Whirled Views with Dan Burrell

Does anyone else remember the comic strips Charles Schulz would draw that had Lucy sitting behind a cardboard stand offering psychiatric help for five cents? Apparently, Im even more pathetic than Lucy was as I frequently find myself in the position of wanting to offer some advice myself, only I dont even get paid a nickel for it. I have to pay for it myself! But a mans got to do what a mans got to do, so heres some more of my free advice for a few folks I wish would listen.

Attention all Hollywood producers and directors! Do you people really talk like the characters in your movies talk? Did your mother never wash your mouths out with soap? Do you eat with those mouths? Why do you think we want to hear people use language like that and not only that but to pay for the privilege? Are you all so lacking in creative ability that you cant make your characters capable of expressing themselves without making them sound like drunken sailors? (My apologies to sailors everywhere both hammered and sober for that last comment.)

While I’m thinking about it Id like to offer some words of wisdom to Barbra Striesand, Ben Affleck, Mike Farrell, Michael Moore and all the other Hollywood inbreds who keep criticizing our country and its President and trying to tell us how they think things should be. I know you folks work in Hollywood, so Im going to speak really slow so you can understand, We dont CARE what you think politically! We already know that you are so liberal youll only eat the left wing of a free-range, no-chemicals-injected, tofu-substitute chicken. So quit yammering about President Bush, Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans. Didnt the last election demonstrate to you that the heartland doesnt really pay attention to your political views anyway? We want you to make us laugh and cry and even occasionally think when you do your sometimes-debatable artistic expressions and weve made you very rich in the process. But other than that just leave us alone! There.I feel better! How about you?

While we are on the subject of Hollywood, can I offer some advice to people who own video stores? With all the other entertainment options via cable, satellite and computer competing against your bottom line, Ive got an idea for you. Offer to rent the edited versions of PG-13 and R-Rated movies that you show on airplanes. I dont rent movies that are filled with that kind of language, but there are some that look interesting. Im more likely to rent them if youd clean them up first. If you can do it for your airplane audiences, how about doing it for your rental audience as well. Just a thought.

Michael Jackson, heres some words of advice for you. Get some help. I used to laugh at you, cringe at you, mock you and frankly be revolted by you. Im at the point now that I just pity you. Ive never seen a more lost soul in my life. How sad your existence must be and so empty as evidenced by your inability to accept yourself as God created you. Your warped values have made you a danger to children on several different levels. You need a core thats built on eternal Truth and that cant be found apart from a personal relationship with God. Your music, your appearance, your mannerisms, your values all scream that you are a man searching for a foundation. Youll find it in Christ.

And now for some words for the dads. Check you what your daughters are wearing. Ive got sons and Ive got daughters. I worry about them both in different ways. Its hard enough raising kids with good morals without having them constantly surrounded by in-your-face sexuality at every turn. Sadly, that happens at church, school events and youth activities any more. Your daughter (and mine) doesnt need to be flashing their midriff at the boys. When their tops are tight enough to serve as a quasi-thermometer, then a real dad would say, Honey, youre not going to be able to wear that anymore. When their jeans are tight enough to identify bikinis vs. thongs (what business does a pure young single lady have wearing a thong anyways?), then its time to move up to the next size sweetie. Let them know Everybody may be wearing it, but I love you enough to tell you that you arent. Lets go shopping and get some better cool clothes that will keep your dad from having a stroke, OK?

And while were on the topic, heres some words for dads and their sons as well. You know the whole double-standard thing (wink-wink) about how far a guy can go before hes married verses how far a girl should go? Well, its not recognized in our house. Stay pure, keep your hands to yourself, get to know your dates dad and work to impress him with your virtue and character, keep your hands where everyone can see them and treat your girlfriend with the respect youd want someone to treat your mother or sister. And by the way, Pornography will rot your soul and will rob your spirit when it comes to having a normal outlook, appetite and outlet for your sexuality, so stay away from it like the poison it is. If I catch you cruising on the internet and going to places you and I both know are wrong, youll be back in the technological dark ages faster than you can say Pamela Anderson.

