Author: Jon Gauger

It made the front page of every newspaper in America: Former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert—Indicted.  The allegation: hush money—and lots of it—paid to keep a misconduct quiet. Hastert’s guilt or innocence is up for others to decide.  But may I share my own encounter with Denny Hastert?

Several years ago, I was tasked with writing and producing a series of anti-marijuana public service announcements for a radio campaign.  As a freelancer, I was asked to fly to Washington and record endorsements for this campaign from a high profile congressional Democrat and Republican.  Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, was the chosen Republican.

In the surprisingly dark hallways of the United States Capitol building I breathed in power’s musky fragrance, ultimately setting up shop in Dennis Hastert’s (impressively sized) office.  I handed him the script, powered up my recorder and we went to work.

The problem was this.  Mr. Hastert might well have been an effective legislator.  But a narrator he was not (few politicians are).  Frankly, his reading sounded unnatural, flat. But what was I supposed to do?  He was, after all, the man second in line to succeed the President of the United States.

In that perplexing moment (and it was a bit awkward) I chose to do what I always do when coaching “voice talent.”  I politely observed “that was a good first read. But I wonder if we could try it slightly differently—like this.”  He did.  It was slightly better. So we recorded again—and again, eventually getting an acceptable take.

It could be that the allegations against Mr. Hastert are ultimately found groundless. But if found guilty, I will always wonder how differently his life would have been if someone else had been there coaching him, critiquing him when he started making wrong decisions.

Proverbs 10:17, “He is on the path of life who heeds instruction.  But he who ignores reproof goes astray.”  

It may well be awkward giving—or receiving—reproof.  But it’s the only path that leads to life.

Being an older sibling has its advantages.

Disadvantages, too.

Take Caleb and Lucy.

He’s two-and-a-half.  She’s one-and-a-half.

 In an early march toward the “terrible twos” Lucy has chosen to resolve sibling conflict utilizing her teeth.  Her well exercised jaws (Lucy is an eager eater) and full set of teeth are formidable weapons.

As Caleb is her most frequent playmate, he is also the most frequent recipient of her biting.  Lucy’s parents are doing a terrific job of discipline.  Yet Lucy is of the strong-willed stripe.  If she feels a bite comin’ on…woe be to you if your finger should get near her mouth.

But if Lucy’s mouth leaves a red mark, Caleb’s mouth is leaving an impression all his own. His weapons are words.

To any guest—friend or stranger—who enters their home, Caleb will gladly march up, point to his little sister Lucy and proclaim with gravitas: “Hers a biter.”

Like you, I laughed when I first heard about Caleb’s preemptive strike.  In three unflattering words, he defines the universe of all you need to know about his little sister: “Hers a biter.”

Missing from his three word assessment is that Lucy also has a love of books, a tender heart, and a way of putting her head on your shoulder that makes you melt.

We laugh at Lucy and Caleb (hey, they’re our grandkids!)…but you and I do the same thing: paint a person, or entire culture, with one broad brush—and two or three unflattering words:

• “They’re snobby…”
• “They’re lazy…”
• “They’re untrustworthy…

In so doing, we shut down dialogue, tear down bridges, and violate Scripture.  Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Let’s stop with the two-year-old behavior.

After all, grown-ups should know better.

If I twist my neck hard enough, I can see the disappearing shores of Lake Michigan out the window of our aircraft.  Frankly, I've had to discipline myself to take in the view.  That's right; force myself to gaze down on the majesty of a spring morning from 20,000 feet.

Bombastic clouds throw mottled patterns on the landscape below.  The green of the young season is so intense as to appear unnaturally tweaked in Photoshop.  Yet I scarcely notice any of it.

 Is it tiredness?  Perhaps. But the truth is much worse.  I'm no longer in awe.  Too many early morning plane rides.

I'm reminded of another early morning jet flight, my first.  Dad took me with him on a business trip up to Michigan. I remember every exquisite detail: the sounds, the smells, the clack of the seat buckle.

