A "Looking-For" Face

Our 3 year-old son Benjamin has recently shown great interest in people's facial expressions, and he likes to practice his knowledge of them. Frequently, Benjamin will ask me or Kristi to "Show me a happy face," or "Show me a sad face," or a mad face, surprised face, and so on.

But, the last time we played this game, Benjamin threw me a curve. As we worked our way down the list of faces to make, he asked for a new one. He said, "Show me a looking-for face."

Well, I had never heard of that face before, but I guessed it must have meant the face of someone looking for something, so I gave Benjamin my most curious, eye-darting expression, in hopes of conveying what he wanted.

A "Looking-For" Face. What an interesting request.

Benjamin isn't the only one hoping to see this expression.

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." -- Hebrews 11:6

"He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being." -- Acts 17:26-28

"But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul."
-- Deuteronomy 4:29

Struggling for answers in life?

Are you seeking the Lord?

Thinking you have all the answers in life?

Are you seeking the Lord?

How often does our God look at us and see a "Looking-For Face"?

How often does He wish He did?

Attention, Uncluttered

A recent pair of moments led me to question seriously how my mind works.

The first moment came when my wife Kristi picked up one of her Brighton necklaces, commenting on how much she loves it, especially since it was a gift from me on the first Christmas of our marriage. I acknowledged her comment, agreeing on how special the necklace is, all the while realizing with some sense of doom that, had she not mentioned it, I would not likely have ever remembered the connection between that necklace and that Christmas. I'm not even sure I would have remembered the necklace came from me. (I know, I'm terrible...)

Once I concentrated and thought about it some more, I actually did remember getting that necklace for Kristi, at a store in the Mall of Abilene. I even remembered that the lady who rang up my purchase was also a member of our church. I even remembered later that I had also picked up a Brighton ink pen for Kristi at the same time, although the pen has disappeared somewhere over the last five years and two moves.

The memory was there, buried under five years of clutter. It just needed to be found, dug out, and brushed off.

But, any satisfaction I felt at my delayed recollection of a special gift given to my wife was short-lived. Not long after this conversation with Kristi, on a random day, at a random moment, for no reason I can fathom, something popped into my mind.

It was a television commercial from the mid-80s, a commercial for a life-like doll of Mr. T. Do you remember it?

The jingle went like this:

"Mis-tuh Tee! He's got legs that move! He's 12 inches hi-high!
Mis-tuh Tee! He's got a real cool haircut, and a mean, mean look in his eye-eye!
He's got arms that move, and fists full of rings!
You can pretend that Mis-tuh Tee is real tough and mean!
Mis-tuh Tee!"

I remembered it vividly, word for word, note for note. It was as if the jingle had been playing on the radio right then. And, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

A special gift given to my wife at a special time becomes a buried memory, unearthed only by her comment, but I can count on a useless TV jingle from a quarter century ago to snap to my memory at a moment's notice?

I began to see a disturbing scenario: Me, on my deathbed, looking up at my loving wife, who is wearing a necklace I don't remember giving her, and my mind enjoying one last chorus of "Mis-tuh Tee!" before heading off to eternity. How pathetic.

So, why would my mind work this way? Allowing something I'd rather not waste the "little grey cells" on to be burned forever into my mind, while also allowing something I really treasure to be as slippery as Jell-O to hang onto?

I'm no brain surgeon, but I did come up with a theory.

Obviously, the commercial for the Mr. T doll crossed my path when I was a young kid, with virtually no responsibilities and few cares in all the world. At the time, I was also a big fan of The A-Team, which featured Mr. T, so I thought the doll was pretty cool. There wasn't a whole lot else going on for me at that point, so the deck was pretty much clear for this jingle to carve itself right into the wood, so to speak.

Contrast that with where I was in life at Christmas 2002. I was a busy adult with a thousand concerns, a new marriage, a demanding job, and thoughts of moving to another city percolating in the back of my mind. It wasn't that I didn't care about Kristi's necklace, because I did. It wasn't that I didn't give it much thought or effort, because I did. I gave it the best I had at the time.

It was just that the thought and effort I gave it were similar to what you might give trying to complete a task while riding up and down in a crowded elevator. You still get it done, you still care, but there's a difference between doing that and really clearing the deck to concentrate on something and give it your whole attention.

I realized that I might be making the wrong comparison.

