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The Only Shape That Fits

Most of us have enjoyed the beauty of a painting. Artists spend their time crafting what they believe to be a good painting. When they are done, they sign the painting somewhere on the canvas. The creator makes a mark on the painting that only he can make signifying it is his. Our Creator did the same thing. I’ll explain.

I was in the doctor’s office waiting room with my daughter watching a few kids play. One kid concerned me a little. She kept trying to put the square piece in the round hole. Over and over she tried. She finally threw the square piece. Then she picked up the triangle piece and put it in the round hole. Again, didn’t fit. She threw that one too. It seemed no matter which block she picked up, if it wasn’t the round one, it wasn’t going to fit.

Then it hit me. This is exactly what we do in life. We go through life trying to find something that will fill the hole in our inner most beings, but it never seems to fit perfectly. We look up and wonder why we are still miserable.

I recently watched the Johnny Football documentary. He had achieved everything he had ever dreamed of and more. He was a D1 star. He made more money than he knew what to do with. He beat Alabama. Ha. He won the Heisman as a freshman. He was drafted in the first round of the NFL. Then, sitting on his couch in Cleveland, he was miserable. All of that still didn’t equate to fulfillment. He tried taking his own life. The only reason he’s alive is because the gun malfunctioned.

Then there’s the time Deion Sanders attempted to take his own life after winning the super bowl 3 times. Or how about the time Dennis Rodman contemplated taking his own life. He had won championships. But he was miserable.

Robin Williams was a living legend. Kate Spade had more money than I’ll ever see. Anthony Bourdain had his own show traveling the world doing what he loved. It wasn’t enough. There’s a reason.

There’s a hole or void in our souls in a certain shape. It’s the shape of God. We have all tried to put things there that don’t fit. Money, substances, fame, cars, friends, careers, our spouses, our kids. They don’t fit. But we try to make them fit. Then we look around and wonder why we are miserable. We are miserable because we are trying to make a square block fit in to a round hole.

When it comes to the creation, the Creator was clever. He made you almost whole. But he left one piece out. And made sure that it was only in the shape of Him. After all, He did say He made us in His image.

So if you are in a place where you can’t figure out why you are miserable, apathetic, sad, frustrated, lonely, full of anxiety… it may be that you still need to fill that void with the right shape. If you will just give up trying the other things, that don’t seem to be working, and fill your void with the shape of God, you will find that there’s peace and relaxation in this. Try it. What do you have to lose?    

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Deconstructing Deconstructionism: Part 2- The Fruit

One day, years ago, one of my leaders in basketball officiating said to me, “You will always know whether your technical foul was a good one or a bad one by what happens directly after.” He was right. If it was a good one, the game regained a sense of order. If it was not a good technical foul, the game went further into chaos. This was the “fruits” of my decisions.

(Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim reacts to having a technical foul called on him by official Roger Ayers during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Louisville Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020, in Louisville, Ky. Louisville won 90-66. (AP Photo/Wade Payne))

One of the many problems with deconstruction is that it focuses on “ME.” The entire Bible spends its time focusing on turning away from ME and towards GOD.

“Your ways are higher.” Isaiah 55:8-9

“to myself, I die daily.” 1 Corinthians 15:31

“Not MY will be done but YOURS.” Luke 22:42

And on and on it goes. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. Taking the scripture seriously is a good thing. Going as deep as you can to get as close to God a possible is a good thing. However, in my examination of deconstructionism, I find that it consists of many people who have been mistreated by those in the church. I also find a pattern of those who truly believe they are of superior intelligence. And yet another definite pattern is a justification to live exactly how they want. Subsequently, you have the blind leading the blind. Having said that, one only has to look at fruits to determine whether this movement is a good thing or not.

The most disturbing pattern I’ve found among those deep into deconstructionism is that they stop going to church. After all, Jesus didn’t go to church. And church is a socially constructed way to control the masses, right? Wrong. Here’s what I know about church (for more on this, see the series I did on church, part 1 HERE and part 2 HERE). The man on the cross next to Jesus had never been to church. Yet he went to heaven. So church doesn’t save you. However, I also know that mountains of research studies show that community is necessary to remain socially relevant, prevent from going insane, preventing isolation, and helping provide the sustenance needed to survive this lifetime. Those studies show that isolation is what always precedes suicide. That community is what cures depression and prevents it from coming back. That service is the other component that fights depression and anxiety. All of this is found in a church.

The best form of community available in America is the church. Because it is based on an eternal foundation. The people there love you because you are human and no other qualification is needed. And without community, your proclivity for depression, anxiety, and suicide go way up. There are tons of studies on this.

So what are the fruits? Ceasing to attend the church you once loved attending and questioning God’s existence. Yet another deception by the enemy. In order to steal, kill, and destroy, he must get you isolated. Deconstructionism is the newest way for the enemy to do that.  If the enemy can get you to stop going to church, you give up community and thereby become isolated. In isolation the enemy can begin to tell you lies that you will believe. And many are currently falling for it.

