hope

An Unkind Savior?! (What Jesus never does to those who need it most)

~ Brian Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“Swear. Reproach Christ and I will set you free,” the proconsul of Smyrna states with authority.

“86 years and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?” replies Polycarp, who was not only the bishop of Smyrna a generation after Christ’s crucifixion, but was also close personal friends with John, the author of the Gospel of the same name and the book of Revelation.

“I have wild animals here,” the proconsul continued. “And I will throw you to them if you do not repent.”

“Call them,” Polycarp replied. “It is unthinkable for me to repent from what is good to turn to what is evil. I will be glad, though, to be changed from evil to righteousness.”

“If you despise the animals, I will have you burned.”

“You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and is then extinguished, but you know nothing of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. Why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you want.”

The crowd rushed around to find sticks and wood to build a fire, the Jews eagerly assisting. When the pile was ready, Polycarp removed his outer clothing and approached.

The guards started to secure him to the wood with nails, and he said, “Leave me as I am, for He that gives me strength to endure the fire, will enable me not to struggle, without the help of your nails.”

After being lightly bound, Polycarp began to pray, “…I give you thanks that you count me worthy to be numbered among your martyrs, sharing the cup of Christ and the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul and body…” and the fire was lit.1*

The early church was well acquainted with suffering. In my current Bible study, we are in the book of Revelation going over the seven letters Jesus was dictating to John for seven different churches, including Polycarp’s wealthy city of Smyrna. Overall, most were going through difficult times as persecution was rampant. I recently finished a book about the Nazis’ use of IBM punch card machines in their highly organized and orchestrated attempt to annihilate the Jews**. The persecution the early Christians were going through definitely smacks of that same type of demoniacal hatred.

In the various letters, Jesus acknowledges the churches’ strengths (if there are any), He brings to light their shortcomings (often explaining what will happen if they aren’t dealt with), He acknowledges their intense persecution and suffering, and finally reminds them of the eternal blessings that He will give to those who are faithful to the end. “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown,” Jesus tells John to write to the church in Smyrna.

None of these churches were perfect, just as none of ours are today; but some of the hardships they were having to deal with were absolutely horrendous! Yet Jesus’s words to all who were suffering unimaginable horrors were, “to the one who is victorious to the end… I will give the right to sit with me on my throne; he will be dressed in white; I will give authority over the nations.”

As my Bible study questions had me reading and rereading many of these letters, I started imagining what I would say to someone who was suffering that intensely. It was then that I noticed something rather conspicuous missing from the words of Jesus. I thought that surely He just left it out of one letter, so I reread the others, looking for something I definitely thought should be there. If Jesus cared for these people the way I believe He did, it must be, so I continued to read. He left it out of the second…the third…the fourth. How is that possible?! Its absence is so striking I can’t believe I haven’t noticed it before. It almost makes Jesus seem…dare I say it…unkind!

This led me to a search of the rest of scripture. Nothing. It was completely fruitless, and frankly I did not know how to justify it. But I had to. If Jesus is the kind, loving Savior I believe He is, then what He does not say is somehow justified. Throughout all of Scripture, no matter how much people suffer, Jesus…never…apologizes. I had to make sense of this.

When I have a question of this nature, it runs constantly in the back of my mind. Any information that aids in answering that question, in essence goes in that file. The books I read, the conversations I have, personal experiences and daily observations…all are viable sources of data. Some questions like this may remain unanswered for years until I finally reach a point where I think I have enough information to make a decision that I believe is satisfactory. Well, I had just added a new question, and I’m going to take you along on my journey toward answering it.

If I limit myself to what I experience after a question is posed, it’s a painfully slow drip of day-to-day occurrences. So, I could wait until I’ve lived a couple more years, or I could start by examining my previous decades immediately. That’s the direction I decided to initially focus on, attempting to find times in my life that did not play out how I thought they would, adding in the detail that someone had to actually apologize. After a couple weeks of thinking in this direction, I found one! Fortunately it wasn’t in the distant past, as my memory can often distort, rewrite, and forget details. If I had to guess (and I did), it was about three years ago. Please indulge me as I set the stage.

I had driven down to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit one of my best friends, Charles, for the weekend. He and I have been very close for 25 years, and initially met at Books-A-Million. Back in 2000 I would go there nightly to sit at the coffee shop and work on my studies, and as I was doing some reading for my college classes I overheard a conversation going on behind me. It was three guys about my age, two I knew from college, and the third I did not. This wasn’t your standard conversation, though. They were debating the existence of God.

Eavesdropping on this conversation definitely took precedence over the evening’s homework, so I set my book down and listened intently. It didn’t take me long to ascertain the dynamics of this debate. You would think that two senior college students at a school whose focus is training people for the ministry would have no difficulty establishing a solid basis for something so fundamental to their beliefs. I would think that too. But in this case, we would both be wrong. This mysterious third party was clearly more intelligent than they were, and he had them stumped. But as he finished solidly pinning them to the ground, I realized there was a weakness in his argument.

