Cliches are bad in writing. Really bad. Why? Because they’ve been used so many times that we no longer think about the meaning. Seriously, when you hear the phrase “filthy rich,” do you imagine someone dirty? “Dead as a doornail.” Anyone thinking of an actual nail? How about when I say “tough as nails”? It actually takes extra work for us to remember there’s an image there.

When these, and thousands of other cliched phrases, were first used, they were strong images that made people really think about what the speaker meant. Now we’ve heard them so many times they are meaningless — almost worse than simply saying rich, dead, or tough.

Worship songs have their own sets of cliches. Praise the Lord. He is exalted. Glory to the Most High. With all my heart. You are worthy. We’ve sung these and many other lines so so many times that they have lost all meaning. Or at least, we have to work really hard to think about what it is we’re singing.

Worship is hard enough. It’s so easy to fall into the music and stop thinking. But worship is more than music. It’s about our hearts, and whether we like it or not, our hearts are often directed by our brains. If we stop thinking about what we’re singing, our minds wander to something else and — what do you know? — our hearts are no longer in the worship.

Cliches compound this problem. They’re easy to write because they’re the first things that come to mind. The same old phrases, the same Christianese quotes from Psalms (etc) that we’ve been singing all our lives. This is one reason we are encouraged to sing new songs. Sometimes old songs can remind us of what God’s done in our lives, but very often they become just old songs. New songs — well-written ones — help us think about what we’re saying and why we’re saying it.

The danger in me telling you this, of course, is that we’ll get down on all our old worship songs or on tired phrasing. That’s not my point. The only thing worse than not thinking about what you’re singing is to think about everything that’s wrong with what you’re singing.

No. My points are these: (1) If you write songs, don’t take the easy route. Read over what you’ve written and cross out all the cliches. Then find a new way to say what you really meant to say.

(2) And if you sing songs, think about what you’re singing. If the current song is filled with meaningless words it makes your job harder, but it’s still your job. It’s your mouth. Don’t open it if you don’t know what’s coming out.

A couple of years ago, Janet told her friend Pam, “God just told me that I’m going to die before I turn 70 (she was 67 at the time). I’ve got a lot to do before then to get ready, like get rid of all my belongings, so can I come and live with you?” Pam wasn’t sure how to take this, and she didn’t quite believe her friend, seeing as to how Janet was in perfect health. From that point, Janet prepared for her death by buying her burial dress, choosing her coffin, and just sharing her joy with others about going to Heaven. She had no sadness about her coming death, only joy.

Then, just a few months ago, Janet’s health started getting worse. Pam took her to see a doctor, who said that Janet was in an advanced stage of cancer and would not likely live more than another 3 months or so. Pam was saddened by this news, but looked at Janet, who was glowing with joy. Janet said, “Isn’t this exciting? I’m going to go home soon!” (meaning Heaven)

Janet’s health got worse and worse in those few months, but her joy never waned. The week she passed away, God told her that she had 3 more days to live. She danced in her hospital room that day. She told her Thai Buddhist doctor that she was going to see her daddy in 3 days. He just smiled and nodded. And on that 3rd day, she passed away.

About 2 weeks after Janet’s death, that same doctor went to Pam’s house (which is pretty surprising in itself that he would go through all that trouble to find her house). He wanted to tell Pam the story about the day Janet died. He said that on the day of her death, he told Janet, “You’ve kept your promise. You’ve made it to the 3rd day. It’s time to go see your daddy now.” He then asked Pam to pray for him, which is amazing!

Anyway, I love this story because I really want to see death from this life as a joyful thing. How wonderful it will be to go to see my Heavenly Father and be with Him forever. Also, it was so lovely how God spoke to Janet and prepared her for her death ahead of time. She said that it was a blessing, because she got to prepare for it. Most people don’t get that opportunity. And it prepared her good friend Pam (and many others) as well. They had discussed death many times in the last few years, and when Janet passed, Pam was ready for it.

I want to be excited about eternal life with my Savior, not dreading it. I hope this encouraged you too!

We’ve got friends coming soon. Aaron Blue is coming around today to keep things moving for The Charis Project. And the impeccable David Irwin is coming from Nor’n Ire’n for a couple of days, so that’s always a good thing.

Isaac sat down with me this morning, so I told him I’d read him a story. I flipped to the feeding of the 4,000 in Mark, where Jesus miraculously produced food for thousands of people from 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish. Immediately afterwards, Jesus sails to another region where the Pharisees come up to him and say, “So when are we gonna get a sign proving you’re from Heaven?”

Jesus sighs.

I mean seriously, he just did one. It’s like going up to Bono and saying, “You’re a singer, right? Prove it. Play us a song.” And Bono looks at the concert hall behind him, his band members around him, then back at you and says, “No.”

Jesus is like, “You want a miracle? Hang out with me. Something will happen eventually.”

