by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, how does a man get reconciled with his father? I never was close to mine and he is very sick, maybe dying. I’m afraid he’s going to die and we’ll never be close. They tell me not to push the issue now, but if I don’t, I’ll never get closure with him. Any ideas?
Some questions I can’t relate to but this one I can. My father died when I was about twenty-two, and I thought I’d lost my chance. But about twenty-five years later I had a chance after all.It happened like this.
I was alone in an old house at the beach. A Norther was blowing rain sideways and whipping tall palm trees like buggy whips. And suddenly there my father was on the stage of my mind.I spoke to him as the storm raged outside.
How long has it been since I allowed your face out of the black basement of my unconscious? Three, five, ten years? No, not so long. But sitting here on a stormy day with everyone else scurrying in the rain to do the things they have to do, I am home alone. Fifty-five years sliding back toward twelve nestled in the familiar comfortable silence of this house with the ever present wind outside whining in from the Gulf outside in sheets of rain, like giant mewing tabby cats crying to come in from the rising storm.
Then there you were! My long dead father, full blown like a giant cash register number suddenly punched into view. And, as unbidden as your face, came the waves of anger belching up from deep in the dark waters of my soul.
There we were, confronting each other for the first time in some primal way—two men now, yet one a boy with wreckage of the awe and fear still swirling around the now emerged father face.
“Dad,” I said in a voice surprisingly deep and strong, fueled by an ancient rage. “I hate your guts for not loving me, for preferring Earle when I needed a father more than God Himself. I hate you for never letting me know how you felt in ways I could understand. I became a tall athletic challenger filled with intensity, exuding confidence and faith, but fearful as an unwanted child inside—which I felt I was.”
Your face looks sad—and something else: Is it fear? It is!
In a moment, as if you were a lamp and a light had gone on inside you, I could see—that you’d been afraid and lonely too. And that youdidn’t even know how to tell me that you loved me—if you did. And that you were as afraid of me somehow, as I of you. I saw in those seconds before the lamp cord was pulled into blackness again, that my mother had trained me as a warrior to do battle with you because she was angry and hurt that you couldn’t tell her that you loved her either.
No wonder you didn’t like me. I was smart and quick and tough like my mother, a trained survivor in passive aggressive sheep’s clothing. And my family task was to pry open that iron mask you wore and free you for us all from the emotional tomb into which you were locked—before you choked to death on the blinding black beard, locked in there behind the stolid metal face.
In that moment of illumination, my rage engulfed you, a huge wave crashing against the shore, and then you were gone. And what moved gently back toward me down the beach was a sliding backwash of sadness. I saw your reflection in the wet sand, a frightened man trying, like me, to be more than he was.
And sitting there alone with your memory, as the storm was now spent outside, I felt forgiveness welling up, and a kind of compassion and recognition of one man by another—both of us powerless to make things right. But in some strange way I was now the father, and you the helpless son.
I told you as gently as I could, “I realize you had no one to teach you how to live. But I’ve found people who could teach me, love me as I am, and give me tools to find and face my fears. I…I love you Dad—though I confess I don’t know how a man can love a father (how it works). But I ask your forgiveness for the times I shut you out to hurt you, because that’s all I knew to do—not dreaming that you, too, might be hiding in there afraid and all alone.
“But I’ve found God somehow, and I want you to know that I forgive you for ignoring me—or whatever it was you really did. Now I’m going on and live my own life.
“I pray that you and I can now find rest and freedom. But I do know that I can never release you from your prison. That’s God’s job and yours.
“With His help, I’ve just done mine.”
Lord, I am so grateful that You’re not bound by our limitations of time, strength, and even death, and that Your reconciling love can roll back the stones when we’re ready, and release us and those we love from the tombs we’ve been buried in, even for years sometimes.I am grateful that you specialize in transcending our shallow “logical” contemporary wisdom about such things. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.” 2 Samuel 14:14 (NIV)
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I’m an ordained minister in a local church. I’ve tried all the programs our denomination has and almost no one in our parish is strongly motivated by them. In fact, most of my congregation seems to want only to float downstream in their canoes—without even ever picking up a paddle. How do busy people get motivated to become interested in hearing (and living) the Christian message.
Over the years I’ve heard variations of this same question from a number of talented, hard-working ministers: How can a church leader motivate people even to come out to hear the gospel, much less to become Christians?” At one time this question seemed to be implicit in every leadership meeting I attended. I have found a single recurring answer echoing down the years. For many people there is only one universally effective way to interest them in Christianity—and that is to expose them to a person with whom they can identify, a person who is finding hope and meaning in Christ in his or her own life. For years I was a little hesitant about the idea of new Christians trying to influence other people before they really understood some of the implications of the gospel. However, some years ago now, something happened that made me rethink this whole matter.