For instance, my memories of my first date with Kristi are vivid, and always have been. I remember getting my truck cleaner than it had ever been, in preparation for our date. I remember thinking to myself, "I'm glad I'm going this," just as I rang her doorbell to pick her up. I can tell you what we both were wearing, where we went, what we talked about. I remember trying to make sure she saw me leave a generous tip after dinner. I remember exactly how I worded my suggestion that we go to another place for dessert. I remember how perfect it all was, and how we both knew we wanted to spend more time together.

Really, the comparison should not be between Kristi's necklace and the Mr. T commercial. The comparison should be between Kristi's necklace and our first date. The difference is plain to see. The first date was a moment prepared for, a moment taken seriously enough to clear off everything else in advance. That moment is saved on the hard drive. The necklace, unfortunately, was crowded into a tight elevator with everything else I was trying to juggle at the time. It was still saved, but on a disk in a drawer, buried under clutter, not readily available, no longer a part of daily operations.

Relationships are easy to take for granted, especially the most intimate and important relationships we have. We are vulnerable to the temptation of thinking we can skate along, squeezing our most important relationships into an otherwise overcrowded mind. The divorce rate in our nation should tell us this idea is completely false. It takes time and attention, uncluttered attention, to keep important relationships strong and thriving.

What about our relationship with God?

Which of the moments above does this relationship more closely resemble? Is our relationship with God something to which we give our undivided attention? Do we deliberately clear away the clutter to engage with God on a personal level? Or, do we try to pack Him into a mind already filled with daily trivia? Is our time with God His alone? Or do we multi-task at the expense of our intimacy with God?

Jesus, in a brief passage so easy to overlook, provides the perfect example for us, for all time:

"Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." -- Luke 5:16

How did Jesus manage this? He, of all people, would have been in demand for some need, somewhere, at virtually every minute of the day. His time could have been entirely at the mercy of the people around him, if he had allowed it to be. But instead, the Son of God made time for his relationship with the Father by clearing the deck on a regular basis, physically removing himself from distraction and giving full, uncluttered attention to the relationship that mattered most, but could most easily have been lost in the shuffle.

If the Son of God felt compelled to take such deliberate measures to ensure uncluttered time with God, how could we be any different? Why do we assume we can squeeze God in, when His Son made no such assumption, but instead demonstrated the total opposite?

Jesus' example of deliberate intimacy is the only way to establish God's place in our minds and hearts. Anything less will leave our relationship with God vulnerable to being drowned out by the jingles and crowded elevators of life.

May our moments with God, and the memories they create, be richer and more vivid than any earthly experience could ever be.

Trying to Impress

*The following story is true. The names have been changed for privacy.

I'll never forget the day Coach Garza brought Jason to my office.

I was an Assistant Principal at the time, a role which offers a close-up view of the good, the bad, and the ugly of everyday life in American households. And, a lot of the strangest things happening in those households walk through the school doors with the students each morning.

Once Coach Garza and Jason were seated in my office across from my desk, the scene went something like this:

"Mr. Dominguez, we've got a problem. I'm getting reports that Jason here has been telling the other kids in PE that he smokes crack."

Without even having to communicate, Coach Garza and I knew we were both about to fall over laughing. Jason did not exactly fit the "crackhead" mold, to say the least. In addition, I had already worked with Jason's mother on previous occasions, and knew her to be a caring mom who tried her best to stay on top of Jason's comings and goings. But, we carried on. I took up the questioning from there.

"So, Jason, you smoke crack?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"26 times."

"You've smoked crack 26 times?"

"Yes."

"Who is giving you crack?"

"My uncle."

"What's his name?"

"Freddy."

"What's Freddy's last name?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know your uncle's last name?"

"I've been trying to find out, but no one ever tells me!"

At this point in the conversation, Coach Garza and I made eye contact, and we both knew it was time for a break. I excused myself, stepped out of the office for a few moments, had a good laugh in the hall, and returned to resume my interview with troubled young Jason.

"So, Jason, do you mean to tell me that your uncle Freddy, whose last name you don't know, has smoked crack with you 26 times, and your mom has never found out?"

"Yes, but the last time we did it, my older brother caught us."

"What happened then?"

"They fought."

"Who fought?"

"My uncle and my brother."

"So, you've smoked crack with your uncle 26 times, and on the 26th time, your brother and your uncle had a big fight, and after all this, your mom still doesn't know anything happened?"

Jason ran out of answers at that point. His story was circling the drain, and couldn't be retrieved.

Coach Garza took Jason back to the locker room to change out of his gym clothes while I called Jason's mom.

