Author: Jon Gauger

Have you heard the story of Irena Sendler from World War II?

When Hitler took over Irena’s beloved Poland, he set up ghetto camps where Jewish families lived before being crammed into cattle cars and hauled off to concentration camps where most died.

But Irena Sendler’s heart was touched by the plight of the Jewish people, especially their young children. She knocked on Jewish doors in the Warsaw ghetto and, in Sendler's own words, "tried to talk the mothers out of their children."   Irena offered an escape from near certain death, offering to take the little ones to Roman Catholic convents, orphanages and homes where they would be given non-Jewish aliases.  Imagine the parents’ agony.

The children that were released to Irena’s care now had to be carefully removed from the guarded Ghettos.  Some were stolen out in boxes, suitcases, sacks and coffins.  Babies were sedated to quiet their cries, some of them transported in the bottom of a tool box. Irena carefully wrote down the real names of every child taken—in hopes of reuniting them with family members after the war. The names were placed in jars that she buried in a garden.

Ultimately, Irena was caught and tortured by the Nazis who broke both her feet and legs. In the end, though, she saved nearly 3000 Polish Jews.

What is lesser known is that Irena’s father was a physician many years before World War II, at a time when the deadly disease, typhus, was a major problem in Poland.    Fearful of catching the sickness, many doctors refused to treat patients in a region which happened to have a large number of Jews living there. Not Irena’s father.  He faithfully, courageously treated everyone…and died from Typhus in1917.

In profound thanks, Jewish community leaders approached Irena’s mother with financial assistance for Irena’s education.  It was a gesture that Irena never forgot…and a kindness she returned, trip after dangerous trip into the Jewish Ghetto.

Proverbs 24:11 “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.”

That’s Irena’s story.  What’s yours?

Do you and I worship “niceness?

I say…quite possibly.

As Americans, we prefer nice churches in nice neighborhoods with nice seats in nice auditoriums.

Gone the days of squawky P.A. Systems, our churches rumble with the latest and greatest in audio gear.  The sound is…pretty nice.  The job of doing PowerPoint and creating video clips is now the domain of a “Pastor of Visual Arts.”   The stuff on the screen, frankly, looks pretty nice. 

Nothing wrong with any of that.  But niceness—as a frame of reference—can go too far.  It comes to a crash up against an old hymn that’s fallen on hard times:

Man of sorrows, what a name.

For the Son of God who came.

Ruined sinners to reclaim.

Hallelujah!  What a Savior.

Wow!  We love Jesus the nice teacher.  We love Jesus the nice healer, Jesus the nice good-deed-doer. But that name, “Man of sorrows”–lacks any of the niceness we crave.

The language is so blunt, even stark.  “Ruined sinners.”  Not the least bit nice.

We want so badly to believe better of ourselves.

So we labor under false notions of a humanity that somehow has a shred of something worth redeeming.  Something nice. But we don't.  Apart from Christ, there is not so much as a single atom within us that is nice.

Quite the contrary assures Isaiah 64:6: “All our righteousness is like filthy rags!”

Which makes the rest of the song so remarkable:

Guilty, vile and helpless, we

Spotless Lamb of God was He.

Full atonement—can it be?

Hallelujah, What a Savior!

The grand gospel story, of course, is more than the ugliness of sin.  Much more.

But it is far too epic to stoop to mere niceness. 

 

Where’s all the music?

When I fill in as host for Moody Radio’s morning show, we do a feature called “Breakfast for the Soul.”  Essentially, it’s a brief devotional that I try to follow up with a song that fits the reading.    But I’m often stumped. Example?

Where is the chorus that reminds us fasting is the expected behavior of a normal Christian life?  Ever heard a song about the persecuted church?  Or loving people living a homosexual lifestyle?  Good luck finding that kind of stuff.

So I’ve taken the liberty of crafting an opening verse or chorus on some real life subjects that probably should be addressed in a song.  Like this one about sharing Christ with my neighbors:

Now that winter's come and gone

I'm more concerned about my lawn

Than the lost folks living right across the street.

I spend hours picking weeds

When I should be planting seeds:

Acts of kindness, prayers and times to meet and greet.