There was no way I was going to let this interaction end in my friends’ defeat, so I pushed my chair back, stood up, and walked over with a smile.

“Hey, guys!”

They returned the greeting.

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear the discussion ya’ll were having. Do you mind if I throw a question into the mix?”

“Go right ahead, Brian,” my friend from OCC who is also named Brian said.

I don’t remember what I asked, but I do remember the look on the stranger’s face as he slightly cocked his head to the right.

“You know,” he said, “I haven’t ever thought about that. Do you mind if I take some time to think that over?”

“Not at all!” I replied, taken aback by a level of intellectual honesty I had rarely witnessed.

A minute or so later, my friends from school departed and I had my first ever conversation with Mr. Charles E. Smith, now one of the closest friends I have ever had the privilege of knowing. We bonded immediately over our love of books, exchanged phone numbers, and within a few months would become roommates (a pretty wild story I will definitely write one day) where we would have countless discussions along the line of the one I just witnessed.

We were two very different people (yelling and throwing a Bible across the room was not a rarity for Mr. Smith), but we were both on the same path. We were just two guys trying to understand what was true and wanting to live the lives we were meant to. We’re still doing that together, but fortunately a couple of years after our initial encounter, I had the privilege of leading him to the Lord. We still talk quite regularly, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have him as a close friend. Now back to Fayetteville.

(See note on picture 2 below.)

Now that you’ve met Charles (I don’t apologize for the aside 😉 ) you can see how we, along with his cousin Marshall, might have stayed up way too late on his patio discussing everything under the sun and enjoying a few brewskies. At some point that evening they informed me that we would be waking up quite early to help Marshall and his dad move a bunch of furniture and such in the morning. “I’d be happy to help…” I said with about as much enthusiasm as you would anticipate.

We woke up way earlier than I was in any condition to and I thanked God for the millionth time that coffee beans were among the countless plants that sprang to life on day three. Perhaps, I thought, He had done so specifically for this day. We began moving boxes and furniture for Marshall’s aunt, loading and unloading two truck beds and a flatbed trailer. Two other details I neglected to mention: 1. It was the middle of summer, so it was nice and hot. 2. We left the house quickly, so we didn’t have time to eat and we were starving! Fortunately, no lives were lost during this most taxing of projects.

We had just finished moving the final pieces of furniture and Marshall went in the house to get us something cold to drink. Charles leans in my direction and starts to speak.

“Hey, B. (He’s called me that for years.) I know you came down here to hang out and have a good time, so I’m sorry you had to endure this. Especially with it being so hot.”

THAT WAS IT!

(See note on picture 3 below.)

When I reached this point in my memory I mentally stopped. I would go on to tell him it was okay and I was glad to help, all of which were true. However, there was still truth to his apology. It was hot, I was exhausted, and this is not the relaxing weekend I had hoped for. Charles’ apology was sincere, it was considerate, and it was thoughtful and kind. It’s the kind of thing people say to those they really care about when they experience something unpleasant. And THAT was where I was stuck.

Whether His followers were being imprisoned, beaten, even burned alive or sawed in two, Jesus never once looks these people He loves in the eyes and tells them, “I’m so sorry you have to go through this.” And the whole time, He knows every horrific detail of what they are going to experience.

What was I going to do with this?!

Some of God’s characteristics like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, are so far removed from who we are that it’s easy to basically think, “Yeah…God can do anything, like Dr. Strange or another superhero.” Yet with the rest of His characteristics, it’s simpler when we can put Him in a human-sized box. “Jesus was kind to people the world wasn’t. Got it. He did a lot of teaching. My wife is a teacher, so I can definitely relate. He really didn’t like hypocrites. Neither do we! Alright! I think I get this Jesus guy!”

But this behavior doesn’t fit in either category. It’s not so “out there” that we can put it in the “Marvel” category, and yet it’s not consistent with something any person would do, unless they were a jerk. But Jesus isn’t a jerk. Jesus is the very incarnation of love. The box I had put Jesus in was bursting at the seams and I had to completely let Him out of it so I could try and understand how to reconcile the two.

Mentally, I went back to my Arkansas moving story to try and come up with a different scenario. What would have to change about this unpleasant day for it to not just be okay for Charles not to apologize, but for it to actually be a good thing and completely justified? The substance of the story, the heat, the moving of heavy things, the early morning after a crazy late night…all of those still had to be there. But something had to change.

“If the hardships are still there, what if something happened at the end that changed the way the hardships were viewed?” I started thinking. It would have to be significant…very significant. It would have to be so significant, in fact, that the conclusion’s effects actually rippled backwards in time. Right then, it clicked.

I started imaging the exact same scenario with a drastically different conclusion. What if, after waking up exhausted, working in the heat, and moving heavy things, Charles and I had a different interaction. What if, instead of apologizing, Charles called me over as his cousin went inside to grab us a drink, and…

“Hey, B. I have a little something for you,” Charles says as he sits on the back end of the flatbed trailer.