Dad had described the take-off experience so vividly, I wanted more than anything to feel the sensation of the nose lifting up higher than the rest of the aircraft. The take-off did not disappoint but my fellow passengers did.   The guy across the aisle read a magazine, bored.  Many others were lost in newspapers, and still more trying to doze off.  All of this while amazing scenery rushed by outside the window. How could they? I thought.  Mystery and marvel were there for the taking, but alas, went unspoken for.

I swore then and there I would never let that happen to me—that I would remain wide-eyed and in awe of the experience.  If a yawn is the currency of boredom, familiarity asks too high a price.   Yet here I am.  Weary and wonderless.

 As repetition dulls the edge of wonder, the sharper-than-any-two-edged-Sword

offers a focal point for restoration: “God thunders with His voice wondrously, doing great things which we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5).

Look out your window.  Look now.  There's wonder out there!

Have you ever had a book reach out and grab you?
 
It happened to me recently in the library at Moody Bible Institute. Walking past shelves of missionary volumes, I was unable to resist their siren call.  I made the mistake of slowing down long enough to pick up a few of the wonderful books reaching out to me.   The covers were mesmerizing: 
 

• Amid Artic Snows–A Story of Gospel Pioneers in Iceland

• The Martyrs of Blantyre

• James Harrington–The Merchant’s Son Who was Martyred for Africa

• In Leper land—A Record of my 7,000 Miles among Indian lepers

 
Many of the books included subtitles speaking of longevity in the field: “My thirty years in the jungle” or “Forty years of desert ministry.”
 
The longer I spent pondering these volumes of valor, the more a question nagged at me.  Are we as fully committed and fully engaged in the missionary movement today as were the Martyrs of Blantyre or The Merchant’s Son Who was Martyred for Africa?
 
It seems like in America, more and more people do a “short term missionary project”…yet fewer consider full time missionary service.  I know a number of missionaries who went to the field for a few years and called it quits. 
 
Sure, God might well call someone to a career change.  Still, I wonder.  Has missions lost its mojo?  Is our zeal for the Great Commission…less than great?
 
I’m all for “short term missions”…but not at the expense of long term missions.
Let’s resist the urge to say, “I’ve been to Africa.  I did my missions thing.” Why not, instead, ask God if His adventure for your life might well be somewhere “over there” rather than here?
 
If the fields were “white unto harvest” in Jesus’ day, surely they are no less ready for harvest in ours!

“Honestly, I'd pretty much given up,” said my friend, Jack, boring a hole through me with his intense look. 

 

“You can't mean that,” I countered.

 

“I do.  We'd been trying and trying to get together with Bud and his wife for months.”  (Bud is Jack's unsaved friend, whom Jack has been praying for more than 30 years.  Yet Bud still hasn't received Christ).  Jack went on.

 

“We've called them, invited them to dinner repeatedly (our treat of course).  But it's somehow never been 'the right time.'”

 

“Well maybe it wasn't,” I agreed.

 

“Maybe.  But as my wife pointed out, it's a two-way street.  Bud could just as easily call us, if he was interested.”  Jack had me there.  He went on.

 

“That's why I finally prayed and said to God, 'Look, maybe this chapter in our lives is over.  Maybe this thing with Bud is done.  That's okay.  I won't force this.  I just ask that you have someone else around Bud and his wife who knows Jesus and is really caring for Bud, praying for him.”  Jack's pause indicated he wanted me to ask him what happened next.

 

“So what happened next?”

 

“Well, my son and I were at Home Depot shortly after that prayer, looking for lumber.  Inside of 30 seconds, you'll never guess who snuck up behind us?”

 

“Bud?” I asked.

 

“Exactly!”  Jack had this big ol' smile on his face.  “He gave us all kinds of advice for our building project—advice we frankly needed. He even told us the specific hardware we needed to get…walked us over to the aisle where we could find it.  Then he was gone—stocking up on materials for his own job.”

 

“So how'd that make you feel?”