And now for the Pastors in Bible-Preaching churches everywhere, Now more than ever, we need men of integrity preaching the Word of God without apology. Too many of us have fallen into sin, habits and lethargy that are hurting the reputation of our high office. Add to this the sad, though inappropriate, comparisons to our position and those who are priests in the Catholic church and weve lost some credibility and opportunities. Lets be more diligent than ever in staying in the Word and on our knees as we call people to Biblical living and repentance. Lets never be afraid to be the lone-voices in our communities calling for righteousness. We already know who wins in the end, lets just be faithful until that day.

Last night, I was at a meeting with a pretty large group of leaders from our church and the host of the meeting mentioned something that I had said at a Wedding Rehearsal Dinner for his son a few years ago. It deals with my philosophy of living that challenges us to provide some space in our lives for the unexpected, unplanned and unintentional things of life.

Years ago when I was still teaching high school students English, much of my free time was spent grading book reports, essays and various types of compositions. I had a few students who made my life very difficult because they simply refused to leave margins around the edges of their papers. They would cram so many words on the paper, that I would have no space available to write my comments and notes on their work. A paper without margins leads to frustration.

Its my opinion that many people lead their lives similarly. We cram so many activities into life, we buy into the cultural mentality that we must or can have it all, we fill our lives to the very edges of time and resources and we are missing a key ingredient to fulfilled life and relationships and ministry BALANCE.

We dont have or make the time to do that which is important because we have become slaves to that which is urgent. We over-obligate ourselves to the trivial or unnecessary while the truly important things wait patiently and quietly undone or unattended.

There are consequences to this kind of living. Burnout is often the result of living life in a constant state of high gear. Ive had people say to me that theyd rather burn out than rust out, but thats not logical. Whether you burn out or rust out, out is still out. Neither state is healthy.

Living without balance can also lead to excessive weariness, depression, frustration, impatience, anger, indebtedness and physical ailments. We will neglect important relationships, we will rarely have time to meditate or rejuvenate, we will become slaves to projects or property or priorities that will leave us spent and feeling empty. Invariably, one of the first things that people discard when losing their balance is their relationship with the Lord and their ministry for the Lord. We start skipping services, leaving town for the week-ends to get away, drop ministries or give them less than our best, quit giving or grow bitter. We operate on the spiritual fumes of duty and miss the joy of devotion.

Living with balance is essential for the mature believer. Living with balance requires us to live with discipline. We have to determine what is REALLY important and then do those things first. Personal time with God, family time, ministering to our spiritual family, career to name a few. These things become non-negotiables and anything else we might add cannot impinge upon them.

We simply must learn to smile nicely and say no to those things that will over-load us. It is better to do a few things well than a lot of things poorly or excessively. Here are some practical ideas:

- Schedule a mandatory family meal every day. At least once every day, family time must be a priority.
- Determine when you will spend time alone with God and then do it. If you skip it, deny yourself some other privilege like TV or reading the newspaper, until you take time to hear from God.
- Say NO to some family things. Many homes are ruled by sports schedules, music lessons, play groups, field trips and other good things. Each of these things can be positive, but theres no way one can or should do them all. Let each child develop one or two areas in their life. Reserve a family night each week where nothing can interfere. (I recommend Thursday or Friday night.) In reality, it may be more important for you to spend time at home wrestling on the floor or doing a puzzle with your kids than to have them at soccer games or at yet another birthday party.
- Declutter. The more stuff you have, the more maintenance it requires. Do you really need five bedrooms, a boat, four pets, a room of toys, a shed of junk, etc, etc? We can spend so much time minding our possessions that they eventually start minding us!

There are many other things we might do to add balance to our lives and Ive only begun to address this topic. Healthy living is balanced living. Christ was never frenetic or out of balance in the way He led and ministered. Lets follow His example and live and minister with balance!

Several weeks ago, someone I respect noted my tendency to get so pre-occupied with the details of ministry and leadership that I sometimes miss the personal touches that are essential in being a good pastor. Being a good preacher or administrator or visionary is not enough in ministry or in making a difference in people’s lives. Sometimes it is a matter of noticing what people are doing, saying “thanks”, meeting a need or simply listening.