I walk over, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the end of my shirt.

He leans to the right and I see him reach down under the trailer and pull out a small briefcase I hadn’t noticed before.

Remaining silent, he slowly brings the briefcase up and sets it in his lap. He places one hand on the left side and the other on the right, just above the two clasps. Then, just before I hear them click open, he says, “I wanted to tell you…well done, B. I really appreciate all that you did today.”

As the briefcase is opening, I first see what looks like a stack of paper. Then, as the hot, Arkansas afternoon sunlight better reveals the contents, I realize that this is no ordinary paper. It’s money. Stacks and stacks of one hundred dollar bills, with each bundle bound by a one inch in diameter piece of paper that says $10,000. Somehow, I intuitively know that there is exactly one million dollars in cash in that briefcase, and every single dollar is mine.

Charles watches as my eyes grow large in disbelief.

Normally we experience shock due to negative events, so my mind was not quite sure what to do with the emotions I was feeling. Seconds later, its impact began rushing backwards in time.

Gone is any thought about the exhausting day.

The energy that was completely depleted surged back into my body.

My perspective on the last 8 hours was completely rewritten.

“The heat? What heat?!”

“The dresser wasn’t THAT heavy!”

“Are you sure there isn’t more to do?!”

“I would have gladly gotten out of bed hours earlier to help!”

Taking a deep breath, my eyes gradually move from the briefcase of money to look at Charles, and his face is beaming. A look of complete joy is staring back at me. As we lock eyes, a single tear forms and runs down my cheek and one final question comes to mind.

“Is that ALL I had to go through to receive THIS?!”

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived,
the things God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9

If this world were as it should be, we would not constantly be thinking about things that are “wrong” with it. We would just see it as “what is”. And in almost every circumstance, in almost every relationship, we have an idea of what we are longing for, and yet it never quite hits the mark. At best we get glimpses of the ideal, and even just a glimpse is like a salve for our souls. It’s like a cool drink of water after spending hours in the hot sun.

This world is all wrong, and intuitively we know that. And as a result, we are constantly yearning for it to be put right, attempting to bring order to disorder, healing to pain, and even life to death. We do not for a second think this yearning is out of place, but rather are shocked when we see someone who is content observing the second law of thermodynamics work its magic without some attempt to interfere and make life better.

I believe that our unquenchable desire for things to be set right is a hint…a sign…that there is, or rather will be something more to come. As C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity:

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.“

“And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from
God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud
voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with
man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God
himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be
mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have
passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am
making all things new.”
Revelation 21:2-5a

The fact that Jesus never apologizes for the suffering we will all inevitably endure is not an indication of a lack of concern or of a cold-hearted nature. It is rather, I believe, due to the fact that He fully understands something that we do not. Despite the fleeting glimpses of heaven we get in this world, even though there are Bible verses like the ones above that describe it, they do no justice whatsoever to what it will be like to personally experience it.

Dr. Richard Eby had just fallen two stories and landed headfirst on the sidewalk.

“I was dead on impact. Instantly, with a thud, I arrived at a place that was so ecstatically loaded with love, I knew it was Heaven…Suddenly I had a mind that thought with a speed incomputable on earth. The first time I heard the Lord’s voice, He said, “Dick, you’re dead!”…That He called me by my name showed me the intimacy He has with my existence. I asked, “Why did you call me Dick?” (It was a name used only by close friends and family.) He said, “When I died for you on the cross, it was a most intimate thing.”***2

After being dead for ten hours, Dr. Eby was miraculously revived and never forgot how personally he is known and loved by Jesus. Here, on this earth, our hearts constantly yearn for connection with those closest to us. Yet even our best attempts can often leave scars, because the more we love someone, the more power he or she has to wound us. On the other side, however, all of our wounds will be healed and we will finally experience Love in all of its fullness and our aching desire to connect with others will finally be satisfied.

The love in heaven is also physically manifested in its beauty. Captain Dale, a pilot flying a twin engine Piper Navajo with two of his friends, crashed into a seventy-five-foot-high aviation monument and saw first hand what glories await us.

“I knew instantly that this place was entirely and utterly holy. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew. I was overwhelmed by its beauty. It was breathtaking. And a strong sense of belonging filled my heart; I never wanted to leave. Somehow I knew I was made for this place and this place was made for me…The entire city was bathed in light, an opaque whiteness in which the light was intense but diffused. In that dazzling light every color imaginable seemed to exist and–what’s the right word?–played. The colors seemed to be alive, dancing in the air. I had never seen so many different colors…It was breathtaking to watch. And I could have spent forever doing just that.”3

If, as in my fantastic scenario, Charles had in fact given me a briefcase full of a million dollars for a partial day’s work, any discomfort I had endured would have been immediately forgotten. And I am fully convinced by the words of Scripture, by the first-hand testimony now of thousands of individuals who have had NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and by the love that Jesus Christ demonstrated for us by subjecting Himself to the brutality of the cross on our behalf, that when we pass from this life to the next, we will immediately experience the truth of this passage.

