I heard a story that put a smile on my face and also taught me a valuable lesson.
Johnny was trying to sell a car. He had posted it in the newspaper and a pottential buyer was on his way over to take a look at the car.
As Johnny was backing the car out of the garage in order to get it ready to show, he accidently hit the corner of the garage. The front end of the car, in the quarter panel area aquired a small dent.
Bewildered by the turn in his luck, Johnny, along with his brother, who was also present, tried desperately to fix the dent.
They grabbed a hammer and quickly tried to hit the small dent out of the quarter panel, from the inside.
It was tough however, because, as you may realize, it is not easy to fit one's hand and a hammer behind the tire of a car, toward the back side of the panel.
As Johnny and his brother were struggling with the dent, Johnny's wife walked out of the house.
She asked the two men what they were up to. Without looking up Johnny explained the situation and the urgency in trying to solve the problem, before the pottential buyer was going to show up.
Johnny's wife, who knew nothing about cars, chimed in her two cents.
"Why don't you take the tire off the car, so that you have more room to work with in hammering out the dent, and after you hammered out the dent you can place the tire back on the frame."
Johnny thought for a minute and then snapped at his wife.
"Are you trying to teach me how to fix a car? What do you know about cars anyways?"
As soon as Johnny's wife stepped back into the house, he and his brother did just as his wife suggested. They put the car up on a jack, took off the tire, hammered the small dent out of the panel and then placed the tire back on.
I thought it was humorous how Johnny was too proud to follow his wife's advice, which was better than what he had come up with, and then followed her advice once she left.
I think this is sometimes a 'man' thing. It is hard for us men to humble ourselves about certain things even though it would be beneficial. Is there any areas in which us men can humble with ease?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
What "limitele harului" means
The name of my blog talks about grace. “har” is theRomanian word for grace. Limitele Harului, translated literally, means “the limits of grace”.
A more appropriate translation would be “the boundaries of grace”. I am sort of playing with words because, biblically speaking, there are no limits or boundaries to God’s grace even if some people have a tendency to fence it.
Growing up, I often dealt with rules.Even though I was aware of God’s love, I knew Him as a God of “Fire and Brimstone.”
I have since grown to understand that even though I am to reverence God, I should not be terrified of Him. I am so grateful to God for the Grace He showed me through Jesus Christ and the love He continues to shower me with daily.
As a side note, this does not mean that I do not embrace Jesus’ words from John where He says that if we love him we must keep his commandments.
In a nut shell, the nature of my upbringing has helped me become ever so grateful of God’s grace which has no boundaries. I thought this was best expressed in Romanian through the words "limitele harului."
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).
A more appropriate translation would be “the boundaries of grace”. I am sort of playing with words because, biblically speaking, there are no limits or boundaries to God’s grace even if some people have a tendency to fence it.
Growing up, I often dealt with rules.Even though I was aware of God’s love, I knew Him as a God of “Fire and Brimstone.”
I have since grown to understand that even though I am to reverence God, I should not be terrified of Him. I am so grateful to God for the Grace He showed me through Jesus Christ and the love He continues to shower me with daily.
As a side note, this does not mean that I do not embrace Jesus’ words from John where He says that if we love him we must keep his commandments.
In a nut shell, the nature of my upbringing has helped me become ever so grateful of God’s grace which has no boundaries. I thought this was best expressed in Romanian through the words "limitele harului."
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Fake Obedience
I have recently written on what I like to call 'fake obedience' and started my writing with the following childhood story:
"I was the second of nine children born in my family, and growing up my father wanted us children, to know the Lord.
He did everything he could to make us have a relationship with the Lord. He made church attendance a priority; at home he challenged us to pray; he explained Scripture to us.
His desire to help us mature led him to be a strict father. Living under his roof, meant living a life of restrictions. Things we enjoyed, such as sports and television, were forbidden or allowed only in moderation.
My father was especially harsh with his three oldest boys, my two brothers and I, knowing that we would set an example for the rest to follow. In order to ensure excellent behavior, he monitored most of the activities in which we participated.
If we wanted to go to a friend’s house, we needed to give him details of what would be happening there. If we wanted to play at a park, he needed to know where we would be playing, who would be there, and when we were coming back. We were not to watch movies, play video games, or listen to questionable music.
I had a brother who was one year older and one that was one year younger than I. The three of us did much of everything together. The one thing we enjoyed doing together most was playing sports.
Because of his traditional Christians views, my father was not crazy about sports. He saw sports as worldly and not something that a Christian should engage in.
Knowing that our father disliked sports we were not eager to ask for permission to play at the park. So that no one had to carry all of the responsibility of asking, we would take turns, requesting play sessions at the park.
