s the Holy Spirit they see!

Paul also said in verse 14 – “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I may take it one step further and use the quote from the movie The Book of Eli when the young woman asks Eli what his “book” (The Bible) was about…he replied “I think it’s about doing MORE for others than you do for yourself”