Now let’s be honest.  Most of us struggle at some point when we give our tithes or gifts on Sunday.   But nobody has yet to write a song about that.  Here’s a suggested opening:

Lord, in my heart, I know that tithing's good.

But I'd keep it all for me if I thought I could.

So overcome my greed

With the sense of a greater need.

Teach me what it means to really give.

 

Honestly, we need a song that speaks transparently of our struggle with fasting.  Example?

We’re not so big on fasting.

We much prefer to eat.

Deny ourselves and skip a meal—

To pray?  That’s such a feat!

 

And for those of us who are addicted to anxiety…how ‘bout a prayerful chorus like this:

Forgive me for my worry—it's the sin that just won't quit.

Sometimes it feels like praying doesn't help the slightest bit.

I've memorized the verses and I try to meditate.

But worry has been winning the upper hand of late.

 

So how ‘bout it song writers out there?

Isn’t it time our choruses got more honest?  More real?

I think so.

 

Psalms 9:11   Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion; Declare among the peoples His deeds.

Crawling across the plywood of our attic, I spied the tan plastic bag and knew exactly what was inside: Daytimers.

Before there was Google Calendar and Evernote…

Before there were Palm Pilots…

Back when Windows referred to the glass in your living room—not an operating system—we needed a way to keep track of our schedules.

Many of us in the business world used Daytimers—a spiral bound pocket book with calendars and appointment pages.  And in that tan plastic bag up in my attic were several years’ worth of old Daytimers.

You know what caught my eye as I flipped through those planners—more than a quarter of a century old?  It wasn't the business stuff, the appointments and meetings and billing issues.  It was the personal stuff—things that define a family.  Example?  I  found notated on one page where our baby girl, Lynnette, learned to say, “See you later” when talking on the phone.

In another planner, I found a note affirming our little girl performed both major bodily functions in her toddler toilet.  And as any parent can tell you, that's definitely a milestone worth recording.

As I flipped through more pages, I saw notes marking a movie my wife and I went to see…the date we went to a Cubs game…the list of guests invited to a surprise birthday party for her.

I frankly cannot point to a single business item that caught my eye or tugged at my heart.      Yet…the kid stuff…the me-and-my-wife stuff…..that mattered a whole lot.

All that meticulous tracking of billable hours that seemed so important at the time…just wasn't very important at all.

Life, I was reminded in that attic moment, is made up of daily, ordinary, routine things that are anything but insignificant viewed through the lens of time.

Strange how a coating of dust creates so much clarity.

I should have known the pleasant looking cowboy before me was an imposter.  But his gloves, hat and gun all looked legit.  He invited us to a sandpit where we could pan for gold (okay, it was actually pyrite—but it looked like the real deal).

I have to confess, it was exhilarating swirling the shallow pan, exposing the yellow glow of gold—just like I'd seen in the movies.  We carefully dumped our gold into miniature cloth sacks, pausing now and then to see what kind of fortunes we'd amassed.

I saw “we” because it was me, two young nieces of mine, along with our five year old granddaughter.   Wasn't long before we'd each collected some gold.  And that's when the cowboy kicked into action. 

He thrust a sack bulging at the seams right at our faces. “Tell ya what,” he drawled slyly.  “I'll trade any of you your puny little sack of gold for mine, here.  What do you say?”  Niece number one said no.  Granddaughter Joslynn said no.  But Niece number two quickly grabbed the bag out of his hands, gleefully trading her own. She was sure she'd gotten the bargain of a lifetime until she unlaced the string and discovered it was packed with nothing but sand.

I was immediately drawn to the scene in Eden where the serpent offers Eve an impossibly good exchange…which proved too good to be true. But it was too late.  She had already traded away her gold for a kind of sand.

The truth is, we ride a dangerous trail, you and I.  And despite pleasant appearances, we have an enemy determined to take our gold—and never give it back.  It could be the gold of your joy in Jesus.  Don't give it up.  It could be the gold of your sexual purity.  Don't give it up.  It could the gold of your contentedness at work.  Don't give it up. 