 

“Incredible.  Like…I was seeing the hand of God…as if the Almighty was suggesting that maybe this thing with Bud was not 'over.'  I wonder if God has another chapter He wants to write.  Not trying to go too crazy with this, of course.  But the timing is just too weird to dismiss as coincidence.”

 

Hearing all this makes me believe there really is a place for bold praying.  Like Jack's.   Maybe I'm praying “too small.”

 

You?

You've seen funnel clouds.

You've seen tornadoes.

But imagine a path of destruction more than 20 miles long.

Such a tornado touched down recently in north central Illinois, not far from where my wife and I often visit on weekends.   Cruising through this rural area is no longer a peaceful drive.  A restaurant we've eaten at was leveled by the storm.  So were dozens of homes and farms.   We managed to get up close to some of the wreckage and I snapped some pictures–a soul-darkening experience.

The photos don't begin to do justice to the violence: mangled farm implements, trucks tossed onto their backs… scraps of insulation, chunks of wood, metal fragments jammed at obtuse angles into the ground.  The odd assortment of upright fragments made front yards appear like cemeteries to the dead and dismembered homes all around. 

In a scene recalling the planting of the American flag on Iwo Jima, I saw one worker atop a knocked over grain silo, seemingly determined to get the thing set up right. Most shocking of all were the eerily clean cement slabs where houses had stood— driveways now leading to nowhere. 

There was one (literal) bright spot in all of this destruction: Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham's relief organization.  The orange tee-shirts of the volunteer workers were impossible to miss.  The workers cleared trees, hauled wheelbarrows and moved mountains of debris.

By contrast, I didn't happen to see any volunteers from the American Civil Liberties Union or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  No, the people digging through the mud were followers of Jesus, serving as His hands and feet.  A reminder that rescue is never far from the heart of Christ.

Psalm 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Kindness sometimes wears red suspenders.

My son, Tim, and I had just flown from Chicago to Kansas and our GPS was struggling to locate the house of the guest we were trying to visit.

With a population of 858, McLouth is not exactly a major metropolis.  Still, we were stymied.  We were also hungry, had time to burn before our meeting, and decided to get something to eat before tackling the final GPS challenge.

Traveler, be warned.  Dining choices in McLouth are scarce.  We ended up munching on pork sandwiches from the local Casey's gas station.  In the comfort of our Toyota Yaris, we observed a gentleman seated in a tan Chevy minivan.  He wore black sweat pants, a purple shirt and blazing red suspenders.

“S'penders” went in and out of the Casey's gas station several times, each trip clutching a new lottery game card.   Apparently, he would scratch off the (losing) numbers and then go back and buy another card. Resting on the front of his dashboard was a large white Texan hat. Curious fellow, this S'penders.   

It was now time to show up at my friend's home, but the numbers on the houses we were seeing didn't appear to sequence with the address which I knew to be our destination. 

I had to ask somebody–hopefully a local.  But who?  That's when S'penders expressed interest. I gave him the street address, which didn't ring a bell. So he asked in a stereotypical-good-guy-cowboy voice, “What's the name of the feller yir lookin' for?”  We told him.

“He's just up the street—first house next to the big field.”

And it was so.

It's easy for us clean-shaven, clean-livin' Christian folk to write off characters like our friend, “S'penders.”  But kindness comes in all shapes and sizes.  And sometimes, it wears suspenders.

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness humility, gentleness and patience.”   –Colossians 3:12

He’s the funniest guy you never heard of: Stan Freberg, the sultan of satire, the wizard of one-liners.

In a sketch from Freberg’s History of the United States comedy album, George Washington trods through winter snows to the home of seamstress Betsy Ross, who is making the nation’s first flag.  As Washington tromps inside, Betsy yells out, “Hey, hey—ever hear of wipin’ your feet?  You’re gettin’ snow all over my early American rug!”  Their contentious flag meeting ends with Betsy asking General Washington, “Do you want me to put it on a hangar?”  To which he replies nonchalantly, “No, I’ll just run it up the flag pole and see if anybody salutes.

