Month: June 2022

I have never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I am a spontaneous person, and I do a lot of things without thinking them through. Some of them are pretty dumb. But recently I set a new standard. Yes, I did what must surely qualify as the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things.

The story requires a bit of set up. Our house has a finished basement which we often use as a playroom for the grandkids when they come to visit. Over the last couple years, we have accumulated piles of toys, pieces of toys, and partial pieces of the pieces of toys. When the tykes go home, we just shovel everything into a pile against the wall. One day, we decided it would be nice, and certainly neater, to order one of those toy storage organizers, with the twelve cube-shaped baskets that fit snugly into separate compartments.

Sharon picked one she liked off the internet and ordered it. It arrived, unassembled, in a huge box about four days later outside our front door. I opened the door, wrapped my arms around it, and tried to lift it into the house. Whoa! Not a chance. Apparently, there was more lumber and hardware in there than I had anticipated, and it weighted a ton! The best I could do was lean the giant box over and drag it through the doorway. I then dragged it to the kitchen door leading to the basement, pathetically grunting and groaning all the way. Several times during this lengthy process, Sharon pointed out that I shouldn’t do this alone, and offered to help me. But being the masculine, macho husband that I am, I cavalierly refused.

Eventually, I opened the kitchen door, which leads to a fifteen step descension. At the bottom of those steps is the door to the garage, while the door to the playroom is on the right. Both doors were closed. I stopped and pondered for a moment the best way to get the box down the steps. Once again, Sharon offered to help. Once again, I declined. I decided to lean the box down on its side, push it partially over the first step, and slide it down.

That’s when it happened. I did the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things. After leaning the box over the top step, I let go of it so as to move around ahead of it and ease it down one step at a time. You can guess what happened. The instant I let go, that huge, heavy box took off down the steps like a rocket launched out of a silo. It flew down the stairway and smashed into the garage door so hard, the doorknob was dislodged from the door.

Did you ever have one of those moments where you just stand there in suspended animation, wondering if what you just witnessed really happened? Hoping you’re about to wake up from some bizarre dream? That was me staring in disbelief at the top of the steps. Did I really just do that? Could any human being be that stupid? Upon hearing the tremendous crash, Sharon came running, and recognized immediately what happened. If ever there was an I-told-you-so moment, that was it. She must love me. She just smiled gently and said accidents will happen. Maybe the ashen look on my face scared her.

Needless to say, we now need a new garage door. What bothers me the most, is that there were so many more sensible courses of action. Taking the contents out of the box upstairs, or letting Sharon help me slide it down the steps, or just dragging the dang thing around the outside of the house and coming in through the garage! Duh!

I really don’t even know why I’m writing about this. I should be taking this ridiculous incident to the grave. Maybe, in some sick corner of my mind, I’m hoping there are readers out there who will comment about something they’ve done, something they thought was even dumber, just to make me feel better.

I’m waiting…….

So the Lord said to Moses “Take Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit of leadership, and lay your hand on him.” — Numbers 27:18

The Bible makes it clear that men are to be leaders. Leaders in their families, leaders in their communities and leaders in their church.

Leading is usually not a comfortable place to be. It’s much safer to lay back in the crowd, take time to survey the landscape, let someone else set the direction and then judge the reaction to it. If it works, then fall in step. If it gets criticized, distance yourself from it.

This is precisely the way politics works. For example, several of the people running for state and national office in Alabama are trying very hard to become connected with Donald Trump, while doing their best to distance themselves from any hint of being liberal. That’s the safe path to election in this state.

But Christianity is not politics. In fact, it’s the opposite. Politics is the art of being popular, which necessitates drawing attention to oneself. By contrast, Christianity emphasizes humility and service to others. Surrendering self to follow Jesus and his teachings. Politicians lay back, see which way the wind is blowing, and then jump on the bandwagon.

The Bible tells the story of the transition of leadership from Moses to Joshua. Moses had sent out a group of twelve scouts to see if conquering the promised land was doable. Most of them came back wanting to play it safe. The natives were too big, too strong, too numerous, they reported. There’s no way the Jews could defeat them. Only Joshua and Caleb came back with confidence that, with God’s guidance, they could accomplish anything.

That’s leadership. That’s what it looks like. Not playing it safe, not laying back in the crowd to see what works, what’s popular. Trusting God to lead you in directions that you may not be comfortable with, but are destined to travel. As Moses neared the end of his time on earth, God told him to make Joshua the new leader. The Lord knew Joshua would choose the obedient path, a path that could make him very unpopular with the crowd, based on the negative reports of the other scouts. In fact, at one point the Jews wanted to stone him.

Being a leader makes you vulnerable. Leaders get criticized. People expect them to have all the answers. They expect leaders to be fair, though their own perception of fairness is often skewed toward themselves. Leaders get pressure to succeed. In the business world, an unsuccessful leader gets fired. Who needs all of that?

We do. There has never been a more urgent need for men to step up and stand out, both by word and by example. It’s not a subjugation of women. It’s a complement to them. With God, being an unsuccessful leader is impossible. Even if you don’t please people, you are running the race for which you were created. Pleasing people is not the goal.

It is particularly critical for the men of our senior generation, of which I am a part, to set this tone for our younger observers. They need to see men of conviction, unafraid to proclaim the word of Christ, unafraid to be the first in line for ministry and prayer, unafraid to trust in God’s providence with our finances.

We’ve raised our families. We’ve shown them how to work hard and provide. We’ve shown them how to love and forgive. Now let’s show them how to lead.

It’s a man thing.