 Proverbs 4:23 says it another way:  “Guard  your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

My young niece got her bag of fake gold back, thanks to the cowboy.  But the enemy you meet out on the trail knows no such kindness.

Hang on to your gold, pardner!

 

He's back at it again—my buddy Jack.  He's the one that's trying to build bridges with his neighbor across the street.  In a previous blog, I promised to keep you up to date. Here goes.

All winter long, Jack has taken his snow blower over to his neighbor's driveway and blown it out.  In return his neighbor—we'll call him Steve—has blown out Jack's driveway.  But the best part is they've had opportunity to work on their driveways together.  Even shoveled side by side.   They wave at each other in their cars—and often chat when getting the mail.

Jack and his wife and have been praying that God would open a door of opportunity   for them to take the next step in this growing friendship. So imagine the smile on Jack's face when he told me they took their neighbor out to dinner!

It was a popular steak place.  And they had much more than dinner together.  They shared conversation—meaningful dialogue—and plenty of good laughs.  But there was plenty of sobering stuff, as well.

Jack told me all about Steve's troubled upbringing: a mother with five husbands…a father who died young….being told as a young adult that the last name he had used all his life wasn't really his. Then there's the half-sister that won't even speak to him.   The pain was so great….

Unexpectedly, the meal at the restaurant continued for nearly two and half hours—and Jack and his wife were honestly sad when the evening came to an end.  (1:30)

At this point in our conversation, Jack paused and then looked me in the eye almost whispering, “Everyone is hurting over something.”

Jack is right.

The question is, are we willing to engage those hurting people?  Are we willing to blow out their driveways and hear their sad stories…and love them enough to do it all again over another dinner—all in the name of Jesus?   Those are Jack's plans.

He would never claim to be a teacher, but Jack is taking me to school on reaching out to my lost neighbors.  So much to learn.

Me?  I'm still pondering lesson one: Everybody is hurting over something.

Are you a drug addict?

Don't answer too quickly.

It's possible you've never smoked a joint in your life…never popped a pill the doctor didn't prescribe.  But you could still be addicted.  I'm not talking about heroin or cocaine or meth.  I'm talking about the drug of connectivity—the need to have access to your email or Facebook page.

Recently, I was reminded of my own addiction. They did a major re-work of our email system at work on a Friday, and–BOOM–I was without remote access to email all weekend long.

You wanna know the really sick thing?  I actually sat on the couch with my phone on the armrest, alternatively staring–then glaring—at it, hungry to hear the thing ding.

I found myself checking it again and again…hoping something…someone might be getting through.  (Sure I could still text…but my addiction is with email, remember?).

The experience only underscored an embarrassing truth.  I am addicted to connectivity. I expect to be…desire to be…absolutely MUST be interrupted by chimes and ringtones.   Their lack creates a roar of silence that is uncomfortable, if not intolerable.

Now here's the disturbing question.  Why am I not equally addicted to connectivity with God?  Why does it not drive me crazy when I either rush or miss my morning prayer time with Him?  Why am I not compelled to continually check in with Him throughout the day?  Twenty-four/seven access to the King of the Universe is guaranteed.  And Scripture itself suggests this kind of behavior is actually expected: “Pray without ceasing,” we are told.

So how is it I must be connected to a stream of tedious information from friends and work that is temporary at best…while the Eternal sits unattended?

More to the point: How can I initiate a healthy addiction: a sense of need to commune with the Lord of the Universe?

O, God….set my heart aright.

I long to long for you, like David did.

Like a deer panting for water.

Amen!

She was born in 1903 in what was then Austria-Hungary. Alice Herz-Sommer was raised in a German speaking Jewish family. Early on, she displayed enormous talent at the piano and at sixteen, she was the youngest student of the Prague German Conservatory of Music. She toured Europe, impressing thousands.

Then came 1943 and the rise of Hitler. By now, Alice was married and had a young son. German soldiers ultimately hauled off Alice and her family. Not before she watched hopelessly as her neighbors ransacked her home, gleefully helping themselves to her clothes, art and furniture. Her husband was taken to Dachau, while Alice and her son were imprisoned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Here, the Nazis imprisoned many gifted artists, demanding that they perform concerts for them, a propaganda effort to convince the world that Nazis treated their prisoners well.