Remember what Matthew 7:15-20 says, 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

I hope I deconstructed that well enough. I mean, I ain’t that smart!

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Deconstructing Deconstructionism: Part 1- The Argument

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls of all ages… I’d like to introduce you to the newest craze. It’s the newest trend. Deconstructionism! It used to be atheism. Then it was agnosticism. Now it’s deconstructionism.

The superiorly intelligent have found new and creative ways to justify their positions on their carnal desires while realizing that they sound stupid for believing in nothing. That’s where atheism went wrong. You have to be relying fully on the faith in nothing or be blindingly stupid to believe there is no higher being at all.

Then agnosticism came. So there’s a higher being somewhere. Maybe it’s us. Maybe its nature. Maybe it’s the 90% of our brain that we don’t use. But we didn’t just get here from nothing with all of our complications and intricacies. So there’s something. We just can’t put our finger on what that is.

So we believe this God thing is probably for real. Our parents told us so. But I don’t want to just believe what my parents said. I need to find out for myself. So far, this sounds like a responsible endeavor. Because my faith cannot be my parents’ faith. It must belong to me, or I have no faith at all.

Let’s take a quick detour. I am a big fan of basketball. And I would like to dismantle basketball and its rules to justify my inability to be able to compete with those in the NBA. So I’d like to change the rules so that I can experience the possibility of a great outcome, like a championship. So the rules are subjective now. I want them to mean that you can’t touch me or get within 5 feet of me once I say I’m uncomfortable. Then I’ll be able to score and achieve greatness and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

This, ladies and gentleman, is the beautiful deceptive art of deconstructionism. Let’s take every scripture and “deconstruct” it to its simplest form. Then when we put it back together, let’s make it mean what we want to because it makes more sense to us in our super intelligent, creative, and emotional brains. After all, so much of what is in the Bible doesn’t make sense. And rather than attempt to understand it in its context and see what God was trying to say, I’d rather just make it mean what I’M trying to say. I mean, it’s been translated so many times, who knows what it really says. It’s all subjective.

What is an example of this? There are many. I’ll give you a couple. Deconstructionism will tell you that 1 Timothy 2:12 is a misunderstood verse. They will posit that there should be more female pastors in America. Another one is that there are many variations of translations of the Bible and one can’t trust the whole book to be true at its core, but must be dissected… by them! Interesting. It’s not enough that it has been dissected before they were born. Nope. They are smarter than those before them.

So let’s tackle those along with an examination of the fruits of deconstructionism. In 1 Timothy 2:12 is says, 12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” Yes, it has been mistranslated by some to mean that a woman cannot speak in church at all at any time. That is false. With a closer look, one would see that “quiet” is directed back to the issue of authority. There are plenty of verses that suggest that women are to help others. There are plenty of verses that show women teaching and helping many, men and women alike. However, when it comes to the authority of the assembly, church, that office is designed for men. That was God’s designation.

Also, don’t forget 1 Timothy 3:2, 2 “Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach.” Some versions say one wife. But “His wife” implies one person. This will be very hard for a woman to accomplish. Yet it is one of the qualifications for being an elder or a pastor.

The Temple Scroll, from the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images).

Well what about the Bible being translated too many times? I’m glad you asked. The first original scrolls were found to have been scribed around 895 A.D. Around 1000 A.D. there were more scrolls found. And in 1948, a boy was chasing after a goat who ran into a cave and found another set of original scrolls that were found to have been scribed around 200 B.C.! Interestingly, the three scrolls were compared, and they were found to be completely and unequivocally identical. There were zero differences. They were also found to be identical to the first translation of the Bible into English. There were so many requirements the scribes had to meet and were so were meticulous. Things like, each line had to be exactly thirty letters, and there had to be an exact amount of lines in a column. Also, if a scribe got to the end of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) and it did not end in an exact line of thirty letters, they did not follow the demands and had to throw it away and start over. This is how the scrolls from 200 B.C. MATCHED the 1000 A.D. scrolls (check that out here, how we got the OLD and NEW testaments). But you already knew that. You’re smarter than everyone you know, remember?

That’s a very brief overview of deconstructionism, from what I’ve gathered so far. Next we will talk about the fruits that it yields… go to Deconstructing Deconstructionism: Part 2- The Fruit.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Till the Ground

Parents of small/young children, I’m begging you to read this.

The issues I’m seeing the most among parenting young children these days are:

  1. We plant seed before we till the ground
    1. Tilling includes
      1. Teaching them how to obey the first time.
      1. Teaching them that we act differently in public than we do at home
  2. Too much autonomy
  3. We make the child too important

Tilling obedience.

I see many parents of young children spend a great deal of time plotting out how they are going to do creative things to help their little one grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. And these are good things. But if we haven’t taught them to first obey you the first time you speak, the other things you teach them will be for nothing because a) they believe the world is all about them and b) they don’t really respect you or they’d obey the first time. Asking a kid to do something is not always a good thing. Sometimes it is, but not always. Sometimes, I dare say most of the time, it is a better idea to tell them to do something, rather than to ask. Telling them or asking them multiple times shows a few things. It shows they really don’t respect your authority. They don’t believe there is a consequence to deliberately ignoring your request or demand. It shows that they believe they are so important, they don’t have to listen to you. It also shows they don’t believe you really want them to do whatever it is you’ve told them to do.