This was at the end of the book, and I wanted to share it. It’s from a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, one of Mother Teresa’s children’s homes in Calcutta.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.

If you look around online, you’ll see one problem folks have is that the book is poorly crafted. The book was self-published, and it shows, I think. Long, boring passages of their uneventful trip into the mountains. Flat, unbelievable characters. I’ve heard people say they were moved in spite of this, but for me the most emotional parts of the book fell really flat because of this.

But what’s cool about the book is the ideas about God and our relationship with Him. The main character, Mack, meets a physical manifestation of the Trinity. God chooses to show himself as a warm, amiable African woman. Jesus is, well, a Jewish carpenter (dressed in plaids and jeans, of course). And the Spirit is a ghostlike Asian woman. At first, I was put off by this, but I grew to kind of like them. Between the three of them, Mack gets to see a picture of true unconditional love.

Even if Mack didn’t grow on me, some of the ideas stuck in my head, like:

• Love doesn’t force or manipulate. God doesn’t do it to us (kind of like I was saying about free will before), and we shouldn’t do it to each other.
• A lot of our time and energy is spent trying to find security, but in this world there is no security (hm, reminds me of another old post). We can’t even trust God to keep us safe, because that’s not what he does. But he does have a plan and a purpose for our lives, and it’s Good. We can trust him.
• We make religious or social rules in an effort to control the world around us. Responsibilities and expectations (i.e. things we feel we “should” or “must” do because they are expected of us) are just subtler forms of rules, but they serve the same purpose: to control what we can’t control.
• Nothing is a ritual. God doesn’t want ritual, he wants our hearts. If we go to church every week simply because we “have to,” it’s as meaningless to God as it is to us. Sometimes breaking routine for the sake of loving God might be just what we need.

Even writing that, I can see how some of these things could be problematic, but only because I was thinking how rules could be made out of them (e.g. don’t ever do a ritual, or ignore responsibilities). It’s our nature to make rules out of things. Rules are safe, they tell us what to expect. Unfortunately, life doesn’t conform very well to our rules.

So as much as I didn’t like the craft or the story, clearly The Shack made an impression on me. These are really quick bullet points for things that I’ve been thinking about pretty heavily. I wouldn’t be surprised if these topics came up again soon.

In one part, he talked about how the singing worship we do (typically the Sunday morning stuff) is for God – not the worship team singing for us, or us for each other or anything. It’s our gift to Him. It’s our love note expressing how we feel.

With that point, Louie pulled out some cards, the kind you might give to your wife or girlfriend. One had a poem written on it (by someone at Hallmark, presumably). Another was blank, with space for the sender to write their own note. A third was completely handmade. He asked the girls in the audience which one they would rather receive.

The lesson is obvious, but we don’t think about it so much. While Hallmark poems are nice and all, what really shows your love to someone is the effort and thought behind what you give them. And you know what? When I sing worship songs on Sunday morning – songs that someone else wrote and someone else is playing – it’s nice and all, but there’s not as much of my own thought and effort behind it. Only as much as I put into my voice.

How much more would it mean to play the song yourself? Or to write one just for God? In the video, Louie suggested that everyone, as they went home that night, just start singing to God in their cars (assuming they were driving alone, of course). Sing whatever the heck you want, make crap up, but make it up from your own heart.

If singing isn’t your thing, then what is? God gave us gifts and made us creative beings. How cool would it to be to him, do you think, to create something just for him? Something that nobody else ever saw even? Write a poem or a story. Draw something. Paint something. It doesn’t have to be good. If you’ve got kids, then you know how cool it is when they make something just for you, no matter how crappy it might look to someone else. Why would God feel any differently? Everything we make is crappy compared to the things he does!

It doesn’t even have to be art. This, I think, is what it means to do everything for the glory of God. Serve someone for God. Clean something for someone else, not because you love that person (though you might, and the act certainly will), but because you love God and it’s a kind of sacrifice you’re making for him.

Anyway, that’s just some stuff I’ve been thinking about lately. It makes Sunday morning worship seem almost boring by comparison. Maybe someday I’ll even be anxious for Sunday worship to be over so I can go home and get started on my real worship :-)

Hm, maybe I should do that right now actually.

But I’ve also been thinking about just being nice to people in general, especially online where meanness is so prevalent among the anonymous. (I’ve been writing about it some, too). So while I was doing all this thinking, I came across James 3 and saw it in a different light.

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. — James 3:1

Now, I know James was primarily talking about the formal role of teaching, but when I read this with all my other thoughts, it occurred to me that whenever we presume our opinion is anything more than an opinion, we are teaching. When we say that gays should or shouldn’t be allowed to marry, women should or shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion, women can or can’t be pastors – and we express it as a fact – we are presuming to teach. And we should be careful to do so.

Now I’m not talking about voting, and I’m not talking about pastors or others who are actually in a position to teach (they should already know to be careful). I’m talking about the rest of us having everyday debates and conversations. When we treat our brothers as though their opinion is flat-out wrong, we judge and risk judgment.

