1Cor 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. One year I had volunteered to help build a church conference center. I was on the planter crew, we were building concrete planters that would later be covered in sandstone for the parking lot. One of the people in my crew felt he was ready to go build his own planter, so I gave him the OK. It took two weeks because the rain was brutal and the ground was this thick clay mud. It was a horrible ordeal, but finally they poured his planter. Unfortunately it was off center. Ray Graver was the foreman of the operation and called us out to look at the planter. The whole time I was feeling at ease since I hadn’t made this mistake. All of a suddenly Ray is hitting his fist into his hand and saying “who is responsible for this? That is what I want to know!” It hit me, “I am”. Many years later with my two oldest kids we were in a very tough situation, they had both been raised in Taiwan, they didn’t speak english, but they were going into sixth and seventh grade. I knew that the school would not be able to help them, and I knew I could teach them english faster and better than anyone else (I had taught ESL in Taiwan for 8 years). So I decided to homeschool them even thought I had a full time job. I told them, this is your education, you are responsible for it, you will have to live with it, not me. Six months later my older brother comes to me, concerned, he had tried to talk to them and they hadn’t been able to talk. I told him I wasn’t focused on talking. After 3 years of homeschool they both entered high school in NY. No one knew that English was not their first language. When my daughter was a senior she was going to be the valedictorian, but since she hadn’t taken a foreign language she couldn’t get the advanced degree. This was going to be an embarrassment to the school. I asked if she could simply take a test and they said yes. I told them “let her take the Chinese test”. They had no idea she spoke chinese. A similar situation happened at my son’s high school. We were meeting with the principal because he was going to be valedictorian and she wound up speaking to him in Chinese. She was amazed at how good he was able to speak it and told me that most Americans have a heavy accent. I told her that he grew up in Taiwan and Chinese was his first language. She had no idea. 1Cor 7:24 Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them. The mistake most ESL classes make is to emphasize speaking, that is like building the house without first making a solid foundation. Speaking and writing are production, listening and reading are comprehensible input that allows the brain to learn the language naturally. Nothing is more challenging than learning a foreign language and to do that you have to be willing to make mistakes. How do you bring someone up in the “training and instruction of the Lord”? I think that is a very valid question, so I am going to share a story that I have not shared with anyone before. Partly because I don’t know the best part of the story, but we’ll get to that in a second. When my oldest son was about five years old he announced that he had figured out the secret to life, it was to be polite. He said if you are polite people will do anything you ask. His mother was beaming. But I told them “that is not the secret to life, life is the secret to life”. His mother was outraged and said I was stupid. I figured this would be something I would definitely want to deal with because if he continues on this path it will lead to being a phony political person who manipulates others. But at the same time I realized a truth is like a sword made of steel. A falsehood is like a wooden sword. They both may seem to be about the same until you are in a life or death situation and then it will become very clear what is true and what isn’t. A month or two later my wife asked me to talk to my son before going to work. They were going to the doctor that day and he was scared. So I went into his room. He was running around putting blankets on chairs, when I opened the door he was startled, almost panicked till he saw it was only me and then continued with what he was doing. I waited for about sixty seconds and then said “it won’t work, she’ll sniff you out, and it will be worse”. He knew I was right and began to cry. I said “ok, ok, I’ll help you”. Instantly he was fine, he wanted to know what to do. So I told him the problem with doctors is the slightest little thing and they take it as an insult and wham, they stick a needle in you. I said “do you know how you treat your mom on her birthday?” He nodded. I said “do you know how you treat her on mother’s day”? He nodded. I said “well, doctors, you gotta treat them like it is their birthday and mother’s day all in one. Can you do that?” He nodded, he was happy, he had a game plan, and he knew he could do it. So I went to work and when I came back that night my wife was so happy. She told me how much face he had given her. Meanwhile he was tugging at my pants leg, so I told him to wait, your mother is talking. Anyway she handed me the paper and my daughter and told me to sit down and relax and she would get dinner. It was really great. As soon as I sat down he began to talk, it was about a five minute non stop in chinese, and my chinese was rudimentary at best. I gave him a quizzical look like I was puzzling it out and then as thought a light bulb had just gone off I said “something about the doctor!” He nodded. “Something you didn’t like!” Again, he nodded. I was feeling pretty good with myself at this point and said “he didn’t have his certificates on the wall!” He looked at me with no understanding. So I quickly said, “no, no, something else''. I looked real carefully at him, he could see the smoke coming from my ears, and all of a sudden with horror I said “he gave you a shot!” He nodded. I said “I told you to be polite to him!” He cried “I was''. I said “well, apparently he didn’t think so”. He was crying so I asked for him to help me visualize what happened. I asked how many people were there, how many doctors, how many nurses, how many kids and then I said “out of all those people he gave you a shot, just you! Obviously you did something wrong”. I was now reading the paper, discussion over, and Poiema was on my lap, but I kept talking “no one would dare give Poiema a shot. Even if there were a doctor that was that mean and that cruel the nurses would grab her away and say how could you! This girl is too cute, you can’t do this!” All of a sudden he knocks my paper down with two arms and says “everyone”. I look at him puzzles, “everyone”? And then it slowly dawns on me, I look at him, I look at Poiema, and I say with horror “everyone!” Poiema starts crying, her mother comes running in, picks her up and says “will you shut up”. I hold my head in my hands, crestfallen, my son is patting me on the back. I say “what kind of sicko would do this? Men in white coats running around jabbing babies with needles, mothers snatching up their crying babies and running out of there!” And then I looked at him and said “I’m gonna tell you the truth”. That startled him, what? He took a step back. I said “you know this morning when I talked to you?” He nodded. I said “I, I, I knew this would happen. I didn’t tell you because I figured you wouldn’t believe me.” That made sense to him. I continued, “do you want my help?” He nodded, yes! I said “trust me, the day will come, not tomorrow, not next week, but I guarantee the day will come when you return there! I won’t be there. You will be outnumbered, they will all be bigger than you, use your size to your advantage, get under the table.” At that moment my wife came running in with a frying pan yelling “are you an idiot!” while he was holding her back saying “he is trying to help me!” Anyway, a few months later something happened no one told me what, my son desperately wanted to tell me but the withering death stare of his mother terrified him. So I never learned that part of the story. However, my son never forgot the pain of disappointing his mother and bringing shame to her. As a result it was like an inoculation against rebellion. Drug abuse, fornication, there are all kinds of forms of rebellion that are far more serious and long lasting than one embarrassing afternoon at the doctor’s office. Also, my son realized that his “super power” of being polite ran into the kryptonite of anything that has to do with life. Jn 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. Building your life on a solid foundation of truth is far more important than some very short term experience of pain and shame. In my experience the Lord doesn’t debate with people. You can take your truth, like a sword, into the battle. Then you will discover if your truth is real steel or just wood. If you never test your truth in the battle then what difference does it make if it is a steel sword or a wooden one? The other thing I have learned is that people are ready when they are ready. Too often we think “he is too young”. The best time for an answer is when you are asking the questions. Nothing is more exasperating to kids than to be told they are too young to understand. Finally, the key lesson my son learned was to obey his parents in the Lord, regardless of whether or not he understood. Why would his mother, who loves him and his father who loves him send him to the doctor knowing he would get a shot if that was not what was best? Rebellion takes place when you don’t think those who are taking the lead have your best interests at heart.