Tilling how to act in public.

I see this all the time. Actually, every time I go out. Kids are not taught to act differently in public. Therefore, they act exactly the same way in public as they do at home. There is a clear difference on how to act to not disrupt social interactions. I understand that society has defined this. I also understand that if your child is to succeed in this world, they must learn social aptitude and develop social intelligence. Teaching them that it is rude and wrong to kick the back of a chair on the plane or at the movies is necessary. Teaching them when it’s time to sit calmly and quietly and when it’s ok to run and have fun is necessary. Teaching them that destroying their dinner table at a restaurant is rude and won’t be accepted… is necessary. Teaching them not to interrupt is necessary.

Too much autonomy.

“But why can’t I go to this party? Everyone I know will be there! I should be able to make my own decisions!” My response was, “At 14 you can’t operate a vehicle. At 15 you can but with someone else in the car. At 16 you can operate a vehicle without anyone in the car, but you can’t vote. At 18 you can vote, but you can’t buy a glass of wine. At 21 you can buy a glass of wine, but you can’t rent a car. At 25 you can rent a car. Even the government knows that with age comes the ability to handle responsibility and make better decisions.” She didn’t like that, but it’s not my job to worry about what she likes.

Children are being given way too much autonomy. They are being allowed to make way too many decisions. I understand the need to let them make some decisions so they learn how to make good decisions. That isn’t an issue. The issue is in our best effort to teach them how to make good decisions, we let them make decisions they aren’t ready to make. If their chances of making a good certain decision is 0%, they’re not ready for that decision and the parent needs to make it for them. Children shouldn’t be deciding where you’re going, when you’re going, and when you’re leaving. They shouldn’t be deciding where you (or they) go to church or dinner. With each birthday, they get to decide more, but in very small increments. But this leads to the last point…

Too important.

Children are being taught that they are way more important than they really are. They are NOT more important than their teacher, their coach, their principal, their boss. They are making those decisions we just talked about because they believe they are the most important person in any room. There are serious consequences to believing this and it going unchecked by their parents.

Repercussions:

The results of these not tilling the ground before you plant the seed is that the seed will fall on ground that won’t let the seed grow. They will not take the seed seriously. Therefore, the seed is planted in vain because the ground wasn’t tilled first.

The results of too much autonomy is they don’t really learn how to make a good decision because all they do is make bad ones. It also teaches them false social interactions. They believe their way is the right way and no one tells them otherwise and when they are confronted with this in the social world, they’re met with great opposing force and don’t know why. “Mental health issues” are to follow.

The results of them being too important is simple. It puts them in a place to believe something about themselves that simply isn’t true and prohibits them from succeeding socially.

Other results include being a total disruption to your home and any social interactions you may have as a parent with other adults. Some may read this and say, “well why are we treating social aptitude with greater emphasis than self-worth?” Good question. Self-worth will come when they realize where their REAL place is in this world. If they are not believing those in authority, making too many decisions too early, and believing they are more important than they really are, they are set up for disaster, not success. I’m firmly convinced that social intelligence is FAR more valuable than self- worth, self- esteem, and academic knowledge. When you are socially apt, the rest of those attributes fall into place. Liberty resides within a set of boundaries. Without the boundaries, there is no liberty. If you want to free your children, create boundaries.

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The Debate over Abortion and School Shootings Have a Common Theme

You can’t scroll two posts without seeing someone sharing their opinion on abortion. The division. The vitriol. Everyone has an opinion and they’re willing to lose friendships over it. It’s worth noting two distinct things: 1- I won’t be covering the opinions of abortion in this and 2- the recent ruling merely returned the jurisdiction to the states, where it belonged in the first place. Nothing has been banned. The fury is over the fear that it may be banned in their state.

Just before that, it was the shooting in Uvalde, TX. A young man decided to commit multiple evil acts. Shortly after this event, the conversation about fatherless homes began to gain momentum, and rightfully so. The young man who committed those acts did not have a father in the home. I’m not shocked.

What is the connection between the two events? Lack of fathers. I firmly believe that’s the reason for the most recent outcry. If men were upholding their end of the bargain after sex, we wouldn’t have nearly the fury surrounding this issue. Mothers wouldn’t feel so helpless and alone. There would be more money available because the man is helping provide.

It started a long time ago but went something like this: President Johnson decides to lay out his plans for the “Great Society.” In it, he lays out a plan to help single mothers. He offers financial assistance to any woman that had a child in the home and no father/male in the home. While it probably had good intentions originally, it incentivized mothers to remove the men from their home so they could continue receiving money for their child. They were getting a certain amount of money per child. So not only were mothers incentivized to raise their children without fathers, they were also incentivized to have many more children to maximize their income. This is what led to the jump in fatherless homes. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, approximately 8% of white children and approximately 25% of black children were born to fatherless homes. Both of these numbers tripled by 2015. 25% of white children and 75% of black children were being born to fatherless homes. This plan obviously did not work and those negative effects were irrespective of race.

