Man's Best Friend

Good friends are loyal and stick by you no matter what, and that's especially true when it comes to man's best friend.

When 68-year-old Lao Pan died in China in November 2011, the only surviving member of his family was a small yellow dog. Stories emerged of the heartbroken pup taking up residence at Pan’s graveside and refusing to leave even after going seven days without food. However, villagers took notice of the loyal canine and began bringing food and water to the gravesite. (Fearing for his welfare a dog-lover soon adopted the dog, and he is doing well)

 

What does loyalty mean, and what does it mean to show loyalty? Loyalty means being faithful, or true to an allegiance.

We hear a bit about loyalty, and about disloyalty, in the world of sport. I’m a football fan, and I get really upset when one of our players decides to leave to go and play at another club. Swapping clubs is a bit more commonplace in our professional sports these days. But going back a few years, when players swapped clubs, whether it was for better opportunity, or more money, they were labelled as being disloyal.

Fans would never dream of just up and swapping clubs. They have an allegiance to their favourite team, one that is unwavering, even in the midst of loss and defeat. When a player ‘defects’ to another team, they often get booed by the very same people who used to idolise them.

Loyalty. Faithfulness. Being true to an allegiance.

We take that view with our sporting teams, we expect it from our favourite players, but sadly for some this high value we place on loyalty doesn’t extend to other aspects of life, such as relationships.

In the Bible, in the book of Proverbs, it talks a fair bit about loyalty and faithfulness, and this verse in particular is one to remember:

Prov 3:3 (Good News) ‘Never let go of loyalty and faithfulness. Tie them around your neck; write them on your heart’. Verse 4 goes on to say ‘If you do this, both God and man will be pleased with you’ 

Loyalty is an admirable trait. One of the greatest character traits of dogs, one that we admire, is their loyalty and faithfulness.

And it is a characteristic that God wants us to display too, across a whole range of relationships. To stick with people, through the good times and the bad, to be faithful and true, dependable, unwavering in our support.

It’s also one of God’s greatest characteristics - His loyalty and faithfulness to us. God promises to never let us go, to never stop loving us, to never cease from seeking relationship with us. He is Man’s Best Friend.

May we each work at being loyal to friends and family, mirroring God’s loyalty and faithfulness to us.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Reinventing Yourself

The great Gatsby was once not so ‘great’.

This character from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel started life with little. Born James Gatz, he was the son of unsuccessful farmers. Unable to come to terms with this poor family background, he voluntarily estranged himself from his family.

 All alone, struggling to make ends meet, he decided to reinvent himself, and James Gatz evolved into Jay Gatsby. And life became much different. He had a new, fictional past, and motivated by love, his hunger for money to win the girl of his dreams drove him to extraordinary, and illegal, lengths.

Residing deep in many of us is a desire to have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. To rewrite our past. To change our identity. To be dramatically lifted out of the present circumstances of our lives to a utopia, or to the attainment of our dreams. Not necessarily because we don’t like ourselves or what we’ve done before, just the dream to escape to a place of bliss. Or accomplishment. Or to try something completely different.

CBS news reported last year that the former gangster rap icon formerly known as Snoop Dogg had reinvented himself, changing his name to Snoop Lion.
He told a news conference that he was ‘born again’ during a visit to Jamaica and was now a reggae artist. He said that in Jamaica, he connected with Bob Marley's spirit and is now ‘Bob Marley reincarnated.’

For some, a desire to reinvent themselves comes due to shame or embarrassment over things they have done. Some who want to portray a different image for political or business gain will come up with a new look, and supposed new outlook.

Embarrassed by their name, many have changed it by deed poll, such as my great-grandfather who shortened his name from Longbottom to Long.

Yes – this desire to change ourselves, to become a new person, is widespread.

The Christian faith offers this ability to reinvent yourself. In the Bible it says, “those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!”

It is really like being born again.

But no need to change your name. No need to change your musical preference. No need even to disown your past. It’s just that your past no longer defines you. It’s forgiven. It’s well and truly behind you.

Because followers of Jesus believe that whatever they’ve done wrong in the past, whoever they’ve hurt, whatever mistakes they’ve made – they’ve all been wiped off the slate. God has forgiven all of them and doesn’t hold them against us anymore. It brings freedom from guilt, freedom from shame. It’s a total release.