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
2 Corinthians 4:17

The struggles that constantly haunt us, our flaws that bring us shame, the psychological pain that has been inescapable since childhood, will all, at once, be swallowed up into the most exquisite experience possible.

Captain Black continues, “The best unity I have ever felt on earth did not compare with the exhilarating oneness that I experienced with my spiritual family in heaven. This love…God’s love, was transforming. To experience something so sacred, so profound as the boundless love of God was the most thrilling part of heaven.”4 (Imagine Heaven, pg. 98)

So if, my friend, your sky is dark and storm clouds loom ahead; if your past is filled with pain and your present with burdens that make it all but impossible to lift your head…take heart. Look forward to a day that WILL come; a day where in a single moment every second of suffering you have endured will be awash in a love so intense that it will burn away all of the dross, removing every wound and painful memory, leaving only the pure gold gained from those brutal times. Leave your despair behind, loved one, and know that this is only temporary, but the glories that await you are eternal and all will be made new the moment you see your Savior, arms spread wide, and hear him say…

“Welcome home.”

  1. http://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org ↩︎
  2. Burke, John. Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilerating Future That Awaits You. Baker Books, 2015. pp.72-73 ↩︎
  3. Ibid., 102-103 ↩︎
  4. Ibid., 98 ↩︎

*The martyrdom of Polycarp is quite a story and well worth reading. The flames did not kill him, so more drastic measures were needed.

**The book referenced is “IBM and the Holocaust” by Edwin Black. IBM’s assistance of the Nazis was well concealed, so Black recruited a team who worked secretly in many different countries to locate tens of thousands of documents proving the role Watson, IBM, and their many subsidiaries played in determining who the Jews were in country after country, orchestrating their transportation via the railways, and even tracking individuals all the way to their execution via the use of their revolutionary punch card machines.

***”Imagine Heaven” by John Burke is an amazing resource that dives into the world of near-death experiences from a Christian perspective and what they reveal about heaven and the God of the Bible. As medical technology continues to advance, more and more people are coming back to life after being physically dead, and many have experiences that give us valuable insight into what is on the other side. Far from an emotional fluff piece, this book references many published scientific studies about NDEs, including a fascinating study done by the University of Connecticut that only interviewed individuals who were born blind and what they saw while they were “on the other side” if you will.

Note on picture 2: Pictured left to right are Charles, our amazing friend Nathan, (Marshall is not normally the 3rd in our group) and me. I met Nathan through Charles and the three of us have been very close for about 25 years.

Note on picture 3: This is from my most recent trip to Arkansas to visit Nathan, his beautiful family, and Charles. What brought us together was unfortunately the passing of Charles’ mom, but we still had a wonderful time. If you know Charles well at all, you know how greatly he admires his grandparents (pictured), who have been his primary source of wisdom, love, and guidance over the course of his life.

A “Dog Guy” and His Missing Kittens

~ Brian Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“They’re all dead,” Nicole thought as she paced around our large, wooden deck.

“Squishy hasn’t gone under there in over two days, and there’s no way two-week-old kittens could have possibly survived that long without milk.”

During those two days, with mounting concern, she had done some research to see how long young kittens can live without being fed. The consensus: (after more than 4 hours without milk (which is both food AND water for them) two-week-old kittens often require medical attention to survive). There is no way they had survived this long.

(Look below for photo descriptions.)

Nicole gave me her assessment and I started to think about how we might get to their bodies to prevent a foul smell from surrounding our front door. We didn’t even know how many kittens there were, because we had never seen them. Squishy (named by Chandler, our 12-year-old daughter) gave birth to them under our front deck, in an area that is impossible to access without removing the deck planks. She had spent most of her time under there taking care of them until recently. Now she never goes beneath the deck and looks like she’s about to explode due to not having an outlet for her milk.

I’m not what you would call a “cat guy”. In fact, if someone were to call me a “cat guy”, I would make sure the record was corrected immediately. Either that person does not know me at all, or if they do know me, they are cracking a joke or are using it as an insult. Yes, I would take being called a “cat guy” as an insult. Everybody knows Brian is a “dog guy”.

Being a “dog guy”, I’m pretty psychologically well-rounded and can be sympathetic, even to cats, when warranted. As such, Squishy and Toast (again named by Chandler, who loves breakfast foods and enjoys naming our animals after them. Just ask our hen, Waffles. Wait…a coyote got Waffles. Never mind. She did have a good run, though.) Where was I? As such, Squishy and Toast do kind of have a special place in our hearts. You see, one Friday evening Nicole was going to pick up pizza at Papa Murphy’s in Joplin for the four of us. As she turned left from Cedar Dr. onto Rangeline, she saw a cat in the middle of the road that had very recently been run over. As she was taking in the sad sight, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked to the side of the road and two tiny kittens, huddled safely away from the traffic, were crying for their mom. Nicole had a decision to make.