Now we’re left with the statistical nightmare of fatherless homes. Here are some of those stats:

*90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (32 times the average).

*85% of all children who show behavior disorders are from fatherless homes (20 times the average).

*71% of all high school dropout come from fatherless homes (9 times the average).

*85% of all youth in prison come from fatherless homes (20 times the average).

*Daughters of single parents without a father involved are 711% more likely to have children as teenagers AND 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

*90% of adolescent repeat arsonists live only with their mother.

President Obama stated in a speech that children from fatherless homes are 5 times more likely to grow up in poverty and commit a crime, 9 times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. Tupac Shakur recognized that he joined gangs because he searched for the things that fathers provide. He stated, “I know for a fact that had I had a father, I’d have some discipline and more confidence.”   

Studies have shown that children living with both biological parents are 20% to 35% more physically healthy than children from broken homes. Following divorce, children are 50% more likely to develop health problems. A child raised in a married family can reduce the child’s probability of living in poverty by 82%. Studies have also shown that growing up in a two-parent household is influential on reducing out of wedlock births. Studies show that kids who grow up in two parent homes have higher high school and college graduation rates as well as a higher likelihood of sustaining long term employment.

You want to fix the abortion issue for good? You want to do away with almost all school shootings? Fix those stats. Men were originally told to get out but then settled in this new life of laziness. I’m looking for an all-out revival of men stepping up and being the man God designed them to be. It takes a few things to accomplish this.

First, it takes the man willing to admit he could be better tomorrow than he is today. That’s a huge step for most men. We think we have all this figured out. Then we’re forced to admit that maybe we don’t. Once we can admit that, then we can work on it. The next thing that has to happen is men have to find someone they trust to point them in the right direction. Then they have to apply what they’re learning.

Next, their wife/girlfriend has to allow them to be who God designed them to be. She is capable of stopping that by not allowing him to lead his family. If she takes care of everything and he has no real responsibilities, he will never operate in the gifts God has given him. The wife/gf has to allow him the room to lead and make mistakes. Ouch. That’s where it gets ugly. Make mistakes? I once had someone ask me, “Well, what if you just know he’s going to make a mistake? You just let him?” My response was, “Unless you are 100% certain that you know exactly what he’s going to do and exactly what the repercussions are, then you don’t know if it’s a mistake yet or not. And even if you do, if he loves his family, then he won’t make that mistake again.”

“Men Step Up to Help Foster Families in Need Amid Pandemic“

Men have to stand up and be men. Love your spouse in front of your kids. Get them up and help get them ready for church, be the initiator. Pray over your children. Don’t know how? Ask someone to help. Serve your family by listening and caring. Caring about them more than yourself.

I’m fully convinced that the solution to the mass school shootings AND the heated abortion debate resides in the outbreak of men taking their roles and responsibilities seriously and choosing to do the right thing, even when it’s not easy. If the decision to overturn Roe v Wade did anything, it called men to step up. And if men will step up, society needs to let them.

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)!

Grainger

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What We Say

NyQuil… It’s the Nighttime, Sniffling, Sneezing, Coughing, Aching, Stuffy Head, Fever, so you can rest, medicine. These are symptoms we are all familiar with. Each year, there are periods when this “goes around.” Reminds me of the time I heard someone ask my dad if he heard the flu was going around. He said, “yeah, right around me!” In this moment, he refused to give in to the societal norm of just getting sick when everyone else got sick. He also didn’t give in to the norm of just agreeing that you will get sick, whether you know you will or not. Why is this vital?

I firmly believe that our words create action. I’ve said this before, but God said, “Let there be light”, and then there was light. His words created action. Then He went and made a bunch of people in His own image. This means OUR words create action. Consider the story of Nick Sitzman.

Nick was a hard worker, married man, had kids, a good job, and overall, a good life. The only problem was that Nick was known by all to be a bit of a worrier. He worried about most everything. So on the day he was working on a railroad car and accidentally got locked inside a car, it was no different.

The story was published in Reader’s Digest many years ago. As it goes, Nick was stuck in a freezer car. He realizes, at some point, that his coworkers had all left the worksite. Nick begins to panic because he’s in a freezer car with no way to get out unless someone gets him out. He finds a knife and begins to carve out sentences in the wood floor.

“If I can’t get out, I’ll freeze to death in here” … “It’s so cold, my body is getting numb” … “If I could just go to sleep” … “These may be my last words.”

Nick was doing what we all do in times of despair, makes observations. Only this time, he wrote them down for his wife to find. The next day, he was found dead inside that car. The cause of death was listed as freezing to death. His body showed all signs of someone’s body shutting down due to freezing.

