Used and Abused

Ever get the feeling you are being taken advantage of? I do, and I hate it. I really don’t mind being generous. If I think the waitress did a good job, I’ll leave her a 30% tip. If I appreciate how quickly the cab driver got me to the airport, I might give him an extra $20. If I just feel like being a nice guy, I’ll shovel the snow for three or four of my neighbors. But I hate being taken advantage of.

I’ve been finding myself in a lot of situations lately where I felt like someone was taking advantage of me.

• The maebaan (Thai for “maid”) who charges us for a day what others charge for a week.
• The car salesman who sells us a car with engine problems and an undisclosed wreck.
• The realtor who paints my entire house whether it needs it or not, because I’m not there to remind her that I told her it was painted less than a year ago.
• The men who come to my garage sale as a group and distract me while they steal hundreds of dollars worth of tools.
• The street vendor who charges me double what a local would pay.
• The eight-year-old who pretends to be sick so that he can stay home from school and (try to) play Nintendo.

I don’t think all these events are coincidental. When you start to notice a pattern of trials in your life, there’s a good chance God is trying to teach you something. So, I’ve started to wonder why being taken advantage of bugs me so much. The short and ugly answer…pride. I don’t want to be the fool. I don’t want people talking about how they got one over on me.

Fun’s all over.  Now that I know where the anger comes from, I’ve got to do something about it.  Ugh!

That means I must… “love (my) enemies, do good to those who hate (me), bless those who curse (me), pray for those who mistreat (me). If someone strikes (me) on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes (my) jacket, (I should not) stop him from taking my shirt, too…” (Luke 6:27-29)

It seems like an impossible standard, but here’s what I’ve realized.  While it’s about me, it’s not really about me.  Yes, God wants to change my heart and help me practice humility.  But that’s just the means to an end.  God’s target is the heart of the person who witnesses the humility.

If I put away my selfishness…if I let that person take advantage of me and do nothing to assert my “rights,” God gets the glory and someone’s heart might be changed.  I will probably look pretty foolish.  I may never have the satisfaction of having someone know about the ego sacrifice that I made.  There won’t be a final set of stanzas where Kenny Rogers sings about how I got my revenge on all those Gatlin Boys.

But the Christian’s life doesn’t end like “Coward of the County.”  We aren’t guaranteed “success” here on earth.  Our lives might look like complete and total failure from a worldly perspective, but God uses a different yardstick.

Contrary to public opinion, meek’s not weak.  It’s restrained power.  Think omnipotent God submitting to an unjust persecution from His own creation.  Angels with drawn swords – rescue but a breath away – but choosing to endure because His eyes were on the eternal goal.     That’s meekness, and it’s the currency of heaven.

It’s easier to loosen up…

A participant in one of my workshops once contributed, “It’s easier to loosen up than it is to tighten up.”  He was talking about leadership and how it’s easier to relax your strict style of management than it is to get more strict after you’ve already been relaxed, but that bit of wisdom has been useful to me in many other circumstances, as well.

For example, I’m in the doghouse right now because of my youngest son’s prayer at dinner last night.  (I promise, I’ll make the connection – keep reading.)  We sat down to eat, and I asked him to say grace.  He prayed the typical, memorized prayer of, “God, thank you for this food, and thank you for today.  Please bless Agit (our sponsored child) and help Mr. E_____’s dad to learn how to play slapsticks (family joke from a kid’s sleepy prayer one night)…”  Then, he began to ad-lib. 

“It’s gonna happen to you! And you! And YOU! Fear this warning!  Twisted tail!  A thousand eyes!  Trapped for-EVER!  EPA!  EEEEEEPPPPPAAAAAA!   AHBUDIBUDIBUDO!  Thanks for listening.  Lord, thank you this bastardly penis.*  Amen.” 

My wife was a little shocked at first, not knowing (as I did) exactly where this monologue had originated.  But a few direct questions and her famous piercing stare did the trick.

“It was Dad’s fault!  It was his fault!  He let us watch the movie!”

“What movie?”

“The Simpsons.”

“You let them watch The Simpsons!?!  That’s not appropriate!  I wouldn’t have let them watch The Simpsons!”

I had been laughing up to this point, but I sobered up pretty quickly.

“Uh, well, uh, it was late, and, uh, the kids wanted to watch a movie, and, well, there weren’t any good kid movies, and…”

“The Simpsons is not a “kid” movie.  You are SO out of the running for “Father of the Year!”

So, here’s where I tie this all together.  The reason my youngest two had watched The Simpsons was because their brother had been allowed to watch it.  He’s thirteen, and we allow him to watch movies that the other kids can’t.  The Simpsons originally started as one of those.  A privilege of being 13.  An opportunity for us to talk about other  peoples’ (to be read, “non-conservative–non-Christian”) points of view.  (While I don’t share political or spiritual views with Mr. Groening (creater of Homer, Bart and the rest), I do think he’s funny, and I think it’s a good exercise to laugh at your own worldview sometimes.)

Anyway, as I was saying, The Simpsons started as a privilege-of-being-older movie, but I get weak after 9:00 p.m., and the kids know it.  They wore me down quoting scenes they had heard of from their older brother.  Before long, they had me laughing, and that’s when they set the hook.  In minutes, I was saying, “Aw, it wasn’t that bad for kids, was it?  I don’t remember any questionable parts.  Okay, I’ll watch it with you!”  Looking back, that was the exact moment I rented space in the doghouse.  Moving day was a few days away yet, but I was already a tennant.

In my own defence, once you loosen up the rules for the older kid in the family, it’s much harder to keep them tightened up for the others.  Parenting gets easier if you just treat all the kids the same – one set of rules to govern them all.  But if you have the loose rules for the teenager and the tight rules for the younger kids and even tighter rules for the youngest kids, parenting is a nightmare.  The younger kids lobby incessantly.  “That’s not fair!  How come I don’t get to…?  Why do I have to wait?”  Before long, you start questioning your own decisions.  Kids are great lawyers for their own causes.

And now, my wife wants me to tighten up the rules for the younger kids.  How am I supposed to do that?   Pandora’s box has been opened.  The milk is spilt.  The water has passed under the bridge.  The toothpaste is out of the tube.  It….means….that….I’m….going to have to be…….the bad guy!  It’s almost more than I can bear.

The moral of the story is that you are much better off keeping your rules tight until it’s appropriate to loosen them up.  Or, that you should keep them tight for everyone and just tell your teenagers “tough noogies,” as my sister used to say.  Or, that you shouldn’t have kids.  Oh, just write your own moral.  This parenting thing is tough.  I might be more like Homer Simpson than I thought.  Doh!

* Incidentally, the “bastardly penis” line was my son’s malapropism for “bountiful penis,” a line from a later part of the movie.  If he had just stuck with “bountiful penis,” I doubt this incident would have even registered on my wife’s bad parenting radar.

Movie Night

I had an opportunity to take my oldest son out to see a movie in Thailand yesterday.  This was our second attempt.  The first left us confused and frustrated.  Even movie-going can take a cultural adjustment.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with the process; I just didn’t understand it.  As a result, we were late for a movie that wasn’t actually showing last time.  We couldn’t figure out the showtimes or the ticket purchasing requirements, and though our preferred movie was advertised at different places in the mall, it didn’t turn out to be one of the five they were showing that particular day.

Though that experienced chaffed in our memories, the draw of a potentially good guy-movie kept singing its Siren song, and we couldn’t resist trying again.  This time, I found a website that helpfully showed the showtimes in English, so I felt confident of success.  We arrived in plenty of time to make sense of the ticketing process, and having secured our seats, we went to have some pizza and talk about movie trailers and video games.

The movie was advertised at 9:30p (21:30), so we greeted the ticket taker at about 9:10p in order to get the best seats.  Surprisingly, that’s not how this system works. 

“Come back later.”

“I’m sorry.  You want us to come back at a later time?”

“Yes.  Movie starts at 9:30.”

“Right.  That’s why we came now.  Can we get to our seats?”

“Come back later.”

“Uh…okay.  When should we come back?”

“Movie starts at 9:30.”

“So we should come back at 9:20 or 9:25?”

“Please come in.”  (At this point, the two of us had exhausted our Thai-English vocabulary, and she had given up trying to make me understand.)

“No, that’s okay.  I’m just having trouble understanding.  We should come back when the movies starts?”

“Yes, come back later.”

A little confused, we stepped aside to wait until the prescribed time.  As we did, I noticed that there were dozens of people sitting around waiting for the correct time to approach the ticket taker.  I’m sure our conversation was amusing for those who knew how the system really worked, so I stood hoping someone else would come and make the same mistake so that I could look on and share the joke.  No one did.

At 9:30p, everyone milled toward the ticket taker, but the process was slowed by the need to search everyone’s bags, purses and murses (that’s “man-purse” in case you’re not up with the fashion trends, and they are very manly and not the least bit effeminate looking – when I carry one, anyway).  The searches, it turns out, were for video camera’s and other recording equipment.  Thailand must be the world’s capital for pirated movies, music and software, and the theatre didn’t want to be responsible for allowing this type of entrepreneur through on their watch – at least not for free.

Murse examined and approved, we headed for our screen, but we didn’t get far.  Someone stopped us and told us that we would need to check our bag – we had some leftover pizza.  We surrendered our snack in exchange for a claim ticket and then continued on to screen seven, where we passed through a metal detector (yes, a metal detector) just in case we were terrorists looking to hijack the theatre.  But past the metal detector, everyone milled around again, waiting to be allowed into the movie.  We could hear movie-type noises coming through the door, but no one other than me seemed to pay it much attention.  Most sat around having conversations or reading the paper while they waited.

Five minutes later, we were allowed access.  Previews were well underway, which always disappoints me, because that’s my favorite part.  But it turns out, we didn’t miss much.  Most of the previews are really just commercials for banks, stores and things we just couldn’t make out with the language difference.  The commercial for the 7-11 convient store chain stood out.  Not because it was an exceptional commercial but because they were interviewing people and for some reason had chosen to interview one who wore a shirt that said (in English), “I like girls who like girls.” 

When you see something like that, it makes you really curious what the rest of the commercial could have been about.  It’s not like he was showing his support for the gay and lesbian community; he was doing his own bit of personal advertising – just in case any “girls who like girls” might see the clip and want to look him up.   My son probably summarized it best when he leaned to me and said, “That was random.”  (Teenager speak for “Where did that come from?”)

Also included in the movie warm-up time was a preview for a Thai horror movie.  The trailer was pretty gruesome, but it was a strange, horror-slapstick genre of movie that had the audience laughing regularly throughout.  In the middle of the trailer, the main character (a male) did a strip-tease (without the tease part) until he was completely nude.  This, too, generated a good deal of laughter from the crowd.  I leaned over to my son and said, “That was characteristic of a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.”  At which point, he said, “Huh?”

Forty-minutes later…the movie was about to start, and I was beginning to wonder if I could stay awake through the whole thing.  But before any movies play in Thailand, there is a brief video about the king’s life.  It’s very well done and gives you an idea how much the Thai’s love their king.  Everyone stands to their feet during the video.  I took off my hat.  I’m not sure if I was supposed to or not, because I couldn’t see anyone else, and better safe than sorry.  If you read last week’s blog about “Walking Street,” you know I need to earn points where I can.

Other than the Thai subtitles and occasional dubbing, the movie was just like one you would see in The United States.  It was good to see Anakin Skywalker didn’t really lose his legs in that other movie a few years back, and both of us really enjoyed the show.  We were so busy planning the sequal on the way out that we forgot to claim our pizza and had to turn around at the parking garage to go back for it.  (Our “No Pizza Left Behind” program.)

One thing I forgot to share…In Thailand, you get assigned seats at the movie theater.  When you buy your ticket, they show you a schematic of the theater, and you tell them where you want to sit.  Seats are priced according to how close you are to the screen (we sat in the middle and paid about $4 per ticket), and the seats in the back of the theater are premium.  When we left, I noticed that the back row is made up entirely of Lazy-Boy recliners!  No kidding!  They are huge and comfy-looking with room to kick back and places to keep your refreshments.  Even if I have to watch the horror-slapstick movie with the naked man, I’m going back.

Inflation

And you thought gas was expensive where you’re from…. 

Same Same…but Different

A English phrase you often hear in Thailand to describe two things that are similar is “same-same.”  The two items don’t have to be identical; they just have to share a common trait.  For example, an shirt sized XXL and a shirt sized XL can be “same-same,” because they are both shirts.  A biscuit and a bagel can be “same-same,” because they are both breads.  How loose the connection is usually depends on how much a vendor wants to sell something to you. 

“Same-same” is my problem in learning the Thai language.  The vowels are often “same-same” compared to English vowels, but they make different sounds.  “E” sounds like “a;” “i” sounds like “e;” “u” sounds like “oo.”  And entire words are like that, too.  “Song” means “two;” “ha” means “five;” “sip” means “ten.” I’ve found that this is one of the biggest challenges to learning a new language, because our brains are familiar with the old meaning of the symbols we know and are reluctant to accept that those symbols could have more than one meaning.   

It gets even more difficult when two people think they are talking about the same thing, because they are using familiar words, when in reality, they are talking about very different things.  When we hear words we are familiar with, we tend to let down our guard.  We assume that the word has the same meaning we are used to, and we don’t clarify. 

This happens all the time in communication. 

• Your boss says she wants something ASAP (As Soon As Possible), and you assume that means when it’s possible for you to get to it.  However, what she really meant was that she wanted you to make it your top priority. 
• Someone gives you directions that include “turn at the Jet gas station,” and you go to the one that you know rather than the one further down the road that he had been refering to. 
• You tell someone that you are angry about a situation at work.  To you that means “mildly irritated,” but her understanding of the word is much stronger, so she worries that your about to quit. 
• A co-worker says that he will put together a project plan for something you are working on, but it turns out he was only thinking of a bulleted task list.  Same-same…but different.

We get in trouble when we start assuming that we know what the other person is talking about, when we don’t ask questions to clarify, when we take short-cuts.  I was talking with a man who works with New Tribes Mission the other day.  He related a tragic example of a time when a missionary from another ministry went into a tribe and encouraged them for weeks to worship the “Son of God.”  Unfortunately, what the missionary didn’t realize is that “son of God” meant the devil in these peoples’ language.

I once had a waittress in Nigeria engage in a conversation with me about Jesus.  Afterward, I was so impressed with her Bible knowledge.  She had been able to move quickly and accurately from one memorized scripture to the next and offered to bring me some books to help with my studies. 

But when I met her the next day to collect the books, I realized that we weren’t talking about the same “Jesus.”  Hers was the “Jesus” of the Jehovah’s Witness faith – not God, but just God’s first creation.  I was surprised and disappointed, and it made me wonder how many other “Christians” I’ve met who talk about “Jesus” but believe Him to be someone other than who He really is. 

Sometimes “same-same” is very different.  Keep asking questions. 

It’s Called “Walking” Street!

So many different people have recommended that we go see “Walking Street” in Chiang Mai that we just had to go this weekend.  It’s a place where local vendors hawk their wares.  We thought we would take a few hours, see what it was all about and then head to church.  We were wrong.

 We found what we thought must be it and parked just out of range of the several booths that had been set up alongside the road.  At the time, there were several cars parked in the same place, so we had to parallel park to squeeze into a small place (“parallel wedge” might be a better description – inching forward sixteen times and back seventeen).

That accomplished, we unloaded the herd and headed to a street-side restaurant, had lunch and then began our walking tour.  About two and a half hours passed, and we were running late for church, so we started back toward the car.

But as we got closer to where we remembered parking, my anxiety began to grow.  There were a lot more booths than I remembered from a few hours ago.  In fact, there weren’t just booths on each side of the street; now they filled the middle of the road, too.  Hundreds and hundreds of vendors had brought their goods to sell, and there was maybe enough room for a motorbike to pass between some of them.

Leaving my family behind, I picked up my pace.  By the time I reached the car, I was at a nervous trot.  Then I saw it…a boat of a car in a sea of angry street-side vendors. 

Instinctively, I put my keys back into my pocket so that no one would notice that I was the owner.  Casually, with a bit of a smirk on my face to indicate how amused I was that someone would be so stupid as to park their car in the middle of this particular road, I passed by my car to survey the prospects of extricating it from the mess it was in.

It was hopeless.  I walked 50 yards up the street and only saw a congested series of expensive roadblocks just waiting to be knocked over or crushed under my tires.  I tried back the other way – no use.  Side streets – no point.  Everything was blocked. 

So, my wife and I huddled together to work out a plan.  Walk the streets for eight hours with three grumpy kids?  Nope.  Abandon the car to more responsible future owners?  Nope.  Hide out at the Wawee Coffee Shop until the whole thing blew over?  Bingo! 

Only one problem…our laptops were in the trunk.  You can’t go to Wawee without your laptops.  It would have been a definite giveaway, and by now, everyone within twenty blocks knew about the car.  Loudspeakers up and down the street repeatedly called for the owners to make themselves known for a public shaming.

There was no helping it.  The laptops had to be recovered.  Who was to do it?  For a moment, I entertained the fantasy that my wife would volunteer, but that was less likely than us navigating the clogged streets.  So, after kicking the dirt a few times, I coolly walked up to the trunk, inserted the key…and received a verbal tongue-lashing from the vendor, whose space I was blocking. 

Her English was pretty good, actually.  I’ll save you the adult-rated details, but her main point was that this was “WALKING Street!”  You don’t park your car on “WALKING Street!”  As politely as I could, I asked her if she could help me find a way out, but at this point, she said, “I’m not talking to you!” and turned away…for a moment.  Then, she started yelling at me again.

With tail between my legs, I returned to my wife, who was busy pretending not to notice me and trying to forget that we’ve been married for fifteen years and had three children together.  I gave her the laptop and told her to give the kids a good home and a good life; I was going back to the car to endure my fate.  No tears or long embraces marked our parting, just a hasty retreat, laptop bag in tow.

Returning to the car, I noticed quite a crowd had assembled.  There weren’t exactly an angry mob, but it was still too light out for the torches to be fired up.  They stood around the car discussing ways to get their lost earnings out of it.  Melt it down and recycle it?  Paint indigenous art on it and charge admission?  Convert it into the first four-wheeled tuk-tuk and transport tourists around the city?  It was either going to be one of these, or they were going to tie me to the hood as a warning to other irritating interlopers. 

Keeping my head low, I put the keys in the lock, avoiding any eye contact that might trigger the mob mentality.  I had no idea what I was going to do once I got into the car – maybe just gun it and hope for the best.  But to my suprise, as soon as I slid into the driver’s seat, a policeman emerged from nowhere.  I honestly believe he was an angel sent from God…with a bit of a twisted sense of humor. 

He led my parade the full hundred yards or so, making vendors pick up their wares and give way to the funny farang (local word for clueless foreigners).  He directed foot traffic and helped roll carts out of the way – even picked up and moved a motorcycle for me, but the entire time, he insisted on pointing me out to the people lining the parade route.  “There he is!  There’s the one you’ve been hearing about on the loudspeakers!  I’ve captured the monster!”  Then, he got out his cell phone to call his law-enforcement friends and share the story.

With my window down to hear his directions, I was treated to one-hundred yards of slow-moving humble pie.  Locals and foreigners alike laughed at me.

But to their credit, no one threw produce at me.  No one tried to pull me bodily from the car to subject me to a public beating.  No one shot out my tires.  Most got a good laugh as I confirmed all their assumptions about farangs living in Chiang Mai, but it wasn’t a mean-spirited laugh.  The only one who spit fire was the woman whose parcel of street I blocked.  I made it to the end of Walking Street with all my apendages, and the officer was too amused to even give me a ticket.

True to their reputation as people of the “Land of Smiles,” almost all the Thais grinned at me (about me) as I passed.  I lost a little face, but I had some extra to give.  And I learned a good lesson:  it’s called “Walking” Street for a reason. 

Making Deposits

Nehemiah had some nerve!  A conquered foreigner employed in service to an enemy king – a king who worshipped different gods, Nehemiah had the chutzpah to show sadness in front of his monarch.  This alone could have gotten him killed on the spot.  Persian kings were the partying sort, and sadness was a real downer.  Besides, it was a bit of an indictment of the king’s rule.  If everyone was happy! happy!, it must have meant that the king was doing a bang-up job on the throne.

But this was no bad-hair day.  Nehemiah was measured in his sadness.  He had been planning and praying about this show of emotion for four months, ever since he heard about the ruiined condition of his homeland from his brother.  Nehemiah showed just enough sadness and dishevelment to get the king’s attention.

Artaxerxes noticed and decided to let Nehemiah live.  Bolstered by this success, Nehemiah stepped further out on the limb – he shared his personal problems with the king. 

I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, “May the king live forever!  Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”  (Nehemiah 2:2-3)

At this point, the king recognized that he had taken the bait.  “What is it you want?” he asked.  The king could have said, “Duh!  That’s what happens to conquered cities.  Get back to work!”  But he didn’t.  He chose to let Nehemiah make a request.  So Nehemiah stepped out further on the limb.

Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.”  (Nehemiah 2:4-5)

There are a few remarkable things about this request.  First, Nehemiah’s sabbatical would leave the king without one of his most trusted servants and advisors for an extended period.  Nehemiah was the guy who tasted the food and drink for poison.  Tough to find a good one of those.  They have to be trustworthy so that they don’t participate in an assassination plot, and because of this trust, kings often confided in them with matters of state.

Secondly, Nehemiah was asking to rebuild the walls of a conquered city!  That’s a risky bit of business for a king.  What if you allow them to rebuild their walls and they get the big head and decide to stop paying tribute, thinking their fortified walls will protect them?  Then, the king would have to suit up and leave the comfort of his castle for months or years to go conquer the people again.  Years before, when the advance team had gone to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, they had been forced to stop for exactly this reason.  The king was afraid that they might build walls to the city and then defy him.

Remarkably, Artaxerxes didn’t flinch.  “How long will you be gone?”  Nehemiah gave him a time and then, as if he weren’t precariously far out on that limb, he took a few more steps.

I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah?  And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?”  (Nehemiah 2:7-8) 

In other words, “Can I have an all-expense-paid leave of absence under your protection to rebuild a conquered city with your materials?  Oh, and I’m going to need a house, too?”

I don’t know what Nehemiah put in the wine that morning, but the king wrote him a blank check right there on the spot.  Can you believe it?  What was Artaxerxes getting out of this deal? 

If the unlikelihood of the king’s approval hasn’t struck you yet, imagine going into your boss today to ask her if she will give you approval to take a year off from work to start up your own business that will compete in the same market.  See if she’ll also agree to protect you from attacks from competitors, write you a check for all your office equipment and supplies and pay your mortgage.  Unlikely.

So, why was Artaxerxes willing to finance the operation?  You might be tempted to think that God was the ventriloquist behind the king puppet, but God doesn’t do that show.  Free-will, remember?  No, it was something much more risky.

Relationship.  Artaxerxes trusted Nehemiah.  He liked him.  He might have even loved him.  Over the years of service to the king, Nehemiah had shown himself trustworthy and dependable.  He had demonstrated that he was a man of his word.  Nehemiah made deposits in Artaxerxes’ emotional bank account before he was even aware of the implications those deposits would have.  When God’s call on Nehemiah’s life became apparent, he had a sizeable balance in the king’s account that made the king willing to write that blank check. 

How willing would you or I be to faithfully make those deposits for years if we were in a situation like Nehemiah’s?  He worked for an enemy boss who didn’t submit to God and who put Nehemiah’s life in danger three plus times a day.  Unlikely.  But it shouldn’t be. 

Wherever God has us right now, it’s important that we are building relationships and making emotional deposits with those in our sphere of influence.  Think of it as saving for a rainy day, because God will give us an opportunity to use those deposits when the time is right.  However, if we haven’t made deposits…  Worse, if we’ve been making withdrawals… the checks we need to do God’s work might come back marked Non-Sufficient Funds.

Sleight of Hand

A good magician is an expert at sleight of hand.  He creates his illusions by misdirection, having us look one way while he performs the crucial moves somewhere else.  He makes a large show of what’s unimportant and thereby distracts us from what’s most important.

Isn’t that precisely how our Enemy works?  There is no better magician and illusionist than Satan.  I’m thinking about how often he gets Christians fighting with each other about superficial and unity-stealing things to distract us from what God has called us to do.  Because he doesn’t want us focused on what we have in common, he points out our differences to each other.  Once he’s gotten us in conflict with each other, he is free to go about his destructive business.  Better yet, because we are so engaged in the fight, Satan doesn’t have to worry about us spending time in prayer and good works that might hinder his progress.

Think about what irritates you, what angers you – particularly in your Christian relationships  and in your marriage.  Is the anger godly anger?  (In other words, does it make God mad, too?)  Or is it just a distraction – some sleight of hand on the Enemy’s part?  What is it keeping you from?  What is it draining your energy into? 

Don’t go to the Enemy’s magic show.  While admission may be free, you may pay in ruined relationships and lost potential to minister to others by the time it’s over.

Nam Jai

The word jai in Thai means “heart,” and it is such an important concept to the Thais that the word can be compounded with over one hundred other words.  A few examples:

• Hen jai (see + heart) is the ability to “see into the heart” or “sympathy.”
• Jai dum (heart + black) is “a cruel lack of humanity.”
• Jai boon (heart + merit) means “generous and full of merit.”
• Sabai jai (wellness + heart) means “easy going” or “comfortable.”
• Kao jai (enter + heart) means “understanding.”

The term nam jai (water + heart) means “water from the heart” and is used to describe genuine acts of kindness.  It implies that these acts of kindness are done without any expectations – with no strings attached.

When someone brings food to the office to share with everyone else, or when a stranger stops to help when your car stalls in a parking lot… that’s nam jai.  When your neighbor comes over to help you fix a leaky faucet, or when a local takes you to your destination rather than just giving you directions, that’s nam jai. 

Nam jai is grace.  It’s unmerited favor.  It’s a gift that doesn’t have to be or cannot be repaid.  It’s what all Christians are called to show to those around them.  We should be looking for opportunities to practice nam jai everywhere we go and with everyone we meet.  Think of the difference it would make in this world if we did!

Jesus set the example for us.  Read the Gospel accounts, and you’ll see that He practiced nam jai throughout His ministry.  From healing the sick to raising the dead to allowing the little ones to come to Him, His life here on earth was a constant “pouring of water from the heart.”  But even more, His death.  Read John 19:31-35 with new eyes:

Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath.  Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.  The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.  But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.  Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.  The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true.  He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.

That sudden flow of blood and water from Jesus’ heart was the ultimate Nam Jai.  God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense (G-R-A-C-E).  Through His death, we have life – and not just life, but abundant life.  If we’re doing it right, our cups should be overflowing.  And if our cups are overflowing, why not share a little with those around us.

Three Circles

In a book I’m reading about different cultures, the authors describe three concentric circles that represent how people within those cultures view the other people around them.  The center of all the circles is the individual.  Around him, in the first circle, are his family and his close friends.  For people in this circle, he has a high degree of loyalty and obligation.  He will do for them what he will do for no other, because he loves them or because he has a strong value for family and friends.

In the middle circle are people he deals with frequently.  They aren’t close enough to him to be in the inner circle, but he sees them enough to keep him honest.  Others in this circle are people with power and influence.  With either group, he knows that if he mistreats someone in this circle, he’s liable to earn reciprocal mistreatment because he’ll have to interact with them again tomorrow or the next day.  While he may not treat them well because of a strong value for what’s right, he will at least treat them well because of their ability to influence his surroundings.

In the outer circle are strangers (or at least supposed strangers) that he interacts with only once or infrequently enough to maintain a degree of anonymity with them.  It also includes those he might interact with frequently but who have no authority or power to make things difficult for him if he mistreats them.  These include people on the highway and people he passes in the supermarket, telemarketers and waitresses, hired help and customer service representatives, salespeople and pharmacists (that one’s for my pharmacist-friend).

He doesn’t have to treat these people well, because there is little (if anything) they can do about it.  Either his anonymity or his position of power in relation to these people protects him.  It doesn’t always work.  The person he cut off in traffic could pull out a gun, or the waitress could dump soup in his lap or the pharmacist could spike his meds…but since most of us are reluctant to go to these lengths, he’s pretty safe playing the odds. 

The authors of the book say this happens in certain cultures, but can’t we all identify with the three circles?  Who hasn’t told off a telemarketer or practiced a little “road righteousness” with the guy who wouldn’t let you in the turn lane?  Aren’t these circles fairly universal?

But this is a problem for the Christian.  It’s not okay for a Christian to treat people differently because they are in the third circle.  We are called to treat everyone with love and respect – even telemarketers, even neighbors who park in front of our house every day, even busboys and even slow-as-molasses pharmacists (bless their hearts).   Among the people Christ specifically tells us to show love and kindness to are the poor, the powerless, the untouchable, the despised, the alien, the widow, the orphan – all people who would usually fit into our third circle.  We are even told to “love [our] enemies,” who might deserve their own circle outside everyone else’s.  A paragraph later, Jesus says,

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that.”  (Luke 6:32-33)

What He’s saying is that if we do everything just like the world does it, no one will ever notice.  It’s easy to go with the current, but it doesn’t point people to Christ.  It’s only when we start swimming upstream of human nature that people stop and wonder.  When we start showing supernatural (because that’s where the power to do it comes from) grace and love for even those who have no power or authority or claim to connection with us, people will want to know why.

Make an effort to love your third circle today.  It might be the best sermon you ever preach.