For the last seven or eight years, as a family missions project, my family sends a few hundred dollars per year to a national pastor in India. We have never met him and we were put into contact with each other through a friend who matches impoverished national pastors in difficult countries with American sponsors. My pastor friend, whose name is Birendra Parricha, probably makes less in a month than I do in a day. He walked or rode a bicycle everywhere until I raised enough money to buy him a moped a few years ago so he could get to more villages where he is training and discipling young men for the ministry. He sends me the occasional photograph of his family, the classes he teaches or something he has purchased with money I have sent him.

A few years ago, I received an email from Pastor Parricha. He is only able to send me an email on rare occasions as he must either rent computer time or borrow access to a computer. The email was a letter thanking me for a gift I had sent him. I want to quote from a paragraph in his letter to me. The words, exactly as he wrote them, are his:

Thank you for this response. When I saw I got relief and much delighted
for. you are strengthening the pegs of tent and vision of my Ministries. May
God bless you and Lord be highly glorified.

One phrase in his letter leaped at me from my screen you are strengthening the pegs of [my] tent.

Isaiah 54:2 uses a similar phrase, but not in a similar context. Im not sure whether he was alluding to this Biblical passage or if this was an expression unique to the Indian culture, but I know that I have never had anything said to me that has encouraged me more. To think, that I, thousands of miles away, in personal comfort and ease, could actually be used by God in the life of this faithful servant in such a way that he would tell me that I strengthen the pegs of his tent is profoundly moving to me.

What a compliment! What a blessing! And as usual when I get hit with simple profundity, it motivated me to think.

Wouldnt it be exciting if we all looked around for fellow believers, personal friends or total strangers, and looked for ways to strengthen their pegs? I have mental images of someone taking a small sledge and driving loose and worn pegs deeper into the ground. I have a vision of loose or slack ropes being tightened and retied to make them more secure. Of sagging tents now standing taut and erect because someone came along and took a few moments to do some maintenance.

How many of us unintentionally walk by good people who could use a little attention on our part that would encourage, revive and recharge them for more effective and joyful ministry? Wouldnt it be wonderful if each of us were one-person teams of peg strengtheners?

My Indian pastor friend lives in a house thats probably smaller than my living room. Hes never owed a car; I have two. He doesnt own a computer; I have four. Hes never traveled outside of India; Ive been around the world. And he tells ME that Ive strengthened his pegs? No..he has strengthened mine!

And isnt that wonderful how God works? When we are a blessing to others, we always get more of a blessing back. Call it reciprocal peg strengthening, call it New Testament Christianity, but it is definitely part of what God has called us to do.

How sad that I often become so self-absorbed with my own petty little problems that I rob myself and others of the blessing of being a blessing. How many times have I walked by a fellow believer in need because I was too self-focused that I could not see that their condition was much more dire than mine.

The news of the day is that SpongeBob Square Pants is suspected of being gay (or so we are lead to believe by smirking newscasters on virtually every channel.) I’m a little fuzzy on all of this due to the fact that I’m apparently one of only twelve people on the entire planet who has yet to watch an episode of this cartoon character who lives beneath the sea. Apparently, one of the markers of his true sexual tendencies is that he sometimes holds hands with a young male starfish. (I’m thinking that interaction between sponges and starfish could be frowned upon on several different levels if we’re going to go down that path. Which we aren’t.)

This appears to be one of those cases wherein the media is hyping some rather ill-thought-out (read: STUPID) comments by an official with Focus on the Family who has some (otherwise legitimate) concerns about a “sensitivity” video being distributed to schools in the name of tolerance education which uses a variety of popular cartoon characters ranging from the big yellow sponge himself to Winnie-the-Pooh and others to promote “acceptance” of diversity and which tacitly includes homosexuality as worthy of tolerance. (How’s that for one humdinger of a run-on sentence?)

Of course, still lingering in the media air like the stench of week-old mackeral patties is Jerry Falwell’s accusation that one of the British Teletubbies was/is gay which made headlines a few years ago. I have various reasons for suspecting certain Brits (and French for that matter) of being a little light in their loafers, but I never could quite see how the purple tubbie was the equivalent of Boy George wearing velour (though it DID look a little like Elton John I must admit.)

Apparently there was some confusion about two websites both using the “We Are Family” domain name in similar ways which led to this controversy, though the Focus on the Family representative stuck by his guns and pointed to a diversity “pledge” that seems to include homosexual tolerance in it. But let’s face it, here’s what the majority of the population has gotten out of all this….

“RIGHT-WING, FUNDAMENTALIST WHACKO’S DECLARE SPONGEBOB QUEER!!!!!”

It’s really not all that much about Spongebob (who shows up at my house on my 16- year old’s boxers with sickening regularity — Go figure.) It’s about a subtle agenda that extreme left and those bent on diversity correctness have with re-educated our kiddo’s to see homosexuality as just “another” lifestyle choice and we should be OK with it.

Sadly, these family “leaders” have fallen into the trap of appearing to be radically stupid. (Just like Jerry did a couple of years ago.) This at a time when James Dobson has been front-and-center in Washington during inaugural festivities appearing on numerous television shows as an expert and part of the reason why Bush won re-election. There’s no doubt that the credibility of the Christian right is going to take some (perhaps well-deserved) hits over this. I’m thinking that maybe they got a little cocky and I think the press was looking for an excuse or an opportunity to take them down a peg or two. Mission accomplished.

Of greater concern to me, however, is the reality that once again we are reducing this crucial debate to extremes and caricatures and stereotypes.

This week, I had a most interesting conversation with a leader in a local advocacy group for Gay/Lesbian/Transgender teenagers. Recently, I’ve been quoted in some local media outlets on a controversy involving “gay” education issues and she picked up my name and called me to see if I’d talk to her for a while. (She told me that she had asked to meet with 4 evangelical leaders and I was the only one that replied to her.)

In case you were wonder, as if there was any doubt, this young lady is a lesbian who has personally experienced some of the consequences of her homosexual lifestyle. She is an extremely likeable, articulate, sensitive young lady. She is also dead wrong on a lot of issues. She listened to my explanation of God’s plan for sexuality, we had a nice discussion on worldviews and philosophy, we asked each other probing and substantive questions and we both reached the conclusion that while we thought the other a “nice person” we were fundamentally at odds over this (and multiple other) issues.

We also addressed “stereotypes.” I helped her see fundamentalist, evangelical Christians as something other than foaming-at-the-mouth, red-faced, Bible-thumping tyrants. She helped me see a young lesbian woman far-removed from the in-your-face, flannel-shirt-wearing, aggressive, loud representatives we often hold in our mind’s eye when thinking of homosexual activists.

I also saw an attractive young woman who desperately needs a relationship with Jesus Christ. I was able to share with her what a relationship with Christ can do for her and gave her a copy of Andy Stanley’s wonderful little book, “How Good is Good Enough” which she told me she’d read. I’m going to pray for her….I care about her.

As for me….I’m pretty weary of how we use the mainstream media to get our points across. I’ve played the game for years realizing that the more intellectually and thoughtfully sound you make your case, the less likely you are to get quoted in a news report. But sometimes its better to be thoughtful behind the scenes than to appear to be something you really aren’t though famous.

Is Sponge Bob gay? My 7-year old doesn’t know or care. Shoot…he still thinks being gay is being happy. Is the media sending subtle messages to our kids about a worldview that runs diametrically opposed to Scripture? You bet they are. So parents need to watch for, avoid and counter those messages with TRUTH and we also need to quit tilting at windmills with a Quixote-like fixation on cartoon characters and subliminal messages.

As St. Augustine said, “Preach the Word! And when necessary, use words.”

I’ve been on the road again…this time to Boston Baptist College where I taught a Senior Level course on Philosophy and Worldview for a week. I love doing this — it’s my fourth year in a row. I always take a few hours one afternoon and “explore” the city. This year, I had the privilege of “dining” at the Harvard Faculty Club (and I feel oh, so much smarter for the experience) and then did a 4-mile hike of the Freedom Trail through the streets of Boston. I even managed to nagivate the Boston “T” — which is their version of a Subway/train. They could pick up some maintenance and management ideas from Washington, DC on how to have a decent mass transportation system, if you ask me.

Boston Baptist College is a small, accredited, 4-year institution with a couple of hundred students. They are in a DIFFICULT area of the country and the kids enrolled their are uniquely Northeastern — free-spirited, independent-minded, probing types. They love their “neck of the woods” and many of them want to minister there and we really need more folks with a Christian worldview representing the Kingdom there.

I look at the faculty, pastors, administration and others who serve at that school who experience sacrifices and stress in a smaller college ministry that I can’t even comprehend and I realize that they, like many other unsung faithful servants, are real heroes.