Nicole LOVES animals. But it’s not just that…she is amazing with them. Whether it’s training our beloved yellow lab, Magnus, or working with our horses in the arena, you can witness her come to life when she’s interacting with them. I’ve even seen her take a tiny doe I found under our SUV one morning, lovingly hold it as she removed all of the ticks with a pair of tweezers that were blinding it, then carefully conceal it in a wooded spot in our pasture, only to watch as the mother came back for it that evening.

THIS Nicole witnessed the two orphaned kittens and instantly decided they would become the new barn cats we had been talking about acquiring. She brought them home in a small box to a very excited daughter, and a husband who thought they were cute, but was also a tad concerned…because they were cats.

Toast and Squishy spent a lot of time growing up at our house, especially for “barn” cats, and as they got older, Nicole moved their food down to the barn to make the move official. This meant that the “barn” cats now occasionally went down to the barn to eat, but spent the majority of their waking hours by our front door, and as such became “deck” cats. Even so, with Nicole having rescued the orphaned kittens, then raising them at our house, we had all (yes, me included) grown rather attached to them.

The two spoiled cats got a bit older and their scheduled visit with the vet came up. We really wanted to ensure that the feline population at the Phillips family farm remained at dos gatos (that’s two cats in Spanish), so this pet visit was quite important. However, the day of their appointment, Nicole received a call from the vet letting her know that she would have to reschedule because that part of Joplin was temporarily without electricity.

“Did she reschedule?” you ask.

“Would I be writing this if she did?” I ask in return.

The fact that Nicole had literally rescued Squishy only increased our connection to our cats. Now, Nicole was feeling sad, even though she had never set eyes on Squishy’s offspring, and she was resigning herself to the fact that she never would.

The next morning, my phone rang, and as always, I looked to see who was calling before I answered. It was CD, my good friend and the general contractor who has been overseeing our home remodel for the past year and a half.

CD jumped right in.

“Did one of your cats have kittens?” he asked.

“Yes,” I responded.

“How many?”

“I don’t know, CD. We’ve never seen them. She had them under our deck. Maybe 3 or 4.”

CD sometimes had odd questions, but didn’t normally call me first thing in the morning to quiz me about kittens, so I knew something was up.

“Why?” I asked.

“Wayne took the debris trailer to the dump and after it emptied we heard crying. We were freaked out and started digging through the construction trash and found kittens….four of them.”

This is not where I thought he was going to go with this.

For most of the past year and a half we have had a dump trailer outside of our house, so I immediately assumed that Wayne (CD’s project manager) had taken the trailer directly from our house to empty it, and then bring it right back. I’ve seen them do that a dozen times. What I was about to hear, however, especially in light of what Nicole had told us about how long kittens can live without being fed, would make me wonder if the whole “9 lives” thing might not have some truth to it.

“I assume it’s them, CD, but Squishy hasn’t gone under the deck to take care of them for a while. When did Wayne grab the dump trailer?”

“Three days ago. He picked it up and took it to my office first. It sat out in the parking lot until the next day.”

“It’s 100 degrees outside, CD. And they didn’t even have water.”

“I know. Then he took it to another job where they dumped a bunch of concrete in it,” CD further explained.

“It stayed there overnight, then it came back to my office yesterday. This morning it was full, so he was going to dump it before he took it back to your place.”

“They’re definitely our kittens, then, because that’s about how long they’ve been missing.”

“Okay. That’s crazy! Wayne and I have them in a box, so we’ll bring them to your house right now.”

I hung up the phone and just stood there for a minute. “That IS crazy!” I thought.

I went into the living room where Nicole and the kids were. “So…CD just called…” and I recounted our conversation. Not long after I finished, CD and Wayne pulled up in a very familiar white truck. CD climbed out with a small box in his hands and we all went outside to meet them. Inside of the box was four crying kittens that somehow looked perfectly healthy.

Squishy must have heard her babies, and within moments, was by our side. Nicole then grabbed a bulb tote from the basement, put a towel in the bottom, and after three days of being apart, reunited a very happy mom with her babies.

Update: I originally wrote this a couple of months ago and have been meaning to wrap it up to post it, but I’m just now getting around to it. Since I originally wrote it, we have found amazing homes for 2 of the kittens and we found a new home for Toast. Nicole gets pictures from their new owners and all of them LOVE the new addition to their families.