New life. New meaning. New purpose.

So reinvent yourself today. Follow Jesus. You’ll discover a new you.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Wise man

As I was doing some research recently on my Family Tree, I discovered that my great, great grandmother’s maiden name was Wiseman.

I chuckled – one of my ongoing prayers and desires is to become a ‘wise man’.

Above all else, I believe that if I had wisdom, and that if all the decisions I make in life could be wise ones, how much better my life would turn out!

It’s been something men have been wanting for centuries – wisdom. The Bible talks about it a lot.

It was the gaining of wisdom that was one of the big attractions of the forbidden fruit that Eve and Adam ate in the Garden of Eden.

King Solomon, whom God gave wisdom to, and who was renowned as a man of wisdom, wrote many proverbs on the subject – ‘wisdom is supreme’, ‘do not forsake wisdom and she will protect you’, ‘wisdom is more precious than rubies and nothing you desire can compare with her’.

He obviously valued wisdom!

Jesus was also known as a wise man, and he told a story about a foolish man who built a house down on the sand. Of course, when the storm hit, this house with no foundation crashed down and was destroyed. He contrasted that with a wise man who built his house on the rock. And when the rain came, and the wind blew – no matter how strong nature’s elements, that wise man’s house stood firm.

Jesus used this illustration to encourage people to take in the teachings he was giving and to apply them to their lives, proposing that when the ‘storms of life’ hit, those who were wise and had followed his advice would stand firm, but those who hadn’t heeded his message would find their lives crashing about them.

I’ve learned in my life, the hard way, that following Jesus is a wise thing to do. Going about life my own way was pretty disastrous, and I had no real foundation to life. That all changed when I started to apply the teachings of Jesus into my life, and I looked to him for wisdom and guidance.

Each day, I’m becoming little by little a wiser man. On my tombstone one day I hope those who know me will put ‘here lies a wise man’. If that happens, I’m sure my great, great grandmother would be pleased to know that the Wiseman name hadn’t disappeared altogether.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Boundaries

I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw it.

It was a big property, with very little fencing.

A big, aggressive-looking dog comes running, barking, but it would stop at a certain point, and back away; only to rush again, but stop at exactly the same spot, as if there was an invisible fence stopping his progress. The dog wouldn’t progress past a certain point.

When I spoke to the owner he explained that there was an invisible boundary. A barrier wire had been installed, and a radio sender device connected to this wire was sending a radio signal to a special collar that the dog was wearing, which audibly warned the dog that this area was "off limits". This warning sound is the dog’s cue to back off otherwise a correction is given which feels like strong static electricity.

An invisible boundary.

Imagine if we could incorporate this into some of our sports. Imagine rugby or soccer, netball or Australian Rules if the ball couldn’t cross the boundary, if it automatically was put back into play by some invisible force every time it crossed the boundary! Or the players were catapulted back into play if they crossed the boundary!

We love boundaries for our pets and animals, we employ rules and boundaries in our sports, but when it comes to boundaries for our lives, we seem to want to baulk at them. We have an aversion to rules, and to being told what to do; these days it seems we don’t even want delineation of what’s right and what’s wrong.

As much as we might not like them, from the beginning of time humans have discovered that to function effectively as a community, we need rules.

In the Bible story, as the Israelites wandered in the desert having been released from slavery in Egypt, it quickly became clear that this nomadic group needed some rules, some boundaries. And so God gave them the 10 Commandments. 10 rules or boundaries that would help them not only to function more cohesively, but importantly would keep them in relationship and right standing with God.

These commandments have helped shape laws and rules right across the world. They have given a basis to the Christian doctrines and creeds, and have helped guide the lifestyles of billions of Jesus-followers throughout the centuries, because they are wise, and good, and they work.

Boundaries are good. Boundaries are necessary. There is an invisible line that God has instigated that we shouldn’t cross, for our own sake and for the sake of others. Perhaps it’s time to go back and re-visit those 10 Commandments, and make sure that they’re at play in our own lives?

So we can all live harmoniously with each other, and with God.

Thank God for boundaries.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington