Misha Then and Now

Every year Misha and I make a list detailing each other’s traits that we most admire. I find it difficult to avoid typing up the same old list I would have written after our first date. Of course, I remember the date like it was yesterday. It was a Wednesday night study of Mere Christianity and a trip to the Hamburger Barn in Arkadelphia, AR. Misha ordered a honey mustard chicken sandwich and I probably had the fajita quesadillas. I only remember that because Misha finished her sandwich before I finished my food and I said, “Man, I’ve never seen a woman put away a sandwich like that before.” Yep, I was smooth. And I was fortunate enough to get a second date.

Even then, my list would have included Misha’s insight into the deep, dark corners of my soul, the face she doesn’t realize she’s making in the mirror when she’s checking her makeup, the way her legs look in black tights, her roundabout yet supremely entertaining way of telling a story, her unwavering determination to speak only what is true, and the intelligence with which she speaks.

I think it’s fair to say that I was completely smitten from the earliest days of our courtship.

We’ve been married 11 years now, and the things that flew me to the moon when we met in 1998 are still among my favorite things about Misha. I discovered early on that she has no tolerance for girlish drama, and that she values people over stuff. It was our first real conversation that clued me in her talent for seeing beyond surface level conversation to see foundational issues at play. Everyone on campus was aware of her obvious talent, but not everyone knew that Misha could craft a story that would have you laughing and crying all at the same time.

So I guess I will dig deep and try to get beyond the same old list that I keep repeating every time I give a compliment. And I’ll avoid the ol’ standby, “yur purty”.

I love that Misha so obviously loves kids. Especially babies. Every kid at Sam Houston Elementary is “her kid”.

Misha’s brain makes connections I usually overlook, which makes her a very interesting conversation partner.

Misha wants to be the best she can be at whatever she’s doing at any given moment.

I love the way Misha reads. She reads a book all the way through, and, if she likes it, she’ll go back and re-read her favorite sections.

Misha can’t resist giving to a worthy cause. Missionaries, students, kids in Haiti, Susan G. Komen, Hope Center, the list goes on.

Misha willingly gives her time away. Especially for ministry, school projects, or advancing the arts in Corsicana.

Misha watches the Star Wars saga with me, if only just to be with me. She scoffs most of the time, but still, she watches. And she recognizes the amazingly well done archetypes...

Misha loves to research cars and houses. Even when we aren’t in the market, she checks out realtor.com and local auto deals.

Misha organizes her schedule around our family. We all know that we are the most important thing in her life outside her relationship with Christ.

Misha is one of the deepest thinkers I know about spiritual things. She breaks through the clutter of big words and breaks difficult concepts down into their basic parts.

Misha’s legs still look fantastic in black stockings.

The World As It Was Meant To Be, part 1

I grew up in the country. My summer days were spent running around barefoot in the woods and hanging out with the only other kid in the neighborhood, and he is 6 years younger than I am. I remember the time I told him there was no Santa. He was 7, I think. His name is Jeff Coletrane.

Jeff’s dad is the consummate country boy. My brothers and I spent our summers working with John Wayne Coletrane mowing lawns, throwing hay, and pretty much anything else that would bring in a few extra bucks.

Every now and then the Coletranes would bring home an animal. Once it was a raccoon they kept in the little playhouse behind their home. It was fenced in, and we always hoped it would become tame and turn into our best friend, following us on our many adventures in the woods. Didn’t happen.

One day John Coletrane brought home a baby goat that was Jeff’s to care for. When it was big enough, they tied it to a tree right outside the raccoon cage. Jeff named her Jellybeans.

I have a confession to make. I hated that goat. I am not proud of this, but when no one was looking, if I was walking by, I would hit it in the face, or I would kick it, or I would wrap it’s rope one more time around the tree to give it a bit less slack. I’ve been carrying this guilt around for 20 years, and it feels good to get this off my chest.

I don’t really know why I would do something like that. But I have some theories:

Maybe I was jealous- I always wanted animals like the Coletranes, but my family just didn’t keep animals except for dogs.

Maybe I was weak- I was never the strongest or most athletic or coolest kid, and I wanted to feel like I was powerful.

Maybe I was cruel- Something in me felt good when I caused harm to a weaker animal.

Maybe it was all three.

What I do know is that these actions on my part are symptoms of a greater problem. We all know this intuitively, all we have to do is look around at the news, and we realize deep down that the world is not as it was meant to be.

Let me give you a picture of the world as God created it:

Genesis 1 gives us a picture of a world in complete balance. Everything God created was good and in perfect order. That’s what the word “good” means here. It’s not good in a moral sense. In Hebrew the word is tov. It means complete, in perfect order, and well-done. There was no extinction, all the creatures were well taken care of, and the climate was perfectly balanced. It’s hard for us to imagine, right?

Well that’s not the most amazing thing. Because after all the things God created and called good, he still hadn’t gotten to the best part. He was building up to His creation nonpareil, His crowning achievement, His magnum opus.

The Bible tells us that God spoke the world into existence, God said, “Let there be light.”, and BAM!!, there was light. It was the same with each stage of creation, land, sky, sun and moon, fish and birds, plants and animals. And after each stage, God looked over His work for the day, and said, “Yes, this is good.” But then, after the animals that live on the land, God stops, takes His time, and gets intimately involved in the formation of the crown of creation, the human. He stoops down, digs into the dirt, and with His own hands forms the shape of a human like we would do with play-doh. And then, He puts His face close to the human’s, and breathes the first breath into his lungs. The word for breath is also the word for spirit, so the first human had the pure breath of God in His lungs, and the man’s spirit was given directly by God Himself.

The man’s name was Adam, the Hebrew word for dirt. Now this dirt was perfectly morally pure. He was not guilty of anything, was completely selfless, and had the opportunity to live forever. His job was to be God’s representative on earth, to rule creation as God’s right hand. And the human knew exactly what God was like because he was able to walk and talk with God as if he were walking and talking to you or me face to face.

There was no war. There was no jealousy. There were no power-hungry dictators. There were no cruel fathers beating their children or wives. There was no destruction of the environment. The man had plenty to eat, and when God created the woman, they were the perfect complement to each other.

So pretty much imagine the best possible world without technology, and it was probably pretty close.

But look around at the world today. There is war. There is abuse. There is jealousy. The world is not as it was meant to be. And there is a reason why.

Quotable Quotes

I never looked at Habakkuk much when I was a kid. It just didn’t register on my radar of things to read. Even now I hardly ever think to revisit the story. After all, it’s just 3 chapters in the middle of the Minor Prophets. They’re like the Minor League, right? The ones that just couldn’t make it in the Majors?

I imagine I’m like most people in the world. We just don’t pay much attention to some books of the Bible. They seem too insignificant or too difficult to understand. Habakkuk seems to fly under the radar, even though we use phrases from the book fairly often. For example: The just shall live by faith, and, He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and sets me on high places. Ok, well, that’s all I could find. And that last one is a stretch.

It just so happens that Howard Hendricks was still teaching first year Bible Study Methods at Dallas Seminary when I started in 2001. Part of the program was to dissect Habakkuk and chart the book in great detail. Until then I had been satisfied to depend on the verses I had memorized as a kid. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that to understand Scripture it’s not enough to be able to quote a few random verses from a few random books of the Bible.

We have a quotable quote Christian culture. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I know my Redeemer lives. Be kind one to another. For God so loved the world. The greatest of these is love. We depend on these verses and pull them out to address different situations we face. Trouble with your boss at work? God gives grace to the humble. Death in the family? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

In the 70s and 80s the Bible Church movement was known for its commitment to getting beyond the self-help, quotable quote Christian Culture. Believers Bible Church was, and still is, known for digging deep into Scripture and finding the unfathomable truths that can be found on every page of the Bible. But the temptation to be satisfied with quotable quotes at the expense of understanding context, nuance, and the author’s intended meaning remains strong.

Don’t misunderstand me. All of the verses we most love to quote are on my list of favorites. But it’s our tendency to use quotable quotes that allows misunderstandings and even heresies into our mindset. It’s this tendency to cherry pick verses that leads to proof-texting and justification of our own wrong thinking. It leads to a confusion of the actual message of books like James and Hebrews.

The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (There I go. But I think I may be well within the interpretive range in this one.) If we are going to really experience the life that God desires for us to live, it is necessary for us to get beyond the quotable quote approach to Scripture. The Bible is God’s communication of Himself to us. If we really want to know Him and the power of His resurrection, then we must dig deep. If we want to realize the unfathomable riches of His grace, we must be committed to the daily study, not of someone else’s thoughts about Scripture, but of Scripture itself.

It starts with just reading. I hope that even if you’ve gotten behind in our Bible reading plan, you are sticking with it and discovering new truths every day, because this is how we deepen our faith and get to know the Almighty God of the universe who has made Himself known to us.