Photo 1: Spoiler alert! The 4 kittens were not dead! This is a couple of weeks after we got them back.
Photo 2: Shortly after Squishy (right) and Toast (left) were rescued by Nicole, she gave them a much-needed bath. They loved it!
Photo 3: Squishy (left) and Toast (right) are in their rebellious teenage phase. You can tell just by looking at their expressions. “Stop taking my picture!” Toast would be saying.
Photo 4: This is the actual trailer the kittens were moved to by Squishy, most likely to get them away from the watchful eye of Ivan, my mother-in-law’s giant Schnauzer.
Photo 5: Uncle Magnus (our amazing yellow lab) LOVES the kittens! He just wants to be their friend but often gets a little overbearing and they have to scare him away.

Here are a few more pictures, just because they’re cute.

This is Wayne, named after the man who rescued them from the debris.
Squishy took very good care of her 4 babies. We’re still waiting on the dad to start paying kitten support.
Our daughter, Chandler, shares her mom’s love of animals.
We left an opening in the deck so that Squishy, Marcel (name inspired in part by Marcel, the Shell with Shoes On and by the famous French mine, Marcel) and Wayne can always escape from their nemesis, Ivan.
Uncle Magnus often goes to the deck looking for his friends to see if they want to play. They typically hide under the deck when they see him coming.

When Your Mess Meets the Cross

~ Brian Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Times were tough and finances were scarce as they often are in the early stages of a relationship for this young couple. There was also a baby on the way, which made things even more stressful. Marriage and the birth of a child are both beautiful events, but context can change everything. Throw in a little poverty, a rushed marriage due to an unplanned pregnancy, and you’re looking at a messy start to a new family. There would definitely be some hushed whispers from the old-timers if this unwed, expecting couple walked into your local Baptist church.

“Life is not going to be easy for that child,” the gray-haired man whispers to his hunched over wife. His words were more accurate than he could have ever imagined.

We’ve all met young families like this one. When you’re in their presence you can feel the undercurrent of stress. Getting to know them well is difficult because dealing with their own issues consumes most of their time and energy. They can be kind, but they’re also scared as they navigate completely foreign ground, not knowing what the next step is going to look like. After a short interaction, they walk away and we feel a twinge of sympathy for them, knowing they’re getting off to a rough start. Life can be challenging when things are good, but when life throws you a few curve balls (or we make a few bad decisions) the chances of thriving can be greatly diminished.

Underlying our thoughts about this particular couple is a simple phrase that we rarely come right out and say… “They really screwed this up.” After this thought come the more specific criticisms:

“Everybody knows you shouldn’t get pregnant before you get married.”

“They really should have waited until they were in a better financial position before they even entertained the thought of marriage.”

“If only they had been active in church things would have been different.”

In short, they had made decisions we knew better than to make and now they’re suffering the consequences. Truth be told, we feel that way about a lot of people: the 35 year-old single mom working the cash register at McDonald’s; the janitor in his fifties at WalMart; the young couple walking out of Food-4-Less carrying a baby. We shake our heads as they carry their crying baby past us, loaded down with groceries, and continue walking out of the parking lot to the trailer park a half mile down the road.

“I’m so glad I made better decisions than they did,” we think to ourselves.

We feel sorry for all of these people, believing that even though God loves them, there is no way this could have been what He intended their lives to look like. God’s plan A had long since been aborted. At best, they are on Plan B. More likely, though, we’re seeing D or E, because they blew A through C a long time ago.

It’s one thing to feel sympathy for someone else and the disastrous predicament he or she might have created. It’s something else entirely when we are the ones living in the midst of the messy, stress-saturated life.

You are completely blind-sided as your spouse of 18 years walks out the door, straight into the arms of another.

You have a stack of bills that are due and your checking account balance is negative. Your heart starts racing every time you see a tow truck, because you know it very well could be coming to repossess your car that you desperately need to get to and from your job.

You’ve tried your best to do everything right, and yet you find yourself in a job you absolutely despise. When you get home every evening, all you can think of is the fact that you have to go back there tomorrow…and the next day, and the next. A few drinks provide your only reprieve.

During these times, the paradigm through which you view everything can be altered. I don’t know if there is a phrase for “the opposite of rose colored glasses”, but there definitely should be.

“I’ve really screwed this all up. And what’s worse is that I have no idea how to fix it. I used to believe that God had a plan for my life, but there is no way in the world I’m still in it. I know how I thought my life would look at this point, but this looks like a disaster! I know the Lord is disappointed in me, and I don’t blame Him.”

As these thoughts more fully influence our thinking, and we buy into the idea that there’s no way God’s plan for our life could possibly account for our own stupidity and disobedience, our faith gradually dissipates. With it, so does any peace we once had.

For some reason, we’ve come to believe that a loving God’s plan for our life is supposed to be pretty. If things are a mess, then that’s on us and “God’s beautiful plan” for our lives is only something that could have taken place. But not now. Now it’s up to us to attempt to salvage something from this mess we’ve created.

But what if we’re wrong?

A man spending years rotting in prison for attempted rape is surely getting what he deserves. We would never dream of telling him he’s right where God wants him to be.

A woman on the streets, selling her shame-soaked body to complete strangers is beyond hope. God could never use someone who stooped that low.