While on a speaking trip in another state, I was feeling restless, tired and phony. I did not want to speak to this particular group. How could I possibly project hope and purpose concerning the Christian life?
Waiting my turn to speak, I looked out over those hundreds of strange faces. I wondered if anyone else had come to this meeting unwillingly . . . and could not shake loose from the slough of self-pity and the frustration of not being able to control his or her circumstances. But after I had finished speaking, I found myself still standing before the lectern, sort of hesitating.
Finally, I heard myself saying something I had never said before—and was a little embarrassed because it sounded like some kind of gimmick: “You know, I have the strangest feeling that I came all this way to talk to one of you who may be going through some of the same feelings of frustration and self-pity I am. And if you think you are the person, I would like to meet you after this session.”
As I sat down, I mentally kicked myself in the backside. “Why did you say a stupid thing like that? These people will think you are some kind of nutcase.” But it was too late.
After the program a large number of men came to greet the speakers. As the line came by, I forgot all about my closing remarks until a short, heavy-set man with glasses and black wavy hair walked up to me. He gripped my hand with great intensity and I saw a couple of tears start down his cheeks. Leaning forward, I said quietly, “Say, if you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you.” He nodded. I pointed over to a corner and said I would be there in a few minutes.
As soon as I could break loose, I went to him.“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“This is the damnedest thing that ever happened to me.I am an attorney and travel a lot. Although we belong to this denomination,” and he nodded toward the group still clustered around the speaker’s platform, “it hasn’t really meant anything to me in years. I certainly never planned to come to this meeting. As a matter of fact . . . ,” and he stopped, looking at me a little uneasily. “As a matter of fact, I have a mistress in this town and was coming to see her—though I was supposedly on a business trip. For weeks I have been feeling very guilty. I wanted out of this relationship, but couldn’t seem to break it off.”
“Well, anyway, I got out of my car in front of her apartment, a block from this church.Who should come charging up to clap me on the back but three guys from my home church.I almost fainted as one of them asked, ‘What are you doing here, Joe?’
‘I, uh . . . I’m just passing through,’ I lied, scared to death they were going to see the guilt written all over me.
‘Hey great. We’re just going down to hear some Christian businessmen speak. You’ve gotta come with us.’ And I was afraid to say no, for fear I’d somehow give myself away.
“But as I heard you speak about a new start in life—a life with purpose and meaning, I was amazed. I had given up on having any purpose and meaning and had been filled with self-pity.I had no idea what to do.Then you stood up there and looked squarely at me and said what you did, and I knew that I was the one.” He stopped talking and looked at me.
“Listen,” I said, not really knowing what to do, since I had to catch a plane.“We haven’t much time. Would you like to commit your whole future to God, including the relationship with this woman?”
He just stood there biting his lips, and finally said, “Boy Isure would!”
“All right.There are a couple of things involved in beginning, as I understand it.One is to confess that you really don’t want your own way more than God’s; and if you can do that, then ask God, as he is revealed in Christ, to come into your inner life and show you how to live for him . . . and then give him permission to make you want to.”
In a prayer, standing in the corner of that huge church, Joe made a new beginning. I pointed out that Christianity was not a “ticket to heaven” but a way of life that starts now and transcends death, and that all he had done with me was to make a bare beginning—now he had to begin to learn to live again.
I heard my name called and noticed that the people who were to drive me to the airport were looking at their watches.
Hating to leave this man, I said, “Hey, listen, Joe, I’ll make a deal with you.I’ll pray for you every morning for a month, if you will pray for me.If you want to go on after that, write me a card and say,‘You’re on for another month,’ and I’ll stay with you a month at a time from now on.”
Joe was in tears as he shook my hand. I hated to leave but had to. Glancing at my watch, I saw that my time with this man had lasted about twelve minutes.
When I got home from that trip, at the end of the month there was a letter from Joe.He had begun to live for God.Things looked great.He had started by breaking off the relationship with his mistress.Already it was hard, but he was going to try for another month, if I would stick with him.
Well, I knew old Joe was in for some real adjustments. And as the months went by, I was amazed at the way God was getting hold of this man.He began reading the scriptures and all the books he could get his hands on about living his whole life for God, and he began going to his churchand having long talks with his minister. Joe began to see his self-centeredness and changed his behavior towards his family and friends in the little southwestern town of a few thousand in which he lived. During all this time I had not seen Joe or talked to him. All he knew was that someone he had met one day was praying for him at 6:30 every morning.
About a year later Joe wrote and said he had told a few people about what was happening to him, but he didn’t feel they understood him. If I would come to his church, he said he would get these people together for a discussion about living for Christ as a person in business.
