I’m going through a “mantra” in my head right now, a “vow” that I made this winter.  I’m saying the words in my mind, and sometimes out loud, as I step into the sunny day and the moist, hot air that wraps around me like a warm wool sweater (not so much, THIS week).  I’m keeping the promise I made as I stood looking at my poor ice-and-snow-covered Suzanne (my Buick).  I’m keeping the promise I made when I received my invoice from THE VECTREN NATURAL GAS COMPANY and passed out on my kitchen floor from the shock…I promised then and say now…I will not complain about the heat this summer, no matter how hot it gets. 

It’s difficult to KEEP that promise through the sweat and the “spring fever” that makes you just want to lay down in front of a fan and sleep!  It’s difficult to keep that promise when the deceptive nature of TIME makes this winter seem years away.  It is difficult to keep that promise when it seems like a silly thing now…did I really mean that? 

What did my old Aunt Lena from Arkansas say?  “Promises are like piecrust: easily made, easily broken.”  Is that really what promises, even silly ones like the aforementioned, are all about?  Should I expect that the couple standing before me at a wedding are going to BREAK their promises as easily as they are SPEAKING them?  It seems like a very cynical attitude.  And many say that promises need to be “curbed”, perhaps used only occasionally, so that everyone understands the weight that words carry.

Perhaps.  But I’d rather think that we, as Travelers of THE WAY, should be following the Architect of THE WAY since He is our Father and Creator…we are models of Him…and He is a PROMISE MAKER and a PROMISE KEEPER.  Because of that, I believe we should be extravagant, bold, and scandalous PROMISE MAKERS…with the intent of KEEPING those promises, with God’s strength and our own flesh and spirit.

“Easily said, Rick.” I can almost hear you saying.  “Aren’t YOU divorced?  Didn’t YOU break at least one promise?”

Yes, I am divorced, I’ll take that hit.  But the point IS that promises ARE broken, it happens…how do we deal with that?  I can only speak for myself and give the lessons from God through His varied witnesses, but I don’t believe that broken promises are any reason to stop MAKING promises (when at first you don’t succeed…etc.) and for each life lesson, good or ill, we grow, we learn, we expand, we “become”.  The person who promised NOT to complain about the summer heat is not the same person who made promises one, two, ten or twenty years ago…I’m evolving, “becoming”.  Although I’ve been a citizen of the Kingdom of God since He first initiated the charter in Bethlehem, I’ve grown more each day, month and year to SEE the Kingdom that I hold membership to, and walk in.  As I recognize God’s voice more and more, see His work more and more, live with His Spirit more and more I am able to be more like Him.  I have the ability (if not the will) to make and keep promises…as we all do.

In this Kingdom of God we are almost REQUIRED to make promises.  What does God say, “Let your YES be YES and your NO be NO.”  Every word from our mouths should be, by definition, a promise.  We carry THE TRUTH in these fragile bodies and our bodies may fail us…in THIS age, but with each day we walk in THE WAY we get stronger, more peaceful, more like HIM: the Founder of The Promise.  Let us make them freely and keep them gladly. 

Yesterdy, in 1486, King Richard III took the throne of England…only to die in a battle over that same throne some 2 years later, ending the famous “War of the Roses” and ushering in the house of Tudor for the next 117 years.

Richard, my namesake, had his hasty grave discovered only a short 5-years ago.  Archeologists discovered the floor and some foundation of a Medieval church in Leiscester (under a parking lot) and discovered the small grave of one of the most controversial rulers in history of Great Britain.  He was literally dumped, naked & hands tied, like trash, in a grave that was hastily dug and forgotten years later.  The last king to die in battle, Richard had assumed the throne in controversy and survived one prior revolt…but the Tudor family succeeded in the next.  After being killed, he was stripped, bound, his body “humiliated” and put on display for 3 days…then dumped.

Such is life.  We scramble for honor, money, power, acceptance, respect and love…all of which are transient and deceptive.  Fame and power are fickle, as public acclaim is as well.  And yet all of us seem to have the desire for power, for respect, acceptance and love…do we learn?