Someone sent me a copy of an article by Ben Stein recently. For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column for an online website called “Monday Night At Morton’s.” (Morton’s is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. I think he’s got a good grasp on heroism…

“As I begin to write this, I “slug” it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is “eonlineFINAL,” and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world’s change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton’s, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton’s is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today’s world, if by a “star” we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton’s is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament…the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what
happens to us is not terribly important. God is real, not a fiction; and when we turn over our lives to Him, He takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves. In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin…or Martin Mull or Fred Willard–or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister’s help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the
soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.”

By Ben Stein

Much is being said, written and debated regarding worship these days. We call our church services worship services, but in reality, most of us confine our thoughts of worship to that portion of the service, which is primarily music with the occasional prayer or scripture reading inter-twined. But in viewing worship services as such, we miss the benefits of fully worshipping through every part of the service.

Consider how we can worship by fellowshipping. Arriving at church in time to give testimony to one another about how God is working in our lives. Let me pause here and express personal aggravation for people who are never late to work, to a movie or getting their kids to school, but who cant manage to drag themselves to church in time for Sunday school or before the second hymn is sung. I think tardiness to church is a loud statement about what we really think is important in life. But I digress.

Greeting one another, learning of burdens and prayer requests, sitting quietly with a friend and praying for each other are all expressions of worship and body life that are Biblical and healthy.

No doubt, music is integral to worship, but quite frankly, many people miss the blessing of worship because they are too fixated on whether or not they like the song, the style of the song, how it is sung, what the singer is wearing and whether or not there is applause after it is offered. Once again, we too often miss the point. We are NOT the audience; God is and that should change our perspective. It doesnt matter whether or not we like the song, the singer or the style does He? And it is wrong to assume that God always likes exactly what we like, not to mention arrogant. Next Sunday, try really paying attention to the words of the hymns and choruses. Sing to the Lord and not just about the Lord. If you need to, close your eyes and focus on the Lord to eliminate outside distractions. Try praying when you are tempted to criticize.

The offering is a part of worship. Throughout temple and tabernacle worship in Scripture, a part of the worship service was the presentation of tithes and special gifts. It embodied submission, it communicated obedience, it was motivated by devotion and it reminds the giver of their dependence upon God, as He owns all things. Dont just plop a check into the plate as it goes by; pray that God will honor it as you do. Dont see how little you can give or give with resentment. Instead be a joyful even reckless giver who abandons self-interest in an act of worship to the Owner of all.

Dont forget to worship during the sermon. In many churches, quiet and not-so-quiet Amens punctuate the sermon as people proclaim their agreement. The term from which we get Amen actually means so be it and communicates that we want the salient point to be true in our own lives. Its almost an exclamatory prayer.

Speaking of prayer, when someone leads in prayer, dont just listen to what they have to say. If they are truly praying, they arent talking to you anyway. Why dont you join them yourself — if no one is following them in prayer, can it honestly be said then that they are leading in prayer? Ive visited churches in France and Cuba and Africa where people joined aloud as someone lead in prayer and the music of voices blended together in prayer was just incredible.

Did you know that the invitation or decision time is also a time of worship? Worship is about yielding what is Gods to Him. That means we have a worship opportunity to think on what weve learned through the music, fellowship, giving, preaching and prayer and commit ourselves to obedience as the Holy Spirit leads us to change. To do so is an act of worship.

So this week when you head to church, lets be fully committed to real worship in every part of the service. Its not merely a service or an exercise or an event its something far more eternal. Its Worship!

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog. The Christmas season was a hectic one. My mother was able to come in for her first Christmas (ever) at our house. Rene’ — my “fifth child” from Florida was here for nearly 3 weeks — I just dropped him off at the airport this morning. We worked on a family project about two hours from home for several days. I’ve been making a lot of plans for the new year for our ministry. I leave soon for a week as an adjunct professor at Boston Baptist College. So as you can see, life has been busy.

But now I’m getting into a fresh routine, working on my new diet and exercise program and looking forward to more regular updates.

So check back more frequently, share your comments and keep in touch!

