100

If I’m counting correctly, this is my 100th message. My first one was in May of 2018 - nearly two years ago. How should I mark this milestone? How about a personal story?

This past summer there was a celebrity who was getting their honorary degrees revoked. Who or why doesn’t matter. But I started wondering, “How should I react when someone bestows that honor on me?”

I’d have to be humble. I’m a Christian, after all, so everything I earn comes (ultimately) from Him. If I have any skill at all it’s from God, and He can take it away at any moment. I’ve seen it happen to others.

So how should my acceptance speech go?

It was DAYS before I realized how arrogant and self-serving I was being. “WHEN someone bestows . . . .” Have you ever seen such hubris in a supposedly-humble Christian? I’m sure some have, but I couldn’t believe how full of myself I was. I shook my head in disgust.

But Christ died even for arrogant schlubs like me.

Not long after that I was reading a commentary on the book of Joshua. I found a particularly telling point and shared it with my wife, Linda. She liked it, too.

So I closed the book and meditated on what it meant to me, and I thanked God for the insight I’d had. I swear, what happened next couldn’t have been more clear if He spoke audibly to me, “No you didn’t.”

“What?”

“You didn’t discover that.”

“Well, no, I read it.”

“He didn’t discover it either.”

“What?”

“The author didn’t discover it either.”

Then I flashed back to confirmation classes in my teen years (OMG! 40 YEARS AGO?)

“I know that I cannot, by my own effort or understanding, come to Jesus Christ or know him.” From Luther’s Small Catechism. That same phrase was repeated as an explanation of every statement in one of the creeds. Over and over it was drummed into my thick skull.

Pastor Gavin often told me to get my head screwed on straight. If he ever reads this, he’d be glad I eventually did.

I just hope it’s not cross-threaded. Awkward!

Anyway, since those events last summer I’ve been taught repeatedly that I’m a self-centered man who is proud of his learning. What I know makes me full of myself, and many times I share things with other people simply to demonstrate how much I know. “See? Don’t I know a lot? Aren’t you impressed?”

The thing is, I’ve done nothing to earn God’s favors. Everyone is gifted in different ways, and there are many things I cannot do. (Fixing my garage door comes to mind.)

In November and December my garage door began malfunctioning. When lowering, it tilts so the south end drops first. When raising, the south end goes up first. That means the north end of the garage door tends to snag on the pulley there, bringing the door to an abrupt halt. It even broke one of the springs on that side of the door as the opener tried to force the door past the pulley.

Anyway, suffice it to say, mechanical maintenance is not my strong suit. I eventually hired someone to replace the door, track, and the whole mechanism. Turns out the springs were getting old and weakening at different rates. The track was deteriorating and the door was rusting, so the only thing we kept was the opener itself - the one part I disliked the most. Figures.

Perhaps I’ve shared some of these stories before. They bring to mind an episode of All in the Family where Archie was trying to get a door to swing closed without sticking. He was running a manual planer across the edge of the door, time after time.

Meathead (Archie’s son-in-law) told him, “I don’t think you’re doing anything.”

Archie wasn’t listening. “It’s s’posed to do a micron at a time, Meathead.”

By the end of the episode a . . . developmentally challenged . . . man fixed the planer. Archie had the blade in upside down, so the sharp edge wasn’t in a position to do anything. After turning the blade over Archie was able to plane down the door so it wouldn’t stick.

Sometimes I’m like that planer. My blade is upside down, and I’m using the dull edge to do the work the sharp edge is designed to do. It’s like using a screwdriver as a hammer. It’s not built for that, so it doesn’t work right.

When I’m full of myself I’m not doing God’s work the way I’m designed. Anything I write comes from Him. I may be a born writer, but only because of the way I’m designed. If I’m focused on my acceptance speech for getting an honorary degree, it’s like using a shovel to fix my garage door.

No, I didn't try that.