Tag Archives: exhort

Basket Case

Basket case: (n) a person or thing regarded as useless or unable to cope.Dictionary B

The most delicate journey in our Earth life is finding the balance between mercy and muscle.

When is it good to be sympathetic, and when is it necessary to exhort and challenge ourselves and those around us?

The truth of the matter is, weakness has no advantage unless it’s exposed–so that can grow into greater strength.

Being diagnosed as lacking–be it emotional, spiritual, mental or physical–does not really grant us an identity, but rather, assigns us a number and shoves us in a prison cell.

What do we do when we run across people who are basket cases, finding themselves completely overwhelmed by their circumstances, and often not comprehending why their burden is so cumbersome?

Mercy is a beautiful thing. atter of fact, without being merciful, none of us are worthy to obtain it.

Yet the predilection in our society to doctor tiny cuts and scrapes as if they are mortal wounds is not merciful at all, but ends up being a way of manipulating the frustrated brethren around us into becoming incapacitated.

I’m sure there is a true diagnosis for clinical depression, but I will tell you–not everyone who claims it has it.

I’m certain there are all sorts of diseases and conditions which infest the human body and brain, but by no means are these maladies meant to leave us dormant.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, there are too many unnecessary basket cases for us to really minister to the real ones.

Sometimes we need to stand up and accept that what is set before us is our present lot, and we would do better to buck up a bit and find a way to not only endure it … but win. 

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Anodyne

dictionary with letter A

Anodyne: (adj) a manner of communicating unlikely to provoke dissent or offense, deliberately uncontentious

I have never used this word before, nor have I heard it. But I certainly have encountered the spirit of it everywhere I go.

Even though I am often invited to speak and share my thoughts in front of audiences, at the very last moment the sponsor often approaches me in a kindly, smiling profile, trying to gently determine if I plan on being offensive or controversial.

Everyone on Earth knows that nothing is ever achieved by spreading the banquet table of the status quo and offering it for general consumption. The status quo has already had a season of being the status, and its quo is so well-known that there’s very little interest in it.

So the goal is to try to find something that has a bit of edge and transition in its nature, but at the same time, is edifying to the human soul.

The other option is to purposely startle people under the guise of entertainment, hiding behind the religion of the First Amendment, which allows for free speech, no matter how stupid and useless it may be.

So what are the guidelines? I can only speak for myself.

1. Don’t share anything you haven’t tried and found to be successful in your own life.

Fad philosophy is just like fad dieting–for a little while it seems to work and then when it falls apart, you end up weighted down worse than before.

2. It should be understandable.

I’m tired of people expressing superiority by complicating life. If you can’t make it easier for folks, shut your damn mouth.

3. The goal should be to edify and exhort other human beings, even if they choose not to receive the benefits.

  • My heart is more important to me than the conclusion.
  • My motivation is more essential than success.

I have no intention of saying things that are safe, because in the long run, our world becomes dangerous when either goodness doesn’t take evil seriously, or when evil can prove that goodness is way too serious.

 

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Admonish

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAdmonish: (v) to warn or reprimand someone firmly

I really do not know why this word is in the dictionary.

I suppose it’s there because we all have accidentally or ignorantly decided to admonish another human being, only to discover that we were given bad attitude, resistance and actually, more often than not, pushed them right back into their iniquity.

For after all, it is a word usually associated with child-rearing. You know–those occasions when we sit our offspring down and explain to them in vivid detail the error of their ways and the danger of their path.

But writing this essay today, I have to ask myself if I have EVER heeded an admonishment.

I have come to myself and decided to change certain behavior. But every time someone ELSE has made it his or her mission to create that change in me, I have resisted to the point of rebellion (although in the presence of other folks I might pretend I had heeded the heated advice).

But I didn’t.

Truthfully, I resented the hell out of someone treating me like I was a teenager taking the car out for a joy ride without permission.

This is why I yearned for my eighteenth birthday–so I wouldn’t have to listen to people tell me what to do. I am a typical son of Adam and Eve in the sense that if you tell me there’s a tree from which I should not eat, it is the location where I will probably decide to have lunch.

Honestly, it’s how I can tell that parts of the Bible ARE divinely inspired, and other portions are the inventions of men trapped in their own culture and time, who did their best to venture a good guess.

You can encourage people. I am not so certain you can admonish them.

You can exhort people. Admonishment will go out the back door as quickly as it came in the front.

You can steer, cheer, jeer, and leer at folks and probably get by with it. But when you sit them down and try to recreate the atmosphere that should have happened when they were children being instructed on Mommy and Daddy’s knees, you are about to unleash all the fury of their frustration.

So what can we do if we know that someone is destroying himself and is steeped in great error?

The two paths available to the wise man or woman who want to affect their world are:

  1. Set a great visible example
  2. Pray that God uses the natural order to bring truth to the forefront.

There you go.

So “admonish” is in the dictionary because we do it with our children–to limited success.

When we try to apply it to our adult friends, we have generated the definition for another word: futility.