This doesn’t sound like a remarkable story, does it? That’s because there’s one more important part of the story. The freezer car was inoperable and had been turned off (some reports say it was unplugged altogether). As a result, the temperature in the car was 55 degrees. This wouldn’t kill anyone. But wait, he died of freezing to death in a 55 degree railroad car? How?

To this day, no one can scientifically explain it. It makes zero sense to the science community. But to many psychologists, it’s quite simple. Nick Sitzman spoke into existence the desperation of freezing to death to the point that his body followed what his brain told it to. He literally spoke his death into existence.

Understand, I’m not referring to “mind over matter.” What I am referring to is that if you speak of something enough, you will begin to believe it, no matter what it is. And as you believe it, your body serves your brain. Part of the reason for this is for every thing you say once, you’ve heard it twice. You hear it in your mind before you say it, then you say it and hear yourself saying it out loud. Everything you say once, you hear twice.

An example of this is many reports that came out of the Vietnam War. Stories had been fabricated by people too ashamed to admit they didn’t take part in any actual conflict. So someone in the soup line would make up a story about how they climbed over their partner’s dead body to get a gun and kill the opposition and how horrific it was. Here’s the problem, they told these stories so much, they began to believe them and the next thing we know, the hospitals were flooded with people who are telling horrific stories from Vietnam and their minds and bodies are reacting to these stories, displaying genuine signs of PTSD. The issue here is that it was proven that these things didn’t happen. But their body and their mind were reacting as if it did happen. They said it once, they heard it twice and their body followed their brain.

With so much going around about whether we should wear a mask, masks are useless, should get a vaccine, vaccines do nothing, we find ourselves in a position to make choices about our health daily, which is new to most of us. We normally think seriously about our health about once a year. But now it’s daily. Are we saying that we are healthy and that if we get sick, are we saying we will get well? If you don’t know the future, and you have no certainty that you will or will not get well, then exactly what would it hurt to say you will get well?

I know what it would hurt, our ego. It would hurt our hope. We are afraid to say something hopeful because we have been let down so many times believing something hopeful about a situation, only to see it go the other way.

So what do we have to lose, besides a shot to our ego? Nothing. Begin to speak positively of things to come. If it doesn’t work out, there was a reason and God uses every success and every failure to move us in a forward direction. The Bible says, “The steps of the righteous are ordered.” It doesn’t say that the steps of the perfect are ordered. We’d all be doomed. But the righteous, or those in right standing, have ordered steps. Watch what you say. Your words have ENORMOUS power. If you say something horrific enough that you begin to believe it, this means you can also say something good enough that you will believe that too. So the next time someone says there’s a sickness going around, look at them and say, “right around me!”

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)!

Grainger

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He Won’t: (So Love Out Loud)

“You have to get over here now! He can’t breathe! We need to get him to the hospital!” Words you NEVER want to hear about a parent ever, but especially in their 60’s. Covid had grabbed both of my parents and it turned into pneumonia. The bad part is that my dad had spent a night in the hospital and was sent home with oxygen. So, here’s what happened:

I’m coming home from Memphis and on my way, my brother Adam calls and says he’s taking Dad to the hospital. So I tell him I’ll meet him there so his wife can stay with mom. Adam and I, with the help of an old friend named Wendy Sewell, help get him in and settled. They eventually get him admitted and won’t let us in because of covid. The next morning, I’m thinking about what to do. I’m scared. Then I think about the verse that says to come to God with a child-like faith. So I think of my children.

So I text 2 of my daughters with this: “I need you to make me a promise. Promise me that you will pray out loud where you can hear yourself say the words. I need you to pray for your healing (one of my daughters had covid) and for those you love.” One of my daughters forgot. Haha. My 19-year-old didn’t forget. When I asked and she replied yes, I told her that her Papu was going home from the hospital.

That was the first time he went into the hospital. The second time it was a little different. My brother and I try to get him to the car, and he didn’t have the strength to go 10 feet. We have to call an ambulance. Once he’s in, the word gets out and the prayers begin. We get word that a large group gathering will take place at someone’s home. There is a group of people that convene outside the hospital and go on Facebook live and pray for my Dad and one of his elders that was in the same hospital. There were hundreds of people everywhere praying for this man. That was Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday he had continued to decline. By the end of that day, I felt very hopeless and full of despair. I kept it to myself, other than my conversations with my wife. I had become one of the “strong ones” for my family. So I had to keep being strong around them and for them. But once alone, the despair and emotional wreckage unfolded. I had to pull over while driving one night because I just couldn’t see through tears. By Wednesday night, I had begun to think of how life was going to take place with our Dad gone. I thought of all the things that were going to be very different.

The next morning something hit me. I wondered why I had felt so hopeless when I knew that there were hundreds of people praying for Dad. ALMOST AUDIBLY, God made two statements to me. 1- “You asked your daughters to do something that you haven’t done yourself” (pray out loud, not just in my heart, spirit, or some other froo-froo word). 2- “You feel hopeless because you are leaning on the prayers of others.” WOW!