This was a very busy time in my life. But I had gotten Joe into this, and the circumstances were so unusual that I thought the least I could do would be to go and visit with the little group to which he was trying to witness. So I went.
I got in just in time for the meeting.Joe met my plane and was very excited as we drove to his church. He said he was sure glad I was there, because several people in town had come right out and asked him what had happened in his life. Since I had never written any books or articles at that time, his friends would know me only as “a friend of Joe’s.”
As we arrived at the church, the minister said that he was glad I’d come and that Joe had really helped him personally.By this time we were a few minutes late.We went through a door at one end of the church to meet the friends who were curious about Joe’s life.I stopped for several seconds . . . looking into the faces of over 800 people crowded into every corner and aisle of that church and adjoining rooms.
I realized in that moment that all of the promoted programs and Christian education plans in the world will be virtually worthless to motivate people to become Christians.People are generally not very interested in hearing about Christianity unless they see some ordinary person like Joe who is actually finding hope and a new way to live in Christ.And then many of them may listen.
The most pragmatic of reasons for seeing that Christ is the most dependable of realities is that of changed human lives.When we consider Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, we are in the realm of the empirical as contrasted with the merely speculativeve.Saul said it was the Living Christ who had met him, and the person who seeks to deny this is confronted with the face of a permanent change in Saul’s character.We cannot, of course, know whether a man is lying when he says “I believe,” because belief is intrinsically internal and personal, but the evidence of changed lives is something which other people can observe.In Saul’s case the change was so radical that it led to the production of some of the finest literature of the world, a literature which would not have been produced apart from the crucial encounter.
The evidence of lives changed by contact with Christ is so abundant that the full story can never be told; it is, indeed, of a kind not matched anywhere in any culture. The changed lives have come about, not primarily by a set of ideas or by acceptance of a doctrine, but by commitment to a Person.
D. Elton Trueblood, A Placeto Stand
Lord, we have somehow lost the art oflivingfor you in our attempts to educate people into the Kingdom of God. Sometimes I have reduced your Way into a study program “about” the faith of the church. At other times I havetried the emotional techniques of psychology and industry to motivate people to participate in the life of your church. Help me, Lord, to spend personal time with individuals, time in which we can discover together how to live our days and nights for you. Help me to learn again the amazing motivating power of lives which are in the process of discovery and change. Amen
And as he [Jesus] was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.But he refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in theDecapolishow much Jesus had done for him; and all men marveled. Mark 5:18-20
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, about two years ago I made a decision to turn my life and my will over to God. And I’m discovering a different way to love in which I am interested in learning how to love people. I read once where you described what happens to you when you tried to take your faith to your office. Can you tell me how you did that?
When I decided to take my faith to the office I would pray as I drove to work and parked my car that I would remember to be God’s representative in that oil company’s exploration office.But I was shocked to realize that when I got into my office and looked at what I had to do, I didn’t even give God a thought until I got back in my car to drive home.
Then I tried praying for people in the office after I arrived, but realized I didn’t know anything about them.
So I finally put a 3” x5” card in the lap drawer of my desk with a pencil on top of the card. When anyone came into the office I opened the lap drawer and took out the pencil, glancing at the card. I’m not sure how the message on the card was worded but in effect it said to me, “Keith pay attention to this person. I may have a message for you from them.God.”
That’s how I began to listen to people and ask them how they were.Over the next few months something started happening.I discovered that most people had problems, pain, frustration, hopes and dreams they didn’t usually talk about.Those sophisticated business people came in and just sort of opened themselves and let me see their inner lives. And I soon realized that there were enormous personal problems, loneliness, and searching among people in the oil exploration business.
Several years later I had met some other Christians in the oil business through my good friend Bill Yinger (who encouraged me and helped me more than he knows). Through Bill I was hired by another oil company and subsequently became that company’s exploration manager. And one day when the vice president in charge of our office was overseas, I said silently, “Okay, Lord, I’m going to get involved with any of these people who want to pray about this business.” I didn’t think we ought to meet together on company time, but I thought, “I’ll have a meeting with them before work and maybe we can find out how to be Christian business people.”
Among the men and women in that office were a Buddhist, a Jewish fellow, all kinds of “believers,” and some who did not claim any kind of religion. But I went to their offices to invite them and, since I was a manager, they listened to me.
I said, “We’re on a pretty fast track in this business, and I’d like to pray about what’s happening and what we’re doing here together. I’m a Christian. I don’t know if you are or not, but if you’d like to pray together, I’m going to come early, at seven thirty, and have a little coffee. If you want to come, fine. If you don’t, no sweat.” That was Friday, and I said, “We’ll start Monday—for any of you who’d be interested.” (I had a conference room next to my office that would give us privacy.”