Ultimately, Alice was released from the prison but not before her mother was killed by the Nazis, and her husband died of Typhus at Dachau…six weeks before the camp was liberated.

Alice went back to giving concerts…playing piano…teaching at the Jerusalem Academy of Music for 40 years. She is said to have practiced playing the piano three hours a day until the week she died at the incredible age of 110–the oldest known Holocaust survivor.

Alice once said, “I look at the good. It us up to us whether we look at the good or the bad….”

I don’t know what darkness has descended upon your soul lately, but I do know this. Alice’s life message is remarkably consistent with Philippians 4:8: “Whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

Bad stuff will happen.
What we focus on then is ultimately a choice.
Ours.

At 37 thousand feet, you see life–not just terrain–more clearly.

I’m writing this piece shoehorned into an airplane whose rows are so tightly spaced the seats do not recline.  But it’s only a two and half hour flight to Denver, so I suspect we’ll survive.

Minutes ago, why wife, Diana, observed that this budget airline offers a type of first class option: four seats across instead of six.  It was actually tempting.

Now I don’t mean to offend those who choose to pony up for wider seats and meals served on china instead of plastic (someday I think I’ll try it—really).  But I often wonder.  No matter where you fly within the U.S., it’s only a few hours.  Must we insist on maximum comfort at all times?

Let’s broaden out the question a bit as we talk cars. You can spend 25 thousand on a new car or 250 thousand.  Both cars will get you where you want to go safely and reasonably comfortably.  The 250 thousand dollar car will certainly have nicer suspension and many more conveniences.  Yet, in the end, whether I drive a glorified go cart or a Rolls Royce, I am still only using the car to get me where I’m going.  The car—as nice as it may be—is not the destination.  It’s the tool that gets me there.

We could ask similar questions about the clothes we wear, the houses we own.  And maybe we should.

I fear that increasing numbers of Christ followers (myself included) are buying into the worldly demand for maximum comfort at all times at any price.   And in so doing, we forget that we are “strangers and aliens on this earth.”

Every longing look at luxury takes our gaze away from our eternal destiny and locks our focus on a world that is “passing away.”

Hear me clearly.  There is no sin in having or owning nice things.

But when those nice things own us, we’re looking in the wrong direction.

What holds your gaze?

You could almost wipe the saliva off my mouth. That’s the intensity I felt walking into the International Center at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado. I was there to attend Jerry Jenkins’ Christian Writers Guild conference.

Plot structure, point of view, character development—this was the stuff I was longing to dig into. And dig we did (ur…not sure that last sentence would garner the approval of my instructors).

Anyway, we came to the last night of the conference where writer and Editor, Dr. Dennis Hensley spoke. Oddly enough (or, in retrospect, perhaps realistically enough) he spoke on failure.

If you’re new to the wisdom of “Doc Hensley,” he’s written 54 books, more than 150 short stories and 3,500 newspaper and magazine articles. From my hastily scribbled notes that night, here are a few of the thoughts he shared:

• Success at anything comes slowly.
• Mighty works come with time.
• Success is never automatic—even in the service of the Lord

Tracking with me here? Now listen to this next observation from Dr. Hensley:

A legacy of failure among great leaders is common knowledge! So learn from your mistakes. Make adjustments! Improve. It does no good to dwell on past failures and poor starts.

He’s right, of course. I’m learning that Doc Hensley usually is. Which is why he also pointed us to another word of encouragement from Paul in Philippians 3:13,14:

…forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.…

To which Doc Hensley simply added…

• Past performance is no guarantee of future failure.
• Past failures do not guarantee future failures!

Aren’t you glad?

I don’t know where you’re at in life right now. But if you’re like me, you’ve got a past failure or two or three, crumpled up in a back pocket of yours. And once in a while, you pull out one of those failures—and unfold it in your hands–reliving what might have been but wasn’t. Like cheap newsprint, it re-inks your hand and stamps your whole soul with feelings of inadequacy.

May I gently suggest you empty your pockets of those failures? Choose instead to "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  Press on!