The Restaurant

What if I owned a restaurant that had the greatest food in the world? In this restaurant I have perfect vegetarian dishes, melt in your mouth meat dishes, barbeque that puts Memphis to shame, side dishes that could be a meal by themselves, perfect bread that will not make you fat, and deserts that are so good they make you want to cry. 

I hire a waitress that is great. She has a happy personality, when she walks into the room  faces light up. She is smart; never has to write your order down because she remembers them. Her biggest advantage is she loves my food, wants to tell people about it, and to help them experience it. This is a perfect match except… 

After I hire her she starts to have hygiene problems. She stops washing her clothes, she stops washing her body, and she just smells bad. The worse thing is, she picks up a bad habit. When she is not taking orders she sits down at one of the tables, takes off her shoes, bites her toenails, then spits them across the restaurant. 

Guess what happens? People do not want my food any more. My food has not changed, it is still the same perfect food that it always was but people have no appetite for it because of the person presenting the food. 

This is what happens when we as Christians do not follow Christ's example of loving those who are different. When we don’t love those "SINNERS", or we don’t love people who do not believe as we do, when we don't love the down and out or when we don't love the fallen. We become like the waitress, we push them from the food they need.  We may still love the food and want others to experience it but because of us they do not have the stomach for it.  
 
Look at Jesus' example; Every time He was around the sick, the hurting, the unloved, the unreligious, the unbelievers, the untouchable and those considered the lowest of His time. He was comfortable with them and they were comfortable with Him. Why... because He loved them. He loved them as His Father does. 

How often when someone feels like a failure in life do they run to a Christian for help?  How often when they need to know how to find forgiveness from God do they run to a Christian for help? Not too often because they are afraid of judgment or a reprimand from us. They can't depend on us to show the love Jesus showed when He came in contact with people in their situation. 

My prayer is that those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus or who put on that title of Christian show His example in how we treat those around us.

Learning About Grace from Beau

This is Beau. Beau has taught me more about grace that I ever learned at church.


I am a dog person. When we moved to Germany we decided that due to our schedules we should not get a dog. I held strong for twelve straight years. My daughter moved back to Germany to finish school and her twenty first birthday was coming up. We really wanted to get her something special. Ideas, ideas, no real ideas what should we get her so we asked her what she would like. She said she wanted a dog.


A crack formed in my resolve but only a crack… I said, “You can look but you know we can’t have a dog.”


Have you asked the Landlord? No, so ask him… He said, "YES" Crack…


We looked at different dogs. We looked at bloodhounds and akitas and Chihuahuas and assorted squeaky dogs. No from me on the Chihuahuas, no from her on the Akita, no on squeaky dogs and we can’t get a dog on the bloodhound. CRACK…


CRASH...


As you can see by the picture I lost my resolve and the bloodhound won.


His name is “Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside”. Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside was a character from “Auntie Mame” Beau for short and Rufus when he is a dufus.


We got Beau after major paperwork and red tape to import a dog into Germany. He came into our normal smelling home and things would never be the same.


The first battle was paper training this puppy. I suspected the dog was part camel… That is the only explanation of how much water came out of him when he peed on the carpet.


The second problem was he would eat anything. This is where Beau has been a living lesson on “Grace”.


Beau has more toys than most children. Three fourths are chewy toys. Beau is not satisfied with chewing on his toys. He likes chewing, no… eating everything. He has a special place in his heart for cell phones. My wife’s pretty pink “contract” cell phone really tasted good. You can't just replace a contract phone you have to buy a new one… While we are buying a new one maybe we should upgrade to a blackberry. We did and it stayed safely in my wife’s purse except Beau loves to sniff through purses and being a bloodhound can naturally track down something good to eat, the Blackberry. We caught him before he did too much damage but now he has a taste for Blackberries. He found my daughters Blackberry on the dining room table and ate it. At this point many people would have said, "Enough! He is outta here!" I am not sure why I didn’t say that... (Yes I am… I love this stupid dog but don’t tell anybody.) We now secure things that he might eat. He still loves digging through purses. My wife was on the Mission’s committee at our church and had three hundred Euro from a fund raiser in her purse to be turned in the following Sunday. That is about five hundred dollars. He got into her purse and ate stamps and the envelope that had the Mission money in it. I am ready to spend the next week digging through dog poop looking for undigested Euro.



At this point most normal people would have sent him to doggy heaven. I did not because well you saw the above admission, I love this stupid dog. Luckily the money fell out of the purse and under a table so he was saved.



A few nights later the family was watching a movie from our bed, my wife and daughter fell asleep during the movie so they just laid their glasses on the night stand beside the bed. An hour later my wife woke up to Beau crunching his bone but it has a strange sound. She turned the light on to see both pairs of glasses in pieces and him chewing on them.



When is enough, enough? As I am asking myself that question I wonder how much do I allow this dog to mess up? How much will I allow this dog to cost me?



Then it occurs to me, “Wonder if God ever asks that question about me?” How much will I allow him to mess up? How much will I allow him to cost me? Why have I not taken him out?



Then the answer comes…



He has allowed me to mess up for over 51 years so far. He has allowed me to cost Him, His Son’s life. Why has He not taken me out…? This is the crazy part... It is because He loves a Dufus like “ME”!



I have heard this all my life in church but I learned this real lesson from Beau. The reality of GRACE is not to give me what I deserve which is death but to give me grace because He loves me. He loves me so much that Jesus died for me... That is the reality of John 3:16 as demonstrated in a way that even a dufus like me could get it. Demonstrated by a dog in a real life parable.



Beau thanks for the lesson and… “PUT DOWN THAT IPHONE!!!”