Leaving Limbs

Parts of your physical body don't just disappear. They can't decide to leave the body...even if they had a mind to. They can stop working. They can become paralyzed. They can die of gangrene. They can be severed in an accident or surgically removed. But they can't decide to leave.

And even if they could leave your body, they can't physically join another body. But suppose it's possible. Suppose your thumb did decide to leave your body and took the four fingers of your right hand along, too. Yes, there is blood when it happens even though there was no forced trauma.

"What are you doing?" you ask in shock. "Where are you going? Why are you leaving?"

"We feel that we are no longer of use to this body," the thumb declares. "We are going to join another body."

"But why?"

"We just feel that we are finished here."

"But why? Doesn't the other body already have thumbs and fingers?"

"Yes, the other body already has thumbs and fingers - the best we've seen - that's why we're going there. They are doing the most extraordinary things and they've made room for us."

You are in pain. "I don't understand. If you leave our body for that other body, you're leaving us without a thumb and four fingers! You are hurting the rest of the body."

"Yes," thumb sympathizes, "but another thumb and fingers will come along to take our place."

"Can you please tell me what we have done that you should leave?"

"Can't we leave for no reason?" he replies. "Our Instinct tell us we are done here, are you arguing with our Instinct? We feel our Instinct leading us to this other body. It's our Instinct, I tell you."

You don't know what to say. Thumb continues, "Look, this was a very hard decision for us to make, the four fingers and I. If we were hurt or angry with the body then this decision would be easy. But it wasn't easy. It was very hard."

Finally you manage to say, "I'm disappointed. I'm saddened. I'm saddened for the rest of the body."

"I understand this is disappointing news, but can't you be glad for us? We are following our Instinct after all. The four fingers and I are going to be so happy with this other body and all the other thumbs and fingers, there are scores of them!"

And so the thumb and the four fingers on your right hand leave your body. You never hear how they managed with their new body. You wonder where new thumbs and fingers are going to come from, you aren't a starfish!

"For the body does not consist of one member but of many...The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'" (I Cor. 12:14, 21)

After-sermon-blues

I once thought after-sermon-blues were a sign of abnormality and that maybe I missed my calling. No one told me, "Even after your best preparation and your best delivery, you may feel like the worst preacher on the planet."

John Stott's admission freed me from lashing myself: "Seldom if ever do I leave the pulpit without a sense of partial failure, a mood of penitence, and a cry to God for forgiveness, and a resolve to look to him for grace to do better in the future."

Ahhh. So it's not abnormal. But what does a pastor do with those feelings of failure after he's preached his heart out? He takes them to the cross, where else? Here's D.A. Carson:

"It is rare for me to finish a sermon without feeling somewhat between slightly discouraged and moderately depressed that I have not preached with more unction, that I have not articulated these glorious truths more powerfully and with greater insight, and so forth. But I cannot allow that to drive me to despair; rather, it must drive me to a greater grasp of the simple and profound truth that we preach and visit and serve under the gospel of grace, and God accepts us because of his Son." - Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, pg. 92

The ugly dinner plate

Everyone needs a "Wayne" in their life. He is an elder in my former church and he isn't a peer. He is almost 80 and has been in and out of the heart hospital more times than I can remember. He is also a straight shooter. He can cut to the chase, kindly, better than anyone I know. He is also a good story teller when he wants to make a point.

I met with Wayne several weeks ago after a particularly discouraging episode with a church member. The only thing "getting it done" according to this member was my character, everything else was a disappointment. I received it as best I could and felt like a pretty good failure when it was all said and done. Is that ordinary?

Wayne listened to me say, "I feel like a failure," and recounted the following story:

As part of our move from one home to another about thirty years ago, I was helping Carol to unpack and put things away in the kitchen of our new home. As I opened a box containing every day dishes, I saw a dinner plate that was quite unlike most of the other plates. It was ugly!

It was a cheap dime store melamine plastic plate that had been finger painted by our son, Ken, then glazed, and given to his mother for Mother's Day. Ken was eight or nine years old at that time. He had printed his date of birth of birth as being in September when it actually occurred in July. He had started to draw what was now an indistinguishable picture, apparently made a mistake, and scratched back and forth through the image over and over until it was obliterated. It was definitely the work of a young child with very little artistic talent.

I said, "Carol, why on earth do you keep moving this ugly plate?" Her reply was, "Because Ken gave it to me." I said, "So? Not only is it ugly, he has completely forgotten about it by now. He sure wouldn't miss it if you threw it away. Why is it so important to you, especially considering the way it looks?"

I will never forget her response. She said, "I don't keep it for the plate. I keep it to remind me of the love he had for me and his desire to please me. His wanting to please me was what pleased me, not the plate itself. Every time I notice that plate I don't see the plate, I see the look on Ken's face when he handed it to me, eager to see my response for all the love and effort he put into it."

God got my attention that day. I had spent much of my life wanting to please my Heavenly Father but always ending up frustrated, knowing that most of my efforts seemed to produce nothing more than another 'ugly dinner plate.' The more I worked at becoming a pleasing child to my Father, the bigger and uglier those plates seemed to become.

I had never once realized that He, like my wife with her beloved son, is pleased beyond understanding with my desire to please Him. He knows that the desire in my heart to plese Him is genuine, and therefore the product of my activity is totally inconsequential unless it ends up bringing sin into either my life or someone else's life.

The one thing that pleases God is our desire to please Him! He has stacks and stacks of ugly dinner plates on display, not for what they are worth and not because of their beauty, but because they remind Him of our love and desire to please Him!

That's how Wayne encouraged me that day. "Is your greatest desire to please God?" He asked. "Yes," I said. "Then give God your ugly dinner plates and know that He is pleased with you."