All that weekend I kicked myself all over the house. “Why’d you do that?” I said.“You’re a stupid fool!”(Not that I have any pride, you understand.).I often have what at our house we call “cringers.” For instance, sometimes I have said something at a party that seemed “real clever” at the time, but when I’ve gotten home and remembered what I had said, I would grimace and shake my head, saying, “Oh no,whydid I saythat?” And so I was cringing all during the weekend about having been so vulnerable at the office. What if no one came” I’d feel terrible.
But on Monday I went in early, and of the fourteen people in that office almost all showed up. We began to talk together and share our feelings.After a few weeks the secretaries began to pray for the business and for the executives in our office, and the executives began to pray for the secretaries and for each other. We learned that we were all just persons who were struggling to live the best way we could in our circumstances.
After six months, people from other companies would walk in the office and say things like, “What kind of a deal do you have here? These people are sure friendly.”We didn’t necessarily say anything about Jesus to visitors; we just loved them.I kept a journal through all this time and was amazed at the waymylife changed.I felt more a part of the lives of the people with whom I worked.As I listened and let them know me, I began to feel love for them. And in a way I could not understand, I felt deeply that we were not alone in that hard-driving, secular business we were building.
“When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God, and God lives in us.That way love has the run of the house, because at home and mature in us.”1 John 4:17 The Message
Lord, thank you that you have gradually been knocking out the partitions in my life until I can be the same person in all areas of my life. Amen.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I know this may sound ridiculous, but when you first became a Christian, did you sometimes miss being invited to parties you didn’t even enjoy any more?
Oh yeah, and it still happens sometimes.One time a while back two different people called in the same week to ask us for details about a party that was being given by some good friends of ours.In each case we laughed and said that we were sorry we couldn’t help them, because we were not invited.They were very embarrassed, and we thought the whole thing was funny.In any case, we had another regular commitment to a group of Christians on that night and could not have accepted.
But then, when I was alone in my office, I found myself wondering why they did not invite us, since both couples who called fit our “category” for invitations.And one was not particularly close to the host couple at all.I felt all this even though I realized our friends probably knew about our other commitment.The insecurities of my childhood came scampering back across the years to make me miserable.
How strange this experience is.I wouldn’t trade our Christian life and friends and the meaning we are finding together in Christ for any other way of living we have known—especially the driving, party-filled life.And yet when the first “sounds of music” reach my ears across the night, I am sometimes gripped by my “inner child of the past” who tells me I am being left out of life.And I realize that it is this built-in incompleteness which keeps me from congratulating myself about my self-sufficiency in Christ and makes me turn again to God as a child.
In counseling others during the past few years, and in my own experience, I have come to see how universal and exaggerated the need to be accepted can be.And, as I suggested, the desire can be strongly activated even when one is not particularly interested in the event in question.Some years ago when our children were much younger, we all had been out on a family picnic.When we came home, we were very tired.One of the little girls ran in and asked me to unbutton her dress.I tickled her between each button, a ritual that had delighted her since she was very tiny, and she ran off into her room, laughing.
A few minutes later, when I went in to kiss the girls good night, an older sister was very long-faced and quiet.She looked up.
“Play with me, Daddy.”
“Oh, no,” I told her gently, “it’s too late, baby.”
“You played with sister,” she whispered, almost weeping.
“No, I didn’t, honey, I just unbuttoned her dress.”
“But . ..” (and now there were tears in her eyes)“. . . but Daddy, I heard her laughing.”
This morning here in my office I am remembering that little scene, and I realize that although I can outgrow my concern about not being in the mainstream of certain kinds of “parties and games,” I will always have the deep need to be included.And I suspect this need will always drive me out of myself as a solitary Christian and back to God and God’s people.
Someone has imagined God first fashioning man, and one of the host of heaven, watching, exclaiming in alarm, but you are giving this creature freedom! He will never be wise enough or strong enough to handle it.He will think himself a god.he will boast in his own self-sufficiency.How can you gamble that he will ever return to you?And God replies, I have left him unfinished within.I have left in him deep needs that only I can satisfy, that out of his desire, his homesickness of soul, he will remember to turn to me.
F. B. Speakman, The Salty Tang
Lord, thank you that you have called us Christians into a loving family and not to a lonely way.Thank you that the longing to be included, which seems to be planted in us from the beginning, has finally been met in a relationship with you and your people.And thank you for the reminder from the past this morning.As I try to witness to you that which I have seen and heard of you today, help me to be more aware of other people who come into your Christian family at church and of their need tofeelincluded . . . when they hear laughter across a room, or a city.In Jesus’ name. Amen.
What we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a common life, that life which we share with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.And we write this in order that the joy of us all may be complete. 1 John 1:3,4 NEB
