4-7-25

I’ve got to be honest….there are some things that I just don’t get….some things

that on their face just don’t make sense to me…..the kind of things that you look

at it, scrunch up your face, scratch your noggin, and just ponder without actual

explanation…..

Like for instance…..ear hair…..you heard me, ear hair…..why is it that as men get

older they begin losing the hair the want and gaining hair they don’t want…..that

makes no sense…..you can go your whole life without hair in your ears and then

all of sudden BAM(!) ear hair……it serves no purpose…..it has no redeeming

value…..it’s completely out of place…..and I swear, if we could grow row crops as

fast as old men grow ear hair we could solve world hunger in no time…..make that

make sense…..you can’t

Here's another one……mosquitos…..what good are they…..they buzz around in

your ears, and come in out of nowhere to land on any patch of exposed skin they

can find and suck blood….and then off they go in search of their next

victim…..little winged vampires just sucking blood indiscriminately from man and

beast alike…..they carry disease, and they’re just generally a nuisance at best, and

a contagion carrier at worst……there is an entire industrial base with a budget the

size of California’s GDP dedicated to eradicating or repelling mosquitos…..make

that make sense…..you can’t

How about this one…..why do we need an appendix?.....why….all I ever hear

about the appendix is bad news….you’ve probably never met anyone who was on

the appendix transplant list waiting and praying for a new appendix, have

you?....it just sits in your body like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off…..and

then they go sour on some folks and have to be removed and the people get

better….meaning that the appendix was seemingly not at all necessary and their

quality of life is much improved because they got rid of the darn thing…..and the

rest of us walk around wondering if the little terrorist is going to go rogue on us

one day and I have to wonder why they don’t ever have elective appendix

removals…..just to get rid of it…..make that make sense……yeah, you can’t…..

I’ll go one more for you……one of those things that makes me wonder…..why do

women take so long to pack?.....why?.....I can pack for a 5-day trip and be proud

that I can do it all in one carry-on bag the size of a lunchbox…..I’m also known to

pack right before I leave…..I mean like Right. Before. I. Leave…..Charlene, will say

“aren’t you going to pack?”…..Baby, we don’t leave until next week…..meanwhile

she’s stressing because she’s not sure if she has an outfit for each of the moments

our trip will involve…..I’ll be lucky if my socks match on the trip and somehow

content with that……she on the other hand will have thought the whole packing

thing through for weeks in advance, tried things on, grieved over this blouse or

those shoes, and generally needs a vacation from packing before packing for the

vacation……I hear it’s a woman thing….something to do with hormones I

suppose….make that make sense…..oh yeah, once again you can’t……

But I suppose in reality there will be any number of things in life that don’t make

sense……like why bad things happen to good people…..it’s a conundrum….and its

real….and sometimes it makes no sense…..but generally speaking there will be a

time when something happens and you don’t have a good explanation for it…..a

life circumstance….an illness, a loss of a loved one, a crash of a business

venture…..we are told in scripture that “in this world you will have trouble”…..but

then Jesus follows up by saying, “fear not, for I have overcome the

world”……please notice that he did not say, I have made the world peaceful….he

did not not say, I have ended trouble…..he did not say it’s going to be all sunshine

and unicorns…..Jesus gave us the straight skinny in John 16:33, he didn’t pull

punches……he flat out acknowledged that things that are difficult, things that

might not make sense to you, they will happen……but the first part of that verse is

the part that I need to circle back around to…..because the verse started off by

saying, “I have told you this that you might have peace”…..peace….peace that

makes no sense…..peace in the middle of things that make no sense….huh….make

that make sense…..once again, you can’t…..

And I’m going to tell you what I believe two of the key factors are for peace….real

peace…..peace that makes no sense……because that’s what Philippians 4 calls

it…..”Peace that transcends all understanding”….or better put, peace that makes

no sense……two key ingredients that I believe are vital to the recipe for peace in a

world that will have trouble……one is Trust, and the other is Memory……

Peace that makes no sense is built in part on trust……If I’m stuck in a pit with no

way out and someone comes along and throws me a rope, I’m not going to ask

them who made the rope, where it came from, or how it got there…..I’m going to

grab that rope and trust that it will hold me and feel the deep satisfaction, the

peace, that the rope is there to get me out of that hole…..it might make no

sense…..but it brought peace…..there is an element of faith, or trust if you will

that is necessary for peace…..trust is knowing what is bigger than you….trust is

knowing there is a way……trust that makes no sense to other people but it brings

you peace……

And then there’s memory….it might sound strange but we need that…..we need

to remember who we are and what we’ve done…….you might not be a real

American if you haven’t seen the movie “Rocky”!......its a classic about the

underdog defying the odds…..Sylvester Stallone captured the hearts of the whole

country in the 70’s ……there was a scene in Rocky III when Rocky was getting

hammered by Hulk Hogan playing a giant named “Thunderlips”……it was a mess, a

fight gone wrong, Rocky was getting steamrolled in what he thought would be a

friendly charity match……and then his brother-in-law yells from ringside, “Rocko!

Remember the neighborhood!”…..what? did that fit?.....yeah it fit…..Pauly was

reminding Rocky who he was…..he was reminding him that hard times mean that

you need to look back and remember who you are and then face what you’ve

got…..

It’s important to remember who you are…..what do I mean by that?.....I mean

that when life beats you down, and things seem to be getting out of hand that

you need to have a sense of identity that carries you…..I’ve seen guys all the time

that forget who they are and become what they do…..that’s scary business….a

politician who is lost without being in office because he has no identity…..a soldier

who has no idea how to dress in his off duty because he has no uniform…..a

pastor who can’t exist without his pulpit…..if you don’t ground yourself in your

true identity then what you do will become your identity and that is never a good

thing……but more than that…..you have to also remember how much you’ve

already been through….there’s an amazing passage in 1 Samuel 30 when King

David and his men returned from battle to find that their village, a place called

Ziklag, had been raided and burned and all of their wives and children take

captive…..David’s men were despondent and angry….they actually talked about

stoning David…..David was just as distraught as they were…..but it says that he

caught his breath, sat down and “encouraged himself in the Lord”…..”encouraged

himself in the Lord”….what is that?.....it means that he remembered all the times

that he’d made it through trials and tribulations before….he remembered that the

same God that helped him slay Goliath was still God now…..and he remembered

that God brings peace…..and He’d already proved that to David before….so David

picked himself up…..asked God for direction….and pursued his enemies and got

everything back……

Sometimes we have to remember…..sometimes we have to trust…..sometimes

when things make no sense that’s when we need to stop trying to make them

make sense and trust, and take a deep breath, and resolve that “He has overcome

the world”…..even if it makes no sense…..because that’s what real peace is…..you

see, anyone can be peaceful when things are going good…..when times are easy

we can become lazy, and we can sit fat and happy and watch the clouds, and we

don’t worry about peace……peace is what breaks out when war is over…..peace is

what settles in when conflict is coming to an end…..and generally speaking peace

is a choice…..peace is a choice…..peace is taking the view that your circumstances

are not your defining point….peace is what happens when the decision is made to

grab that rope and climb out of that hole…..let me suggest to you that peace is

absolutely available but it is your choice to take hold of it……trust and

remember….

……..and that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way