Understanding that we needed to burn off energy, my father allowed us to go to the park, a ten minute ride from our house.
Before leaving, my father clarified the terms of our contract. One of the clauses would include the time we were to be back home. We were usually given a couple hours to play.
The park was a different world to us. Everything in life became secondary to our play. There was so much enthusiasm in kicking a soccer ball or playing catch. Our fun became so central that time was no longer of the essence. Our allotted playing time would come and go as we continued, hard at work, in our play.
And sometimes, we did not forget about the time, we chose to ignore it. The longing for play was stronger than any restriction placed on us. We were willing to have fun then and deal with the consequences later. Not giving much thought to our defiance, we would merrily continue chasing down fly balls or shooting jump shots.
Once we finally stopped from our play, the sobering reality, of our disobedient behavior, quickly settled in. We knew it would not be easy to explain our disobedience to our father.
The bike ride home was long and agonizing. As we pulled around the corner, house coming into view, we hoped dad’s car was not in the driveway. If he was not home, the heart of our mother would be softened with ease. She was quick to forgive our disobedience.
If dad’s car was home, we were doomed. Actually, there was one glimmer of hope. We needed to sneak into the house, without being seen, and give the impression that we had gotten home on time. While dad was busy with work, we might be able to get away with our insubordination.
Of course, we had not been obedient, we had just faked obedience. By sneaking into the house without being seen, we were sometimes able to trick our dad into thinking that we had been home on time.
In tricking him, we could avoid the punishment that was rightfully ours. The fact that we were able to trick my father did not mean that God was deceived. He was still able to see that we had not been obedient. We had covered disobedience with a façade of obedience. We had been deceptive in order to give a false impression of obedience."
"I was the second of nine children born in my family, and growing up my father wanted us children, to know the Lord.
He did everything he could to make us have a relationship with the Lord. He made church attendance a priority; at home he challenged us to pray; he explained Scripture to us.
His desire to help us mature led him to be a strict father. Living under his roof, meant living a life of restrictions. Things we enjoyed, such as sports and television, were forbidden or allowed only in moderation.
My father was especially harsh with his three oldest boys, my two brothers and I, knowing that we would set an example for the rest to follow. In order to ensure excellent behavior, he monitored most of the activities in which we participated.
If we wanted to go to a friend’s house, we needed to give him details of what would be happening there. If we wanted to play at a park, he needed to know where we would be playing, who would be there, and when we were coming back. We were not to watch movies, play video games, or listen to questionable music.
I had a brother who was one year older and one that was one year younger than I. The three of us did much of everything together. The one thing we enjoyed doing together most was playing sports.
Because of his traditional Christians views, my father was not crazy about sports. He saw sports as worldly and not something that a Christian should engage in.
Knowing that our father disliked sports we were not eager to ask for permission to play at the park. So that no one had to carry all of the responsibility of asking, we would take turns, requesting play sessions at the park.
Understanding that we needed to burn off energy, my father allowed us to go to the park, a ten minute ride from our house.
Before leaving, my father clarified the terms of our contract. One of the clauses would include the time we were to be back home. We were usually given a couple hours to play.
The park was a different world to us. Everything in life became secondary to our play. There was so much enthusiasm in kicking a soccer ball or playing catch. Our fun became so central that time was no longer of the essence. Our allotted playing time would come and go as we continued, hard at work, in our play.
And sometimes, we did not forget about the time, we chose to ignore it. The longing for play was stronger than any restriction placed on us. We were willing to have fun then and deal with the consequences later. Not giving much thought to our defiance, we would merrily continue chasing down fly balls or shooting jump shots.
Once we finally stopped from our play, the sobering reality, of our disobedient behavior, quickly settled in. We knew it would not be easy to explain our disobedience to our father.
The bike ride home was long and agonizing. As we pulled around the corner, house coming into view, we hoped dad’s car was not in the driveway. If he was not home, the heart of our mother would be softened with ease. She was quick to forgive our disobedience.
If dad’s car was home, we were doomed. Actually, there was one glimmer of hope. We needed to sneak into the house, without being seen, and give the impression that we had gotten home on time. While dad was busy with work, we might be able to get away with our insubordination.
Of course, we had not been obedient, we had just faked obedience. By sneaking into the house without being seen, we were sometimes able to trick our dad into thinking that we had been home on time.
In tricking him, we could avoid the punishment that was rightfully ours. The fact that we were able to trick my father did not mean that God was deceived. He was still able to see that we had not been obedient. We had covered disobedience with a façade of obedience. We had been deceptive in order to give a false impression of obedience."
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