I had an interesting conversation recently with someone whom I personally respect a great deal and among the varied topics we visited was the tendency to get so busy in the administrative aspects of the ministry that we forget the “human” parts of serving the body of Christ. Indeed, the constant crush of people and information overload that sometimes occurs in a ministry (and even more so in a larger ministry) can almost create a boomerang effect wherein we withdraw from people or we lose the compassion we have for the human condition and needs we deal with constantly. As a result, our message gets muted or ignored.

Zig Ziglar first said it and we’ve successfully turned into a full-blown cliche rife with triteness, but it is still true… “People don’t care how much you know until the know how much you care.” I wonder how many times people would have listened to me better when I was teaching or preaching, would have given me the benefit of the doubt when a tough decision had been made, felt more comfortable with an impending appointment or conversation if I was simply better at showing personal care and compassion for the mundane challenges that we all face?

When we ask someone how their hunt for a new job is going, how the grandkids are doing or what did the doctor say after the recent tests, we are demonstrating that personal compassion that builds a bridge between two souls.

Someone once said that There is nothing so spiritual deadening as constantly handling the outside of holy things. Our generation is greatly influenced by philosophies and attitudes, which desensitize us to painful and real truths. Among the consequences of living in an age when scenes from battlefields roll out before us as they happen in real time is a loss of awe, respect and even comparison of the horrific realities that are happening personally to people — the sanitizing and desensitizing effects of videotape and satellite feeds not withstanding.

Our kids cheer at alleged wrestlers inflicting pain through choreographed strategies. Movie audiences howl at decapitations and the cruelties of war. Footage of starving children, stories of Christians being sold into slavery in Muslim countries, knowledge of people being tortured in China for meeting for worship, the reality that brothers and sisters in Christ are living in squalor and fear are too often met with indifference in of all places the pews of churches in the wealthiest, most educated nation in the world.

Even as our nation rejoices in the victories of war in Iraq, we must be careful to avoid becoming calloused to the awfulness of war, the horror of despots like Saddam Hussein and his counterparts in places like Iran, Libya, North Korea and China, the tragedies of nations darkened by a militant Islamic regime in which even the mere mention of Christianity can cost you your life.

Jude 22 is one of my favorite verses, And of some have compassion, making a difference. Jesus was frequently cited for His compassion throughout the Gospels as we observed His character and motivations. More than once, Scripture tells us that He was moved with compassion and there is a particularly poignant description of Him weeping over the city of Jerusalem as He considered their rejection of their long-promised Messiah. Jesus was genuinely a man of compassion.

I think it is time for us to do some serious self-examination and ask ourselves if we possess the grace of compassion, as we should. Have we allowed a sense of entitlement or even personal pride or arrogance to make us callous over the needs we see around us? Is it possible that we have become desensitized to tragedies like violence, abortion, divorce, abuse and child neglect? When was the last time any of us ever wept over someone who has rejected Christ, mourned deeply for the one who died without receiving Christ, cried out to the Lord on behalf of a lost friend or family member who would go to hell if they died today? Does it even bother us anymore?

It has been said that an over-exposure and an under-response to Truths eventually lead to spiritual and intellectual callousness. It might be that much of our loss of compassion could be the result of not listening for or to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit in our lives. A failure on our part to pray, to meditate, to genuinely worship can lead us to a state that rarely looks on others with the compassion that should be naturally flowing from people who claim they want to do what Jesus would do.

Ive also been recently reminded that Jesus didnt reserve His compassion for the beautiful people, the popular crowd and the nice folks. His compassion, His ministry, His love was directed toward the dregs of that days society. Hookers and tax collectors, cripples and beggars these were the ones that were the recipients of acts of compassion that brought about healing physically and spiritually. Royalty rejected it. The educated refused to condescend to simple faith. The religious didnt even think they needed it. But when Jesus offered the gift of eternal life to the down and out with compassion, they were eager to receive it.

Even in the ministry, its quite possible to lose ones compassion. Daily there are more needs than resources. Sometimes people act like well people and that means they can be mean and manipulative. A life of ministry is a busy life and sometimes important things get neglected. Things like taking the time to care about people with compassion. Because, sometimes people dont care how much you know until they know how much you care. And of some have compassion, making a difference

In the end, I’m making a fresh dose of Compassion in my Ministry a priority this year. I hope you’ll notice.