Mostly I realized this verse is just a call to be humble. God doesn’t beat us over the head with this stuff, so why do we do it to each other?

“The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you. One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you, just as he promised. So be very careful to love the Lord your God.”

I thought these were powerful words. We don’t normally think of love as something we need to be careful about. We think love is an emotion; it comes and goes as it will, and we are subject to its whims. Or we think love is something that “just happens”, and when it does we’ll do whatever it takes to hold onto it, but until then we’ll just keep looking for it.

True love isn’t any of those things. True love is a choice one makes every single day. I’ve known that for a long time, but I still struggle with it sometimes when these kids – who aren’t even my own – yell and disobey and say they hate me. I still have to love them.

And I have to be careful about it. My gut reaction when somebody disrespects or disobeys is to become angry myself, but that’s not love. I have to be very careful not to do what comes naturally, but rather to love them with my whole being.

Sometimes it’s easier to love God, because God doesn’t often talk back. But it’s difficult when I feel like he’s not around, or when I’m reminded that loving him means loving some real life person whom it is very inconvenient to love right now. It’s something I have to be very, very careful about if I am to do it right.

Assuming God had a candidate in mind, what would he do? Would he coerce people to vote a certain way, overriding their free will? I know some folks believe God can and does make people do whatever he wants, but it doesn’t make sense to me. If he could do that, why doesn’t he do it more often?

Maybe he would ask people to vote a certain way. But how many people do you think there are in the US that are receptive to God’s voice? That is, people who listen to God and spend time in prayer and fasting to learn his will? I don’t think many, and even fewer who would not only hear the voice but be willing to obey it no matter what he asked of them. Would it be enough to swing an election?

What if God just Spoke, so that whoever he wanted to have hear him would hear him for sure? Like the way he spoke to Moses in the desert, or the way he spoke over Jesus on the mountain. There was no doubt in the listeners’ minds that it was God. Surely *that* would get an election to go his way.

But God doesn’t do that. Maybe it wouldn’t do any good; we are surprisingly good at rationalizing reality so that we only see and hear what we want to. Or maybe it’s just one more way in which free will could be overrode.

Imagine a woman so beautiful that just to see her would cause any man to fall in love, just to hear her voice would make men swoon. Maybe God is like that woman, but he doesn’t want us to love him because we have to, so he hides his face. He doesn’t want us to obey because we have to, so he doesn’t speak, or he speaks in only whispers.

I don’t know if that’s the way it is, but it’s something to think about. The Bible tells us that at the end “every” knee will bow. I think because the very sight of him is enough to demand worship, even in those who want nothing to do with Him.

But that’s at the end. In the meantime, God is desperate for those who will love him without seeing him, those who will be faithful even when they can’t feel God, those who will obey because it’s right and for no other reason.

This isn’t really about elections, of course, but how God’s will gets done at all. In Heaven, it just gets done. On Earth, it gets done when we choose to do it.

That’s the question I’ve been thinking about: what’s the point? Why do we do good? It’s a critical question that we keep getting wrong. We do good things so we’ll get to Heaven. We do good things because God will punish us if we don’t. We do good things so that God will bless us.

I don’t think any of these are right though. I mean, there are murderers in Heaven. There are adulterers on Earth that are never punished. There are poor folks who tithe and remain poor their whole lives. There are rich folks who don’t give a penny, but they’re still rich and getting richer.

I teach my kids to share, to tell the truth, not to steal other people’s stuff. When they ask why, I don’t tell them it’s because something good will happen to them. Honestly the “good things” my kids want can be had much more easily by lying, stealing, and being selfish. For adults, too: if it’s money you’re after for example, lying, stealing, and being selfish will give you a higher probability of achieving it than tithing will.

My point is not that we should lie, cheat, and steal. My point is that maybe we’re aiming at the wrong things, that maybe avoiding punishment and getting rewards is the wrong motivation.

Right now, Isaac’s primary motivation not to hit Nathan is avoiding a time-out. Nathan’s primary motivation to clean up his toys is watching a movie. Punishments and rewards help teach children how to live, but if the child never grows out of them – if they always require punishments and rewards to do what’s right – then they will never truly be adults. Certainly there are many adults who live like this, only doing what’s right when someone is watching.

God doesn’t want people who are interested only in the immediate rewards, or even the “long term” rewards of an eternal life. He wants people to trust Him because He’s God. He wants people who will do what He says, even if they never see the results. I want Isaac not to hit Nathan because he cares about Nathan. I want Nathan to clean up his toys because he cares about the house, about others. I want them to learn to do what’s right, not for the rewards – and in the long run, not even because they care for others – but because doing those things will make them better people.

And I think becoming better people, people God can be proud of, is the point. Not being better people, mind you, but becoming. The goal is the journey, and it’s a journey I bet we’ll still be on when this life is over, though that’s another post.