A vengeful fanatic seeking out and murdering his enemies would be well beyond the reach of God’s love. There’s bound to be a special place in hell for a person like that!

We’d likely look at each of these three people as a lost cause. Heck! They make our messes look pretty good!

But what if life isn’t only within its proper bounds when it’s close to ideal? What if our lives can become absolutely brutal and we can feel like we’ve screwed everything up, but we can still put our trust in a loving God and His plan for us? What if, in His grand wisdom and knowledge of all things, He had already accounted for this “mess” and it had been a central part of His plan all along? And what if His love for you never wavered for a moment, even when you were at your worst?

The young man who spent some of his best years rotting in prison had not been forgotten. He was the very person God chose to become the second most powerful person in the world. Even though he was a spoiled, obnoxious child, God used his hardships and time in prison to change his heart and allow him to forgive his brothers who had betrayed him years ago. God blessed him with incredible wisdom that He then used to ensure the survival of the people of Israel. The story of Joseph has inspired and given hope to millions, and the phrase, “What man meant for evil, God meant for good” has allowed us to view our worst situations (and people) as fully within God’s plans.

Every night as the prostitute cried herself to sleep God heard her prayers. And once she met Him, the very life that brought her unimaginable shame, now fully forgiven, became the source of the great love she had for her Savior. She would then use the perfume that had assisted her in luring others into sin to anoint Jesus in a way that will be spoken of for all time, because of its meaning and beauty.

Selfishness, disobedience, sexual impurity….maybe God can forgive and use people who have those flaws. But a murderer?! Surely that person was beyond God’s ability to salvage. And yet, as if He was attempting to show us how little we think of the power of His redemption, He takes this very self-righteous man, gives him a new name, and makes Paul one of the founders of His church.

What if a young couple with a scandalous marriage, living in poverty, with severed relationships with much of their community wasn’t a hopeless case from God’s perspective. In fact, what if He thinks so differently about life’s circumstances than we do that He chose this young husband and wife to bear the greatest honor of any couple yet to walk the earth? That’s exactly what He did when he used them to bring His Son into this world. A king was born in scandal, obscurity, and poverty, and yet His life, death and resurrection flipped this life on its head. Our messes, previously a source of shame, fear, and doubt, once exposed to the light of His redemption, can become something beautiful.

It’s almost impossible to stop viewing our own lives from our perspective, through a lens of judgment and condemnation. But as we get to know Him better, a new perspective gradually emerges. Then one night as you quietly lean over and kiss the forehead of your precious, sleeping children, knowing you would do absolutely anything in the world for them, even if it meant giving your own life, it dawns on you….

“He loves me like this!”

And everything changes.

And Heaven Moves

~ Brian Phillips ~ 4 Comments

When you tell a friend who is going through a hard time that your “thought and prayers” are with them, you mean it. But some would say that your attempt to bring comfort amounts to empty words. I have a friend who would strongly disagree with those skeptics. He and I went through the Dale Carnegie Professional Training program together, and with tears in his eyes, and a shaky voice, he finally made it through this story.

His name is Terry.

Terry’s eyes shoot open! By the time he regains consciousness, he realizes that he is Scared in bedsitting up in bed. He’s not just sitting up, but his heart is also pounding in his chest. His breathing is short and quick.

What’s going on?!

He looks around the room and his eyes settle on the blue numbers on his digital clock on the nightstand. It’s 2:33 am.

Somethings wrong.

He doesn’t know how he knows. But he knows. Something is very wrong. But what? How would I even know?…

Ben! It’s Ben! Something’s happened to my son! What can I do?! I don’t even know where he is!

(PRAY.)

The word wasn’t audible, but it might as well have been. There was authority behind it, and it wasn’t a request. It was a command.

Terry threw his covers off, jumped out of his bed and fell to his knees. Then he opened his mouth and said the first words that would come to any loving father’s mind.

“Dear God! Please…please, protect my son.”

(Exactly one minute and thirty seconds earlier.)

Dark windy roadsBen is exhausted as he drives home after working the late shift.

Too much drama. Not enough pay. He thinks as he continues on, trying desperately to stay awake for the 25 minute commute.

His eyes start to droop as he navigates the dark windy roads of Northwest Arkansas.

BAM! He hears a sudden noise and opens his eyes! But it’s too late.

The right side of his car goes off of the steep shoulder and his wheels are turned sharply to the left. The axle holding the right front wheel bends as that tire takes the impact of the rocky ground and sends the mid-sized car flipping down the side of Highway 16.

Ben doesn’t notice the deafening crashing sounds, or the shattering glass that sends tiny shards into his arms and face. He is completely unaware of everything until

I can’t breathe!

He can barely move, but he does his best to groggily asses the situation. The car is upside down. His head and some of his upper body are outside of the car, but the rest is in some weird, twisted position around the steering wheel and dashboard. As the blood starts to fill his right eye, he makes one feeble effort to free himself and absolutely nothing moves. All he feels is the pain.