Stan Freberg did cartoon voice-overs for Warner Brothers and Walt Disney.  He hosted the Emmy-winning early-'50s puppet show, Time for Beany.  Among his fans was Albert Einstein.  The genius once supposedly interrupted a high-level conference announcing, "You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. It is time for Beany."

Freberg was a major force in the advertising world, with clients like Jeno's Pizza, Reynolds Wrap, and Great American Soups.  He spent a record-setting one million dollars on a single commercial back in 1970.  When George Lucas sought advice on the voice for his Star Wars character C-3PO, he turned to Stan Freberg.

Being a Freberg fan—and full of chutzpah— I called him up and spoke with him on the phone.  Twice.  One occasion was just after his first wife, Donna, died in 2000.  Pensive, he shared with me that he was raised the son of a Baptist minister.  Which led me to ask him if he was certain he was going to heaven—and why.

He proceeded to quote John 3:16 from the King James Version: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Stan Freberg won many awards, voiced many characters, made many records—and died last week. Now, only one thing about his life really matters: He knew Jesus as His Savior.  Do you?

Two year olds have a way of seeing—and saying—things.

For example, our two-year-old grandson, Caleb, comes to our house to color and fold paper “aircranes.”   Naturally, we have contests to see how far those “aircranes” will fly.

After his parents told him he could have some Sprite only after he finished drinking a glass of water, Caleb immediately began to guzzle.  The water was drizzling down his chin and he was gasping for breath.  He stopped a moment and declared with exasperation, “It takes so wong!” (long).

One night playing with his dad, Caleb reached up to feel his pop's rough face and immediately proclaimed, “You have hair crumbs.”

Observing a sunny afternoon, Caleb looked up and said, “Dad, the sun!  It’s shining still and it makes me so happy.”

Speaking of sun, recently, his mom bought him a pair of sunglasses.  Peering at himself in the mirror, he declared (with a voice full of gusto) “I look like a MAN!”

This weekend, we stayed with the grandkids and early in the morning, two-year old Caleb jumped into bed with us.  After a few hugs and snuggles, he poked his index finger in my ear and asked me, “What’s in there?”  (My wife assured him it was a hole going from one side of my head to the other). Two-year olds have a way of seeing—and saying—things.

In Matthew 18:3, Jesus makes an astounding statement to His disciples: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

What is it about little children Jesus finds so attractive—so exemplary?   With due respect to the commentaries and theologians, I offer this humble answer.  One need look no further than the smile on a little boy’s face who is grateful for the sun because it makes him…happy.

What is it about hard times that soften the human spirit?

A recent spring snow storm that assaulted our Monday morning commute seemed to many unkind, even cruel.  Sliding through the significant slush in downtown Chicago, I was intrigued with the way people were notably friendlier in this sudden “hardship.” I heard one stranger thanking another stranger for shoveling his sidewalk.  These are people who would normally not even notice each other on the street, let alone exchange courtesies.

As I picked my way carefully, I came to a length of sidewalk that “nobody” owns—so “nobody” shovels it.  The only safe path is one made by commuters' feet shuffling along.   An older lady looked at me, and my facial expression conveyed the clear intent that she should take the well-trod footpath path, while I would walk in the snow drifts.

Near Chicago's landmark Merchandise Mart building, I suddenly sipped and landed on my elbow.  The driver of a refrigerated seafood truck saw the whole thing.  As I struggled to get up, he opened the door of his cab, clearly ready to extend a hand.

But why is this?  Why is it that we, who can treat other humans one day as invisible and the next—a day of hardship—finds us friendly and helpful?  I'm sure for a mere 20 million dollars we could issue a congressional study on the question of human psyche.

Yet I am inclined to think the answer has less to do with psychology than theology.  Follow my reasoning:  Man is made in the image of God.   Caring and compassion are God-like qualities.  Hard times waken us out of the slumber of self-absorbency.  Ergo, we help when others hurt because to do otherwise would deny the image of the God who made us.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement which we ourselves are encouraged by God…”   –2 Corinthians 1:3-5