It took me a little bit to explain this whole story to her, but her reaction still rings in my ears:

"I told him to stop trying to impress those kids!!"

I was able to establish with whatever certainty I could get in that situation that Jason's story was, indeed, completely false, totally made up in an effort to look tough in front of his peers. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the kid, especially considering his mother's immediate assessment of his reason for saying what he said. She knew her son, had probably been over this before with him, and had a good sense of what motivated him.

It's easy to chuckle at Jason's story. I know I do when I recall it.

But it's worth pointing out that young Jason is not alone. He's certainly not the only young adolescent to care more about his peers' perceptions than his own well-being. But, he also has good company in any age group.

How many times have we all struggled with this tendency, well into our adult lives? Haven't we all worried too much about people's opinions? Haven't we all been motivated by a desire to impress?

Scripture addresses this issue plainly:

"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them." (Matthew 6:1)

"[The hypocrites] love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men." (Matthew 6:5)

"...they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting." (Matthew 6:16)

"...they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." (John 12:43)

Your relationship with Christ is the only thing that will matter when your heart stops beating.

Not what a neighbor thought about your house. Not what a friend thought of your wardrobe. Not what a motorist thought of your car. Not what a colleague thought of your career. Not what folks thought of your wild and wooly days before you became a Christian. Not what those same folks thought of your repentance. Not what a brother or sister in Christ thought of your work in the church.

Paul takes it a step further by boldly stating that living in Christ and trying to impress others are mutually exclusive: "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ." (Galatians 1:10)

Live in Christ, or live to impress people. You can't do both.

To be sure, none of this should be taken as a license to disregard other people's rights or feelings, or to be rude or inconsiderate. The point is to do what we know to be right, and not to be distracted from this by a desire to gain the approval or admiration of other people.

Our worst sins, our greatest triumphs, and all we do in between are opportunities to pull closer to Jesus. They are also opportunities to make a splash in front of our peers.

Why do you do the things you do?

2008-2009

At 8 am tomorrow morning, I will address my campus's student body and launch the 2008-2009 school year.

One of the reasons I love working in education is the cycle of each year's beginning, ending, and new beginning. Each year has a personality and feel all its own. Each group of students has a chemistry all its own. And, each year brings joys and sorrows, triumphs and challenges no one could have foreseen.

My prayers for this school year are:

*That our campus will be safe.

*That our students will truly experience what I will be promising them tomorrow morning: A Fresh Start.

*That our students will learn and enjoy success.

*That every adult who works with our students will do so with a loving spirit, even when they don't feel like it.

*That our focus will remain on students first.

I love the phrase "Times of Refreshing" from Acts 3:19. May tomorrow morning be a refreshing start to a successful year.

Replacing & Being Replaced

I'm not a Packers fan, but I'm rooting for Aaron Rodgers this NFL season. This young man will tread the minefield of replacing the immortal Brett Favre as Packers quarterback, after serving as Favre's backup the last three seasons.

I have a soft spot in my heart for anyone called upon to replace a legend. For that matter, anyone coming into any organization to replace someone faces a difficult challenge. So does the person who is leaving. So does every other stakeholder affected by the transition.

So far in my career, I have come in as the "new person" seven times. I've moved on and been replaced by someone else six times.

On some of these occasions, I replaced someone who walked on water. Other times, I replaced someone not as highly esteemed. Either way, it's tricky.

In the first case, there is no shortcut to bypass the time it takes to win over the grieving fans mourning the loss of your predecessor, whose legend only becomes more golden with the passage of time. ("There just haven't been times like those since...[sniff]...I'm sorry, I just get so emotional....")

In the latter case, a ticker-tape parade is thrown for you at least once a week, and the no-good louse you replaced ("Oh, thank GOD for you!!!") becomes lazier and even more grossly incompetent in people's memories with every passing day. (This can go to your head if you're not careful.)

I'll never forget my arrival at my second teaching job. I took over in mid-year for a saintly teacher who left for another job. A fellow teacher showed me around the school, introducing me to everyone, and we came upon a parent volunteer in the workroom. Knowing this parent had a child in what was soon to be my class, my tourguide decided to introduce me to her.

"Mrs. ______________, this is Mr. Dominguez. He's the new teacher taking Mrs. _____________'s place."

It was suddenly clear Mrs. ________________ had not seen the memo about Mrs. _____________'s departure.

It was as if my tourguide had told this woman that her son had been caught with a thermos full of vodka. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes bulged in horror and welled with tears. Then, right in front of me, Mrs. ______________ blurted to my tourguide, "But, I don't want Mrs. ____________ to leave!"

Welcome aboard.

Through these experiences, I've developed a sort of etiquette to abide by whenever these transitions take place. These rules have kept me out of hot water so far:

*When you're the new guy:

Ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening.
Do the very best work you can do, quietly.
Be honest about your shortcomings.
Speak of your predecessor only when it is unavoidable to do so, and only in positive terms.
Overlook the insensitive remarks of those who fault you for not being just like your predecessor.
Call upon your predecessor for help or advice if needed. Don't let your pride get in the way.
Have faith. Time is the only cure.

*When you're the one leaving:

If you get to meet your successor, be kind and express confidence in his/her ability. Share all relevant information.
Understate your importance, but make yourself available, just to your successor, should he/she desire contact.
Praise your successor in the presence of your grieving fans.
Unless your successor requests otherwise, clear out and stay out. Don't haunt the place.
Do not allow yourself to become a depository for complaints from your grieving fans about your successor.

*When you're the grieving fan:

Grow up! Prepare your mind for a mature transition.
Be kind.
Never say, do, or even think, anything that would harm the new person's chances. Make a special commitment to this.
Do not remind the new person how the predecessor did things, unless you are asked for this input.

*When you're the one who celebrated the predecessor's departure:

Keep it in perspective. The new person isn't perfect, either.
Don't badmouth the predecessor or exaggerate the new person's greatness.
Take a look in the mirror. Any chance you were part of the problem with the predecessor?

What all this comes down to is the matter of how we treat others, and how we want to be treated, when we are at our most exposed and vulnerable. Every rule listed above is directed against the temptation to take advantage of someone else's vulnerability, and serves as a reminder that we're all likely to be vulnerable sometime.

No matter how many times we conquer new territory, no matter how confident we become in our ability, we will all face a moment sometime, somewhere, when we are made to feel like this:

"The scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the
midst, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses, in the
law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?" -- John 8:3-5

Of course, this story condemns self-righteous hypocrisy, and the men who brought this woman to Jesus did so out of false motive, but imagine how the woman felt at this moment. Does the word "humiliation" even suffice here? Yes, she was indeed engaged in sin, but she didn't deserve this treatment. She was vulnerable. She was exposed. She was alone, although she should not have been. (Where was the man she was in bed with, again?)

Consider how she was treated at her most vulnerable moment. The men who brought her to Jesus took advantage of this woman's vulnerability to use her for their own purposes. Jesus, on the other hand, restored dignity in a moment of shame. He did not allow the sin to pass unchallenged, but neither did he allow a soul to be abused.

How did you feel in your moment of unflattering exposure? That time when your faults were on display for the world to see and judge? That time when you threw the interception that cemented the opponents' victory, that interception your predecessor never would have thrown?

If you've lived through a moment like that, did it change your approach to moments when the shoe is on the other foot? When it is you with the advantage, and someone else who is exposed? When you are the interviewer asking the questions, instead of the nervous job-seeker scrambling for the right answers?

How do we treat people who are vulnerable? How did Jesus treat them?

"Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted."-- Galatians 6:1

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." -- Matthew 5:7

Common Ground, Across the Centuries

It's human nature to seek familiar company.

Some people can relate to each other because of a specific experience they share. War veterans are a prime example.

But, not everyone can be a war veteran. So, how does a civilian who loves his country find common ground with a veteran who fought to defend it? First, by showing gratitude, and by openly acknowledging his inability to understand firsthand the experience known only to the veteran. False familiarity with a veteran's experience would be just as insulting as any failure to respect the veteran's sacrifice. A grateful civilian will appreciate and thank a veteran, and a gracious veteran will accept these warm thoughts, and consider his civilian friend just as much his countryman as any fellow veteran.

Deeper than all this, however, lies the most important way a civilian honors a veteran's sacrifice. A truly appreciative civilian will live in such a way as never to bring dishonor upon the sacrifice of the veteran. A grateful citizen will live up to all the ideals for which the veteran fought, and never treat the veteran's experience as commonplace. Then the veteran can enjoy the peace of knowing his sacrifice was appreciated.

Common ground is found in shared allegiance, even when experience differs from person to person, and even between people separated by decades or centuries of time.

Hebrews 11 is a source of inspiration for any Christian. The tales of God's faithful from centuries past serve to motivate today's Christian to strengthen his own faith and demonstrate that faith in action. Every Christian reading Hebrews 11 should feel a sense of familiarity with the people cited in the text. These people are not just historical figures; they are family. They lived and died before our time, but we will meet them in a time yet to come.

Imagine the stories they will tell us!

Along with several major figures listed in Hebrews 11, such as Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, are other believers, unnamed personally, but immortalized for their faith, in particular for the way in which they died.

Easy to overlook, disturbing to contemplate:

"...others were tortured, not accepting deliverance...they were stoned, they were sawn in two...they were slain with the sword...they wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth." -- Hebrews 11:35, 37, 38

How does a Christian today, in a developed nation, enjoying the protection of the law rather than the persecution of the government, relate to a brother or sister whose last sensation in this life was the terror of flesh and organs being ripped apart by the teeth of a saw? How does a Christian concerned with keeping his house cool in the summer relate to one of God's children driven to take refuge in a cave?

Of course, every person's experience is different, and no one is expected, in any area of life, to have lived firsthand the experience of every other person he knows. And, no one should expect to comprehend fully the life and experiences of people from another time.

But still, we have to wonder: Would our lives and concerns make any sense at all to our nameless family in Hebrews 11? More importantly, would our faith be recognizable to them? Would they understand, as people who were murdered for their faith, how hard we try to avoid even being made socially uncomfortable for ours?

Not everyone can be a martyr, any more than everyone could be a war veteran. It's not possible, nor is it necessary, or even helpful to the cause. But, today's Christian must take something from the stories of these unknown martyrs. The thought to be taken is the utmost necessity of today's Christian living a life that would bring honor upon these people's sacrifice, and that would never treat their sacrifice as commonplace.

While it is Jesus' sacrifice that saves us, these sacrifices of our spiritual ancestors also serve to inspire us to be less attached to this world and more attached to Him.

Common ground between an ancient martyr, and a 21st century Christian? It can be found only in allegiance to Christ, even if it should cost everything else.

The Cost

I never thought I would be happy to see gasoline priced at $3.69 a gallon.

But I saw it today, and I was happy. A few months ago, I was horrified at this price. But, after riding gas prices up to $3.99 (So far, I've managed never to pay $4), I've been glad to see a 30-cent drop, at least where I live, over the last few weeks.

Someday, we'll all be telling these stories to our kids, but I remember paying a little over $1 a gallon in the early 90s, when I owned my first vehicle. At that time, gasoline was a modest portion of my monthly expenses, not even something I had to watch very closely.

Today, of course, it's a whole different story. Just about everyone in America has had to rearrange the household budget to accommodate the cost of fuel.

As frustrating as it is, and as unfair as it feels, it just costs what it costs, and we all have to drive, so we all find a way to pay.

I've spent most of this week interviewing candidates for open teaching positions at my campus.

One of the qualities I look for most in a teaching candidate is the commitment to remain positive and joyful, even when things get tough and people complain. Especially when things get tough and people complain. I'll take a joyful rookie over a grouchy veteran any day. I'm not easily impressed by years in the business. I'm impressed by the spirit that makes for good years in the business.

Teaching is a joy, but it's tough. Kids of any age require a deep well of patience. Anyone considering the teaching field must understand this.

Effective teachers have an inner source of renewable joy that allows them to remain positive in the face of constant challenges to their patience. Ineffective teachers lack this quality, thinking someone, somewhere is supposed to be doing something to keep them happy. They don't realize no one can do that for them.

A great teaching career costs a lot. It takes all the patience and love you have, and then some.

Is it fair that it costs this much? Maybe, maybe not. But, that's just what it costs, and anyone who desires the role must commit to paying the cost in full.

Consider these words from Jesus:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -- yes, even his own life -- he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple...any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." -- Luke 14:26-27, 33.

Who could ever claim to be comfortable with these words?

We so often focus on what we receive as Christians, and rightly so, because we receive a lot.

But, do we think often enough about what it costs to follow Jesus?

There are deeper waters in which to dive for more complete answers to what Jesus says in Luke 14, but the bottom line is this: Being a disciple of Jesus means living a life in which you are no longer the center. Your wishes and preferences are no longer the rules that govern your world. Your pleasure is no longer the goal.

An effective disciple understands the cost in this life, and looks toward heaven. An ineffective disciple is shocked by the cost, and lives in frustration, thinking someone, somewhere is supposed to be doing something to keep him happy.

Jesus has paid our debt and freed us from sin.

Now, all He asks for is everything we are and have.

Are we ready to give it all to Him?