That’s when he realizes how desperate his situation is. The mangled car has pinned him to the ground and is crushing his chest. To be able to breathe, he would have to lift the entire weight of the car. His lungs slowly start to ache.

(75 miles away at that very moment.)

“Dear God! Please…please, protect my son…….” and the tears and groans of a loving father Dad Prayingbegin to flow.

Just as Ben is starting to lose consciousness he hears a faint sound. As it gets closer, he realizes that it sounds like someone walking on gravel. It seems like a dream, but it keeps getting closer. His will to hang on gets a boost when he sees a shoe less than a foot away from his head.

The steps stop, then he senses the person stooping down. His hand brushes Ben’s shoulder as he grips the edge of the twisted car.

The metal creaks loudly and tiny pieces of glass start falling like jagged drops of rain as the side of the 3,400 pound Camry is lifted completely off of the ground.

Inhale!

The oxygen burns as it enters his lungs and for a few moments he doesn’t notice the pain as the euphoria of being able to breathe sweeps over him.

As his breathing starts to slow, the pain returns. He doesn’t even try to locate the source because it feels like it’s coming from everywhere, and it is more pain than he has ever felt in his entire life.

As if his very welcome guest could sense his panic, he speaks.

“You’re going to be okay, Ben. Just don’t move.”

The words are confident….calm…loving…

A wave of peace flows over Ben as he drifts off into oblivion.

Emergency VehiclesHe opens his eyes when he hears the scream of sirens and all he can see is emergency lights flashing all around him. As his eyes adjust, he looks around him and thankfully takes a breath when he sees the same shoes right next to his head. He then looks at his chest where the car was crushing him. He takes a deep breath and winces as pain shoots through his ribs. Then he notices the car, still suspended 6 inches above his broken and bruised body.

How long have I been here?! he wonders to himself.

“About thirty minutes. But you’ll be out soon.”

Ben tries to move to see the man’s face, but he is leaning over and it is blocked by the car. As his clarity of thought starts to return, it occurs to him how crazy this all is.

“Sir, what is your….”

The emergency personnel quickly surround Ben, checking his vitals, telling him not to move. Soon the Jaws of Life come out and within minutes, Ben is on a stretcher being wheeled towards the waiting ambulance.

“Where is the man who helped me?” Ben asks, immediately realizing there is no way the EMT heart him over all of the noise.

“The man! Where is he?!”

The closest paramedic hears him. “Who’s that, son?”

“The one who helped me. I couldn’t breathe. He lifted the car.” His thoughts are still a little jumbled.

“He sure did, son!”

“Who is he?!”

“We don’t know. None of us have ever seen him before.”

“Well…where did he go?!” Ben asks, desperate to thank the man who kept him from suffocating.

“I’m not sure, son. He just started walking that way,” he said and pointed.

Right before they load him into the ambulance, Ben looks off in the direction the man isDark road pointing and sees a nothing but a dark, windy road. He squints and strains his eyes until they hurt, and when he is totally convinced that there is absolutely nobody else on that deserted Arkansas road, he slowly turns his eyes towards the heavens.

 

What to do When it Breaks: A Lesson from the First Moon Landing

~ Brian Phillips ~ Leave a comment

When you aim for the moon, you intend to make it; because you’re not likely apollo-11to get a second chance.

Neil Armstrong knew he was risking his life on the Apollo 11, but he was willing to take that risk. America had set its goal, the entire world was watching, and there was no turning back.

With so much new technology traveling at speeds up to 24,200 miles per hour, they were anticipating some challenges. But NASA wanted to be as prepared as humanly possible when those issues arose.

Discussing his historical flight to the moon, Neil Armstrong explained that NASA had assembled on site or waiting by the phone the individuals who had designed and built every single significant part of the Apollo 11. That way if something went wrong, they could get answers immediately.

NASA understood a powerful principle: if you want to know how to fix something when it breaks, you talk to the person who designed it in the first place.

This doesn’t just apply to machines and electronics, however. It also applies to you and me; and we’re all just a little bit broken.

“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run frustrated-mechanicon petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself,” C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity.

Have you ever heard someone say, “To heck with my car maintenance manual! I bet they’re just trying to keep me from driving really fast! Oil is expensive, and I don’t have any; but I have plenty of maple syrup. The two look almost the same, and besides, what do they know?!”

When it comes to the basics in life, our common sense typically prevails and we consult the manual when something goes wrong with one of our  machines. So why don’t we consult the manual written by our Designer when we want to know how to live our lives to the fullest, fix a relationship, or put things back together after everything has fallen apart?

It’s never too late to change that, though. The Manual is sitting right there on your bookshelf, night stand or end table. It might be a bit dusty, but never mind that. Pick it up, blow off the dust, and marvel at how your Designer knows exactly how to deal with what’s broken in your life.