He was right. I felt like they had it covered, but it didn’t fix my despair. So I said “Ok!” I began to talk to God out loud. I asked for 20 more years but would be ok with 15. But I needed at least 15. I felt like God started bringing up me being in some sort of ministry again. I thought that was a strange time to bring that up. So I said, “Then I need 15 more years. He’s been my guide most of my life. I have a very good pastor, but I need Dad too.” No, I was not negotiating with God. God doesn’t do that. But I was pleading with him.

This took place between 9:30am and 10am. Talking to God out loud so that I could hear myself say the words. For some reason, this was very important to God. Sometime between 10:30am and 11:45am, the nurse at Dad’s side called my sister-in-law, who had been our medical liaison through this journey. The nurse said that his oxygen levels had increased without manually increasing the intensity for the first time since he arrived at the hospital. Then about 30 minutes later, the levels went up again. Then by the next morning, they went up again! W-W-W-WOW! It worked. He spoke. I listened. He listened. He chose to act in accordance with my, and many others’, requests. I was a bit dumbfounded. Not that prayer worked, I’ve always known prayer worked. But that this interaction seemed so specific and purposeful.

Do I think it was my prayer that did it? Nope. That would be very arrogant and very NOT God-like. Do I think God was trying to get my attention? Yep. No Doubt. Dad is still in the hospital and if God decides to fully heal him, it will be because of the hundreds of prayers, the doctors, all the nurses, Erin Grainger, Wendy Sewell, the drug Baricitinib, Dad’s willingness to fight, and an enormous love between two love birds that married when they were 18 years old. In fact, of all of my brothers, their wives, and my wife, I contributed the least. But make no mistake, God knew His timing would get my attention. And it did.

One thing that has stood out so far is the stoic steadfast approach that Dad has had through all of this. It is as if he never once questioned the fact that he was coming home to us, and that God would heal him. He was never shaken too strongly. He knew something the rest of us weren’t sure we were convinced of. He knew that when everything around him was shaken, he was glad he put his faith in Jesus. He had seen him be faithful through generations. He’d seen joy in chaos. He’d had peace, at times, that made no sense. He knew that his lack of strength only meant more strength for God. He knew that God had never let him down. So why would God fail him now?

He Won’t.

“Rain came and wind blew

But my house was built on you

And I’m safe with you

I’m going to make it through.”

For me, the lesson learned is that you can’t rely only on the prayers of others. You must join them and also pray. Pray out loud. Love out loud. Live out loud. And if God has never failed you before, why would he start now?

He Won’t.

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)… and listen to this song!

Grainger

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Eliminate the E.N.D.

The last kid is moved into college and the parents are back at home. The very next thing that happens is the husband and wife look at each other as if they’re looking at a stranger. The husband says, “who are you and how did you get into my house?” The wife says, “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” Slowly they begin to realize they’ve been married for 25 years and end up divorced because they don’t know their spouse anymore. I call these “Empty Nest Divorces” (E.N.D.).

I get these calls all the time in the insurance business. The wife calls to tell me that we need to split her and her husband into separate policies because they are going through a divorce. The situation is almost predictable. They are in their mid to late 40’s to mid 50’s and their youngest kid went off to college. I’m telling you that I get that call more than once a month. How can this be? How can that many people be divorcing after that many years?

Unfortunately the answer is quite simple. They put so much time, effort, and importance on their children that they never took time to cultivate their own relationship. As a result, they look up at each other and don’t even recognize the person they’re married to. They forgot that all relationships require time and effort, even their marital relationship. It’s not something you can just take for granted. Because if you do, you’ll be calling your insurance agent asking to separate the policies. You’ll be trying to explain to your grown children why thanksgivings will never be like they were. And they will begin thinking that they were the cause. If they wouldn’t have gone to college, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Believe me, just because they’re older and wiser doesn’t exclude them from the internal belief that a divorce is their fault. It happens to all children, no matter the age.  

So how do we eliminate Empty Nest Divorces? It’s not easy, but here are some steps. First, date nights must be priority. Once every 2 weeks is ideal. Once a week is too hard to accomplish and once a month may not be enough. This is top level priority. You don’t cancel, you don’t “come back to it.” You go. Go somewhere. Don’t spend money if you don’t want to. But go. Get out of the house and spend quality time together, with NO children around.

Having said that, the most important thing you can do to avoid an empty nest divorce is to keep your children Third in your life. Your life must reflect God’s design for living. In God’s design, you should have no gods before Him. Also in His design, what He put together, let NO man (mankind) separate. This includes your children. So based on that, your first relationship priority is your relationship with God. Your second relationship priority is your relationship with your spouse. That means that your relationship with your children comes after that. For more on priorities in relationships, click HERE.

Your children simply were not designed to be that important in your life. They were designed to learn from you and you being there for them to prepare them to “Leave mother and father and cling to one another.” Your children weren’t meant to be placed in a position where they are more important than your spouse. But if they become more important than your spouse, your spouse becomes a stranger to you. You grow separately and because you grow separately, you are in different areas of life. You have to grow together.

