Dallas Day

We loaded the kids and went to Dallas for the day. We had a really great time. First, we visited the Dallas World Aquarium. Then, we went to the top of the Reunion Tower. We drove by victory plaza at the American Airlines Center, then visited the Sixth Floor Museum and walked out to the place where Kennedy was shot that fateful day.

Pleasure or Meaning?

We spend our lives trying to become more comfortable, more free, and seeking more and more pleasure. Isn’t everyone’s goal to be happy, content, and fulfilled? How do we find these things, and especially when life isn’t turning out like we thought it should? What about when tragedy strikes? Can we still be happy? These were the questions asked by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.
Frankl says the pursuit of pleasure is not the highest aim of mankind. That leaves us unfulfilled. It is the recognition that our lives have meaning that brings contentment.
Frankl was already a published psychiatrist in Austria in 1942 when he was sent to four different concentration camps by the Nazis. Frankl, a Jew, spent the next three years watching thousands of men die around him. His wife and parents also died in the camps. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning (Pocket Books, 1984), Frankl describes his years in the prison camps and the lessons he learned about the human spirit.
He developed a form of psychology he called logotherapy. (Logo from the Greek term for meaning.) He contended that a man can survive almost anything if he feels his life has a purpose. In Auschwitz and the other camps, he spoke to many men who were despondent about their situation. They were starved and cold, laboring daily with no hope in sight. None of them knew if he would live through the day, much less the year. They had had every possession taken from them, and were even separated from their loved ones.
But so long as they felt they had a reason to live, they could find the will to exist another day. He said all freedoms can be taken from you except one: the freedom to choose how you are going to react to a situation. In the camps, some chose to live completely selfishly, but some chose to be optimistic, searching for meaning, perhaps even helping those around them.
After Frankl was released in 1945, he continued to speak and write, building on his experiences. He found that many of the mental challenges people face are because they do not realize that their lives have purpose. One study showed that a group of drug users began to take drugs because they felt their lives were meaningless. Parents need to realize this and understand how important it is for their children to feel they are here for a reason -- a higher purpose than pursuing their own pleasure.
The good news is that any person, of any age, and in any circumstance can find meaning. Frankl says we do so in three places: creating a work or doing a deed; experiencing something or encountering someone (loving someone); and the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. (Suffering should be avoided, but when it cannot, it can cleanse us and make us stronger. He says facing suffering is itself a noble purpose.)
Seeking pleasure, in fact, is almost a guaranteed way not to achieve it. It is when we pursue meaning that we find contentment. When we aim to fulfill the needs of those around us, we will be fulfilled as well. Pleasure will find us when we are not seeking it.
If, however, we try to fill our lives with our own pleasures, we will be unsatisfied. The idea, then, is to try to see beyond ourselves and consider those around us. The pleasure we experience will not be something at which we aim, but a result of our attempts to love and care for others. Mankind’s highest pursuit is not pleasure, but meaning.

UFO?

I was sitting outside on the patio just before dark tonight reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning when I happened to look up and see this. The pictures don't reveal how huge this thing was in the evening sky. If I didn't live where I do, I might have thought I was seeing some extra-terrestrial action, but NASA has a balloon base about five miles from our house and sends these up from time to time. I'm told these weather balloons are a big as the Astrodome when they fully inflate, several miles up. They are an awesome sight.
I plan to write about Frankl's book this week, so keep watching.

Does God Love Everyone the Same?

My son asked me a really good question yesterday. He asked if God loves everyone the same. I said, “Yes, he does. But he’s not proud of everyone and I want him to be proud of me.”
That’s the short answer. Doesn’t God love everyone? Isn’t that what John 3:16 teaches? “For God so loved the world…” So God loves each of us with a sacrificial love that put Jesus on the cross on our behalf. And if Jesus died for everyone, like the verse says, that means he loves everyone equally.
But what about evil people who hurt others and show no regard for God? We have to remember that there is a difference between God’s love and fondness. God, in fact, does not even “know” everyone. Jesus said he will tell many, “Depart from me … I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:23). “Knew” here means “had a relationship with”. God knows everyone and everything, but only those who accept his gift of grace have a relationship with him. When we accept his grace, we become his children, our name is in his book, and he “knows“ us. I’ve heard people say that everyone is a child of God. I disagree. Everyone is God’s creation, but only those who have accepted him are his children.
Further, the writer of Hebrews says that “God is not ashamed to be called their God”, referring to those who have faith. (Hebrews 11: 16). Earlier, in verse 6, he says it is impossible to please God without faith.
So I know God loves me. I can’t do anything to make him love me more or less. But I want him to be pleased with me, proud of me, and know me as a father knows his son. I know he loves me, but I want him to be fond of me, too.

Undone

There's something about John Elefante's music that gets to me. He is the one artist who can get under my skin and make me weep. Several years ago I was driving home, listening to his song Corridors. I was rocking along and he sang, "And when I look into the eyes of my child, so innocent, I see evidence of your love; evidence of you. Then it makes me realize that's how you see me: made within your image so pure and perfectly." I was a young father at the time and I was suddenly undone. I lost it and cried all the way home, listening to the song over and over again. The chorus says, "So take me down the corridor that leads me to the cross. Take me to where you are; Lord I want to be where you are."

Then, it happened again yesterday. I was sitting on the patio listening to my mp3. Elefante's song Talk to Me came on. I've always loved that song for the way it sounds. (It's also on the Corridor's CD), and I've always known that Jesus came and walked in our shoes. I just last month preached at church from Hebrews 4:15 "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin."

So this concept is certainly not new to me, but I guess yesterday God knew I needed to hear it. It crawled all over me. In the song, John and his brother, Dino, wrote the chorus from God's point of view. It says, "Talk to me, let's have a conversation; I hear more than just words, I can hear down in your soul. So talk to me, I'll do more than listen, I stood where you're standing and I know just how you feel."

Suddenly, it was God singing those words to me. I just sat and wept. It was an auditory epiphany of sorts. Our creator came to earth and felt what we feel, was tempted like we are, experienced the frustrations, anxiety, disappointments, and pain. So talk to Him. He really does understand and he can see down into our soul -- our innermost thoughts and feelings. And best of all, he loves us more than we can fathom.

46th Birthday Party

We had a birthday party for Jody Morton, Michael Bennett and me at our place last night. It was a lot of fun, spending time with our friends. We've been friends with most of these folks since childhood. The guest list: Dwayne and Angela Lightfoot, Walter and Judy Bales, Rodney and Shirley Furnish, Gregg and Janice Magee, Mark Rogers, State Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and his wife Janet, Michael and Leslie Mynatt, Lee and Larissa Loveless, Stacey Bennett, Tina Morton, and Jodi. It was bittersweet because Dr. Michael Mynatt is leaving this month to go on staff at First Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia.

Rain

It's been an unusual summer. I think it has rained nearly 20 days in a row, and it has not gone more than a day or two without it since May. Usually, we are sweltering in the 90s in early July, but it's been in the 70s and 80s every day. The forecast? More rain. In Texas, we don't complain about rain in the summer, but it is getting to the point where we're ready to see some sunshine again. When I am able mow, between the showers, the grass is almost too thick for my mower, and our dirt driveway has washed down the road. All the lakes in this part of the state are full, though, and we're catching up on the water we needed, so we're blessed.

I don't mean to be flippant, however, about the lives and homes that have been lost in this weather pattern in other parts of Texas. Our prayers go out for those families.