Jesus knew exactly how to handle this part of humanity.  Don’t deny it, every human is hungry for all these things, they are a natural part of our created selves.  Unfortunately, like children, we believe that WE have all of the information necessary to satisfy our cravings with “food” we see around us.  Like a child who is hungry may not be able to reason that his or her body is in need of a specific thing whose nutritional value will encourage growth, we also only know that we are hungry.  A child may think that eating ice cream will satisfy the hunger as well as a boneless chicken filet…so why not eat ice cream?  We seek power and think that working our way to the top of the food chain, in whatever business we are in, will satisfy that hunger.  Jesus knows that hunger, He placed it there at the dawn of creation…it isn’t a bad thing, just a misguided thing.  As certain “anti-nutritious” foods will only cause the body to keep craving, causing an addiction, so will constant searching for that which does not truly satisfy will cause a vicious cycle of brokenness, envy, jealousy, bitterness and death.

Power?  We are heirs to the Kingdom of God, royalty.  All that we see is within our grasp.  Money?  A childish mind can tell you that the “love of money” is not simply the “root of all evil” but also a substitute for a deeper need…since many who have all the money any one person could possibly crave…are not happy, and crave MORE.  Fame?  When one tries to please everyone around, they instantly become a slave to all of them…and people will choose arbitrarily who to follow and “worship” at any given time, based on their own cravings.  The King of the Universe thinks you are the most beautiful, precious and important of all his creations…He holds your tomorrow and your todays…He is the ONLY person worth pleasing.

King Richard’s life, short reign, bloody death and forgotten grave is a lesson to everyone about the realities of human life.  What we seek, to satisfy a created hunger and thirst, is usually unsatisfactory…God and God alone quenches the thirst for honor, money, power, acceptance, respect and love.

“…your Father knows what you need, stop worrying.  Aggressively seek FIRST for the Kingdom, and all of the rest will fall into place…” (MT 6:32-33)

Let us at least begin to put life into perspective.

We thirst, we hunger.  God holds the Bread of Life, and the Living Water…satisfaction can be found nowhere else.

Last night as I was walking home from work, I noticed two boys and an adult walking along the street.  One of the young boys had a bike which he was “walking” behind the other young boy, who walking was slightly ahead.  The boy with the bike accidently (as it looked to me) ran into the boy who was walking, just a bump, nothing major.  Immediately the boy in front turned around and without so much as a word hit the other boy in the shoulder.  The boy with the bike threw it down and started to pound on the other boy…the adult immediately jumped in and broke up what had started.  Now I don’t know the “back story” I only know what I saw…but these boys were young, very young, and I wondered at what age we all learn to hit back when we are hurt.  Because it IS a “learned” behavior…and not the way we were created…and not the way of the Kingdom we “Followers” call Home.

At whatever age we’ve learned to hit back harder, or repay an equal amount of pain, we also learn to apply that principle to every part of our lives.  We learn the subtle ways of “getting back” or “getting even” and call it “fairness”.  We learn it, and we practice it.  It becomes a part of our politics: whatever happened to simply stating your platform and being polite, without attacking your opponent?  It becomes war: how long have countries fought, simply stating that they are paying back for the attack on them?  It all seems so natural…after all, I have the right to defend myself, don’t I?  I have the right to say that if you hurt me, you deserve pain also…isn’t that the case?

Some people who call themselves “Christian” do the same thing, without a second thought, even though “fighting back”, “getting even”, “causing pain”, “an eye-for-an-eye” is completely, irrevocably, and undeniably against ALL that Jesus, the Christ, teaches in that black book they hold up while screaming curses at those who are different than them.

When our soldiers across the sea are killed, mutilated, their bodies dragged through the streets…I am not surprised, I am horrified that any human could do that to another, but am not surprised.  That is the kind of behavior I expect from the ignorant and ungodly.  I would hope that is never the kind of behavior any American citizen would engage in…but I know that I’m wishing for something that is probably not to be.

However, we who follow Jesus (and if you’re going to call yourself a “follower of Jesus” you actually DO need to be “following Jesus”…otherwise, you’re just a “fan”) should be behaving in a manner that HE teaches us.  No matter what country we live in, no matter if our bodies live in the USA or somewhere else, we are citizens of the KINGDOM OF GOD, and we simply don’t behave that way.  Not because we haven’t been hurt, we have.  Not because we haven’t been slandered, we have.  Not because we haven’t been humiliated, we have.  But because we simply don’t behave that way…no matter what they do to us.  The minute we hit them back, we become them, we ignore our citizenship in the Kingdom, and we cause God grief.  

If we are going to “follow” Jesus, then we have no other choice but to do as He commands: walk the extra mile, turn the other cheek, love (LOVE) our enemies and pray for them…and be IN the world…but, unlike “them”, not OF the world. 

My prayer is that there will come a time, soon, when others will know we are Christians by our love, and not just because our Facebook status says so.