But is it really that serious? Is it really that rampant? How many people is this actually happening to? Glad you asked (ok, I know you didn’t ask, work with me here). In 2015, for every 1,000 married persons ages 50+, 10 divorced, which is up from 5 in 1990, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau. Among those ages 65+, the divorce rate has nearly tripled since 1990, reaching 6 people per 1,000 married persons in 2015. With the surge in divorces for those 50+, the empty nest puts couples at higher risk for divorce than ever before. So yes, it’s kind of a big deal.

So for those that have a chance to reverse this trend, please work on it. Your children will thank you; your spouse will thank you. Date your spouse. Don’t neglect that. Keep your children third. Then, when that last kid gets moved into college, you can look at each other and say, “now we can REALLY have some fun!” Life only gets better as you grow closer to your spouse.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Does God Send Good People to Hell?

I can’t imagine God sending good people to hell!

From an emotional, and even logical standpoint, this makes sense. When one thinks of God, they think of who He is and what He embodies. God is goodness. God is love. God is kindness. You get the point. But to truly understand this concept, you have to know God’s nature. There is more to God than just sweet whispers in your ear during a crisis. God is also jealous (Exodus 25:5 & 34:14), vengeful (Romans 12:19), and a God of wrath (Deuteronomy 32:35).

We have all heard this phrase spoken. We’ve heard it said primarily in reference to people that live lives believing that there are certain sins God didn’t mean to put in there. He meant to say that “those” sins are actually ok. That the writers of the Bible just made a mistake. We’ve heard it said in reference to those that don’t really know what they believe, or if they believe in God at all but live a good, decent life. So that brings the question, would God send perfectly good people to hell? To answer this question and address that phrase above, you have to look at two things: what does “good people” mean, and does God send people to hell? We’ll start with the latter.

Imagine you’re on a train and this train is headed for a brick wall. You are certainly headed for death- no doubt. You didn’t do anything to really cause this. You’re just on the train. And you really can’t do anything to stop it. It’s going too fast to try to do anything about it. Suddenly, someone comes along and says, “I have a way out. It’s not easy, but it’s the way out. You’ll avoid death and live a long fruitful life.” What’s your next move? “Nah, I’m good. I think I’ll just sit back and hope for the best.” No. You wouldn’t do that. You would jump at the opportunity to be rescued from inevitable death.

This is the life we live, summed up. We were born destined for death. We didn’t get ourselves into this, Adam did that. We can’t get ourselves out either. So God comes along and comes up with a plan; Adam got them in, so he’ll send Jesus to get them out. So there we were, on that train headed for a brick wall. Jesus comes in and says, “I’m the way out of here.” What you and I do with that information is up to us. We can either choose to follow this guy out or hit that brick wall and perish being a perfectly good person. But in the end, God never sent anyone anywhere. He made a way out, and we choose to take that way or not. Up to us.   

But wait, they’re really good people! Ok. Well, let’s see what the guy that gave us a way out says. The next place we have to look is to standards. Standards are used in every facet of life in the entire universe. Standards tell us true value. If I say that a pizza is good, that’s one standard, my standard. I love pizza. I feel like I know a good pizza when I taste one. But then again, I like frozen pizza. But if an owner of an authentic Italian pizzeria in Chicago says a pizza is good, well that’s a different standard. Now that pizza just raised in value. It’s now worth more that he said it was good than when I said it was good. Unfortunately, our standards vary as well as ebb and flow. They are not steady. Sometimes they are raised and sometimes they are lowered, based on our current circumstances. God’s standards never change. If there’s one thing I learned in my boring philosophy of religion class, it’s that if God could change, we would be doomed. The fact that He cannot and will not change gives us a steady standard by which to live and a hope that we serve a truly just and almighty God.

So what are His standards? Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteousness, our best, is still like filthy rags, meaning that our best is still not worthy of God’s presence. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Basically, summed up, we can be as good as we can possibly be, like Billy Graham and Mother Teresa good, and will still not be worthy of God and being in His presence. So there has to be another way. Yep. Jesus. Being good does not qualify you for heaven. You don’t get holy brownie points.

But there’s good news, you didn’t get yourself in this mess so you can’t get yourself out. Yep. Jesus. Seeing a pattern yet? When Jesus said He was the only way, He really meant it. Goodness isn’t another way. Jesus is the ONLY way. He’s the only way off of that train. Our goodness still has us buckled into the seats on the train. If you believe your goodness outweighs your sin, or that what God calls sin really isn’t a sin, and you don’t believe you’re doing anything wrong, you’re in a very dangerous place. You’ve been blind-sided by deception. But there’s hope.

So what do we do when we wrestle with the truth of God’s word? When we really don’t like God’s laws? I’ll leave you with this tough truth. I once had a rule in my house that one of my bonus sons didn’t want to adhere to. I basically told him he had two choices, adhere or leave. He said he would follow the rule but made sure he told me what he thought about it. My wife says, “What are we going to do about this?” I said, “Nothing. That’s a win! I don’t need him to like the rule, I just need him to obey it. Out of his obedience, I can reward him and bless him.” See, blessings always flow from obedience. The sins that God has defined as such in the Bible are there for our protection. But the hard truth is, God doesn’t need us to like them, he just needs us to obey them.

It’s much like when I was going to church growing up. There were many, many times that I didn’t want to go. My parents never asked me if I wanted to go. They didn’t care if I wanted to go. They KNEW that if I would just obey, blessings would flow. They knew this, even when I didn’t. And eventually, once I was “grown”, I ended up seeing the benefit of church and began attending on my own. I would’ve never gotten to that place if I hadn’t obeyed them and God.

The qualification? Believe Jesus is who He says He is. Follow Him. Turn away from sin daily. The man on the cross next to Jesus basically asked Jesus to just remember him and maybe let him join. That was about it. No baptism. No special worded prayer. No song with a 14-minute bridge to catch your emotions. Just “Hey Mister, I believe you are who you say you are, can I go too?” And Jesus said yes.

So, does God send good people to hell? Nope. We were already headed there. He gave us a way out. We choose what to do with that. But if we want to be right with God, it starts with recognizing our shortcomings. Without that, we’re still really good people sitting on that train.

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What Leaders Do for Christmas

I recall the time when my dad was out late for work. It happened a lot when we first moved to Tennessee. He had left a good job in lumber sales in Louisiana to help start a new church in Nashville, Tennessee. So when we got here, he was looking for work. He found odd jobs here and there and jobs that had him working from morning to late at night.

Every Christmas, mom would prepare us for the idea that Santa didn’t make a lot of stuff this year and so we wouldn’t be getting very much. This conversation happened every year. And every year, we had so much stuff, it took forever to go through it all. But even if they hadn’t been able to get us stuff, would we have been provided for? Yes. Because they gave us gifts that lasts for eternity.

See, dad’s time spent at work was to provide. It was to make sure his wife and his kids (in that order) were taken care of. He always attempted to show us how God would act. What God would say. What God would think. He taught us to see through God’s eyes and not our own.

Many many times we would say things like, “but his dad lets him!” Dad’s response would always be, “I’m not his dad, I’m yours and I don’t care what they think or what you think, I only care what God thinks.” Both of my parents were always making sure we knew what was most important. What we thought, what we wanted, simply wasn’t very important. Only what God wanted. I was talking with a young relative, around age 4 at the time, and he kept saying “but I want… but I want.” I looked at him and said “what you want isn’t important at all right now. The only thing that is important is that you do what I’m telling you to do.” He looked at me like I had three heads. It was clear he had never been told that.

This principal seems to be lost on the current generation. Things are always about what WE want. Instead of: what does God want. Pastor Charles Simpson expressed my sentiments on this exactly when he said, “I was born before they invented self-esteem. My parents just weren’t that impressed with me.” Exactly! Sometimes they were pleased. But mostly, they were providing for us and instructing us. I’m here to tell you that kept me out of jail. There’s truly no telling where I’d be if I hadn’t received the instruction of pleasing God before our own wants and desires.  

This is what leaders do. Leaders give you something that will last a lifetime. My parents always gave us more than enough during Christmas, but there was a reason. They didn’t get themselves ANYTHING. Was it because they didn’t have enough money to get all four of their boys something and get something for themselves? Perhaps. But, based on my knowledge of them, I’m inclined to think it was because of the principal of being a real leader.

Leaders serve first and eat last. Leaders wait until everyone has eaten at least once before they even pick up a plate. It doesn’t matter if the food is cold now. As long as everyone else has eaten, a leader is happy. Leaders let company use their toys first. Leaders let friends be the first to play a certain game. Leaders get up and give the last seat to someone else.

This leadership was instilled in us at a very early age. I’ll never forget when I saw a very clear, tangible expression of this. My little brother Jonathan was about 6 or 7 years old. He went with me to get a copy of my driver’s license. The waiting room had about 15 or 20 chairs and they were all full. He and I had taken the last two. A man walks in and looks around for a seat. Jonathan immediately, without hesitation, gets up and kneels down next to me to give up his seat. He had been taught that his comfort didn’t matter that much. He had been taught to respect his elders. Subsequently, he entered the military with almost no problems. He already knew what real leadership looked like.   

You know what else leaders don’t do? Leaders don’t buy for themselves at Christmas. They shop solely for others. I’ve seen many things I’ve wanted during this season. But I simply cannot bring myself to buy myself something. It’s just not in me. Why? Because that’s not what a leader does. I have the money to buy more than enough gifts for everyone in my family, and that’s a lot of people. I also have enough money to get what I want for me. But I won’t. Because I intend on sending a clear message to my children that leaders provide and put others first.

This Christmas, whether you have the means to provide everything your children want or not, make sure you provide the most important gift, pleasing God. Make sure your children know that what God wants is more important than any switch game or TikTok trend. Make sure they know that, at times, they aren’t that important. They need to know that. When we learn that what God wants supersedes what we want, we will then live in unity with Him and His children. Because then our lives become about others first. My kids can answer this quickly when I ask: what’s the key to life summed up in one word? Others.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger