Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Tom Shrader offers practical guidance for navigating difficult family relationships during holiday gatherings. He identifies three common dilemmas people face: having no place to go, having too many obligations, or dreading where they need to be. Shrader examines the root causes of family conflict including divided loyalties, different temperaments, unresolved past issues, and especially unrealistic expectations, calling believers to be peacemakers who represent Christ's love in challenging family dynamics.
“You are never going to have the peace of God until you have peace with God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Christmas (1999)
Recorded: 1999
Duration: 42 min
Themes: family, relationships, conflict, peace, forgiveness, expectations, holidays, love, family gatherings, holiday stress, difficult relatives, adult children, parents, struggling with family, dreading visits, family obligations
Scripture: Romans 12:18, Luke 10, Genesis 12, John 11, Genesis 25, 2 Kings 5, Acts 15, Philippians 4:5-7, Galatians 5:22
Theological Themes: peacemaking, christian living, biblical relationships, christ likeness, spiritual maturity, grace in conflict, witness, practical theology
Full Transcript
We're going to take these two weeks leading into Christmas break and do two very practical sessions. Next week, we're going to talk about something that associates with this time of the year clearly and presents for many of us some problems: the issue of gift giving. What do we do with this area of gifts? What about gifts? What kind of gifts? What are the gifts maybe this time of the year you want to make sure that you give? And maybe more importantly, is there a gift you want to make sure that you receive this time of year? We'll look at that next week.
Today, we look at the issue of family and family get-togethers and that time of year that you're headed for, many of you, where family comes together. It is in and of itself not necessarily a great time of the year, but it is a time when you almost unavoidably are in circumstances that you aren't in during the balance of the year. It presents a certain level of tension for you.
The Changing American Family
There was a time for us, and part of this flows out of the change of the family, where you had that Ozzie and Harriet kind of get-together. By that, we mean you just had healthy parents. You look at that ideal in that Ozzie, Harriet, Leave it to Beaver type of environment. Mom and dad are healthy. You saw Ozzie all the time. He was always around, never knew exactly what he did - won the lottery, must have been a consultant. He's always around the house with the hat and the sweater. They got the dress, they got all that stuff. The marriages were happy.
I understand, and every time I talk about this, I have somebody who feels compelled to explain to me that it wasn't like it appeared. Well, duh, I figured that out. But you never saw in Leave it to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet - I don't remember ever seeing a divorce or a broken family. Yeah, there were problems, but they were viewed as the exception rather than the rule.
The kids were, by and large, obedient. They always had little scrapes they got in, but there was never anything more serious than maybe asking two girls to the prom or something. There were neighborhoods that were friendly. You had Thorney and Doc and Joe, and they'd swing by and say we're going to do this weekend, and they'd say, well, we're going to go fishing, and then they'd all go fishing. You had a certain - here's the word that we might use - by the way, it's also one of the buzzwords for the new millennium. They had community. That's what that was.
We don't have that as our stereotypical view anymore. We've moved more to that Dan and Roseanne age, where parents are almost more dependent on the kids. The kid comes in and says, you got anything to eat, and he says, eat? Let me tell you about problems. You want to know what health care costs? You want to talk about downsizing? I got problems here. You got parents that are in unhealthy roles and seem compelled to share it with their eight-year-old children.
The Modern Family Crisis
You have a situation where you have rotating partners. I saw the stat the other day, and I think it is this: as of right now, 26% of the children in this country are living with both biological parents. There's no way this doesn't screw up a culture and a community. There's no way that when you have 75% of your children not living with their biological mother and father, you're not going to have problems. You're going to have problems with those kids, and you're going to have problems with the parents.
You're going to gatherings now where you don't know - oh yeah, you're married, help me out here. You come into the family Christmas, and you almost need an org chart to figure out who goes with who. Yeah, okay, I got that now. Heard a lot about you, that's right, okay, there we go.
You got kids that are out of control. I can't get my view much lower than I have it of just the kids and the children that I see in public. It's an embarrassment, again, mostly because of poor parenting, but you just have kids that are absolutely out of control. They just need to be stuffed in the toilet for about 30 seconds, just hold them there and then bring them out and explain reality to them. There needs to be discipline and regulation, and it's absent. There's no restraint, there's no control.
The Loss of Community
We're barricaded in neighborhoods. Last time you saw your neighbor is when he came over to say, I think you're parking in front of my house. That's about the sense of community that we have. Everybody's relationship that we're involved in tends to be surface. Once you say, hey, you going SRP or APS, what's your water bill, what kind of mileage do you get? How about those Cardinals? - which you could never imagine yourself saying. Once you're done with those things, there's not much left.
So you take all that together, you put it together, and you bring in the holidays and these get-togethers, we find three types of people, three dilemmas. Here's what we're going to deal with today: people who have no place to go for the holiday, people that have too many places to go, and the majority of our time is going to be spent on this last section - people who have no desire to go where they need to go.
Those With No Place to Go
It may be that you're here today and as holiday comes, it's a very lonely time of the year. I had a guy come up to me yesterday, it was the very first one, and he just said, I don't know why, but I'm depressed, and it seems to be this time of year. Part of that, first of all, almost always it's self-indulgent - thinking about yourself, absorbing yourself, what's it mean to me. You know, why so downcast, oh my soul? Here's the remedy. I'm going to save you $150 an hour. Why so downcast, oh my soul? Put your hope in God. Put your trust in God. That's it. There's your answer. Get your eyes off yourself.
But there are some legitimate, there are some hard
When Susan and I had been married not very long, and I was working at Coal Banker, there was a gal there that year who had started a really neat tradition. She started what she called an Orphan's Christmas, and what that meant was families that had no other family in the valley. It was kind of neat to see all of these people together and then put on "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and watch everybody cry together on Christmas Eve. But there's that idea that you have people with no place to go.
Unfortunately, that "no place to go" is associated not with geographic problems in and of itself, but oftentimes with people who are single. Fifty percent of the adults, plus or minus, in Maricopa County right now are single. What if you have no place to go?
Finding Community When You're Alone
Well, here are two things for you to do. Number one, find other people that don't have any place to go—similar people. We sometimes forget that Jesus spent whatever, thirty-three plus or minus years on this earth, and He did it as a single man. Jesus' base of operation was in the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Here we see in Luke 10, simply Him coming and visiting them. What Jesus chose was people who were in the same life situation—Mary single, Martha single, Lazarus single—and Jesus hung out with them.
It may be that this time of year, if you have no place to go, you need to initiate this Orphan's Christmas. You need to be proactive, you need to find other people who have no place to go, and you bring them together, and you're the catalyst that God's going to use to fulfill that need. Or it may be that you need to go and accept invitations from people who are in other areas or other stages of life. They aren't similar to you in life setting.
This is Paul—he leaves Athens, comes to Corinth, and he starts to hang out with a guy by the name of Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They were a married couple, they had a commonality of business, and together they took in Paul, and that became a place where he hung out. That was an important base of operation for him. So if you're somebody with no place to go at Christmas, you have two rather diverse opportunities. One is to find people in a similar situation, and you bring them together. Two is to be open enough and willing enough to accept invitations that may bring you out of your comfort zone, but fulfill that need that you have this time of year.
When You Have Too Many Places to Go
What if you are on the other end of the spectrum? You don't have one place to go—you've got way too many places to go. You've got people who are determining how you're going to spend your holiday. All they do is call, and that obligates you to them. We see this a lot in kids who are now married, and they're starting this life, but you've got her parents, and now step-dad and step-mom, and his parents, and step-dad and step-mom, and great-aunt, and you know grandma. "This may be grandma's last Christmas." Now forget we've been saying this since 1969, but this may be it, and so how are you not going to be there? And so you've got all this stuff that comes pouring out this time of year.
Well, here are a couple things. Number one, look how Jesus disappoints the expectations of those around Him. His motivation's way different than yours. He's about to do some great miracle. But He gets the call that His friend Lazarus is sick, ultimately dying. And the message comes, and it says, "Lord, the one you love is sick," and Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and yet when He heard he was sick, He stayed where He was two days more.
You know the story. He stays there ultimately to allow Lazarus to die, so that He can raise him from the dead. But Jesus said, "You know what? Just because they expect me to go, doesn't mean I'm going to go." You have to have, in your vocabulary, the ability to say no, and then the ability, when they say, "If you really cared, you'd come," to say, "I do care, but I'm not going to be there."
Establishing Your Own Traditions
Some of you need to simply establish your own traditions. You're caught in this game between her house and her parents on Christmas Eve, and my parents on Christmas Day, and we celebrate our own thing from midnight to six in the morning. That's no tradition. Let me remind you: "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, and the two become one flesh." They're no longer two, but they're one. What God has joined together, let no man separate. When I enter into this new marriage, I create a new family, and that family's the preeminent responsibility in my life.
Let me talk especially to those of you that may have kids who are married. Could you this year resolve to back it off a little bit, and let your kids do whatever they need to do? And you don't need to dump additional pressure on them, an obligation to make them feel like it needs to be at your house, at your time. How much can these kids eat? How long can they get together and drink this eggnog and pretend it's fun? You don't need this.
Far more important—I'll tell you something—far more important that you have a healthy relationship with them the other 364 days a year than you get everybody together for a group picture on Christmas Eve. I was talking this morning to a fellow, and I said, "Are your kids coming in?" And he said, "You know what? I told them this year, 'You guys, we're not always going to be here. You need to establish your own traditions.'" That is so wise. There's so much wisdom to that.
Sometimes it's great to get everybody together. But you know what's interesting? Typically the situations where it's great to get everybody together and everybody enjoys it are the ones that say, "You don't need to be here today." It's the very one you want to go to. It's that thinking parent that says, "You know, today at three..."
o'clock. And you go, yeah, I want to be here at three. The Aloha Bowl's on. We got a six and five team in there. How exciting can this be? And you don't want to miss that kind of stuff.
Here's something that's even more key. What if, and this frankly touches most of you, what if you've got places that you're expected to be this holiday year and you don't want to go? You're trying to figure out, the door opens and they say, we're glad you're here and you say, you know, we can't stay long. Johnny's fussy and he'll only sleep in his own bed. His nap time is twelve minutes from now. But let's have as much fun as we can. And so rather than this beautiful Currier and Ives picture that family gathering looks more like a Farside cartoon for you.
What if that's how you see this? And these are really serious issues. I want to give you some great tools here, not just for the holiday time, but all year long. If you're finding yourself in the, and by the way, these tools apply to almost every human relationship. Obviously, if you don't want to be there, it's because there's conflict.
Determining the Cause of Conflict
So here's the first thing you do. Determine the cause of the conflict. Why is this setting the way it is?
And it may be this, it may be that in your family structure, there's some divided loyalty. You always like him better than me. These brothers always got along. These sisters always fought. And now you get together and I always like you. You know, you've got this new spouse. I never did like this new guy. I like the old guy better. You got these kids. Your kids are driving me crazy. You don't know how to tell them. And you're trying to be a good grandparent because you don't want to tell your kids how to parent. But you're saying, you know what? This is the fourth time you've torn this couch up. We got a problem here.
Maybe there's loyalties. There's some people that just enjoy being with them. Others, there's kind of this little clique, even in the family.
There's a great story from Genesis 12. Abraham, at this point, is 90 years old. Sarah is 80 years old. God has promised Abraham that many blessings would flow from him. And one of them are descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abraham is saying, I'm 90. This isn't looking like it's... we better get on this real fast. Nothing's happening.
So what Sarah does is to exercise a cultural prerogative. Here's what she says. She's bearing no children. She had a maidservant named Hagar. She said to Abraham, the Lord has kept me from having kids. Go sleep with my maidservant. Perhaps I can build a family through her. Impregnate her. I'll take the kid. It'll become ours and we'll have this new family.
And I'm sure Abraham gave the obligatory, oh, honey, I could never do that. Which one's Hagar? And she said, that one. He goes, okay, I'll see you later. I'll be back. And I don't know. It doesn't say that. But I got to believe. Anyway, Abraham goes. He impregnates her. She conceives. And from that moment on, there is rivalry and bitterness and anger and jealousy between Hagar and Sarah. From that very moment, the loyalties are divided. And you know this. Now we've got, ultimately, Hagar's kid and Sarah's kid. And the loyalties are divided.
It may be that the core problem of your conflict is there's just divided loyalties within the structure, within the family.
Different Temperaments
It may be this. It may be that you've got different temperaments. This is really interesting to me. People are different. And it's so important to understand that. One isn't right and one wrong. There isn't a right answer. People just are different.
The interesting moment for me, probably 15 years ago, my father was out visiting. And we were going somewhere. I don't remember where. And I had to swing by the office. And when we did, I said, do you want to come in? He said, sure. So we came in. And we were in the middle of negotiating a deal. And so we go into one of the rooms. And we got on the speakerphone. And my dad's there. And we got lawyers. Always a bad sign. We got the lawyers on a conference call. Not going well. People are not agreeing. Deal points are exploding around us. It isn't going well. And finally, you just hear them say, OK, we're done. That's the end. We're not going to make the deal. Boom, and it closes. That's the end.
So my dad doesn't say anything. We're in the car. And we're driving out. And he said, doesn't sound like that deal's going to make, does it? And I said, no, it really doesn't. It doesn't sound like that at all. He said, how long have you worked on that? And I said, I don't know, six, seven months. He said, really? He said, now, do you get paid for that?
I said, they've got a quirky little custom here in Arizona. They only pay you when the deal closes. It's a screwy thing. But that's the way they do it here. So he said, you don't get any money at all for the six months you spent on that. I said, no, I don't. And he said, Tom, I could not live that way.
And my father, and you heard me talk about him, is just, to me, is just, he's an inspiration of persistence and determination and stability. He started, he graduated from college, married my mom all within a two-day period, took a one-week honeymoon to Pike's Peak on the train. That's what they did in those days. Came back, went to work from the bank in 1948 or 49, 48, I guess, and then retired there several years ago.
And I said, Dad, here's something for you to think about. I couldn't live that way either. And it was a great moment. I have, I think, a terrific relationship with my mom and dad. And like my mom and dad, or probably like some of your mom and dads, they've got what I would consider some quirky little habits, like we've got to leave today to get back home. How come? Well, because. Oh, OK. I mean, we're not exactly driven by a schedule here. Last year, and this is true, it was on a Thursday morning they were leaving, because they leave town on whatever day it is, the end
of March. The first of April, they're gone. And they're going to leave at 6. And I said, well, I kind of got to go by your place to go to the study. Why don't I swing by and say goodbye to you? Great. That'd be great.
And I was just passing, and I got up. And I thought, well, I really need to go by, because I know how they are. If I said I might be, then they assume I will be. So I get there 20 minutes to 6, and there they are. And they're sitting. I said, can I help you load the car? And he said, no, no, no. No, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.
6 o'clock, the news came on. They said, OK, we've got to go. And I said, you want some help? Oh, no, the car's loaded. I said, well, how come you have to go now? And they said, well, it's 6 o'clock. That makes zero sense to me. But you know what? It makes complete sense to my mom and dad.
Different People See Things Differently
And a long time ago, I heard all my friends keep saying, because if you've met my mom and dad, especially my dad, especially my dad because many of you have met him, my mom is exactly the same way, if you've met these people, they're just magnificent people. And I thought, how come all the people that I know think they're these incredible people and they've got these little quirks that drive me crazy?
About 15 years ago I said, you know what, I'm not going to let these things, I don't care why, I don't care what, why do I care, they leave at 6 o'clock, what difference does it make, if that's when they think they need to go, they need to go. And it's been so cool, and my folks have done a magnificent job as grandparents, because I'm sure they watch me with the kids and I'm sure that there are a lot of things that they would love to correct, and they've never once jumped in the middle of this stuff.
You know what, we're just looking at the same thing, but we're different people and we just see them differently. It may be that all of these great conflicts you have with those siblings and those friends and those people around you, it may be that you're just different people.
Jacob and Esau: Same Parents, Different People
Here's a story, you've got Rebecca and Isaac and they're going to have twins. The first comes out, it's red, he's like a hairy garment, they name him Esau, which means red. The second is grabbing the heel of the brother and they call him Jacob.
Now these kids grow up, same mom, same dad, twins, but very different. Look it, the boys grow up, Esau becomes a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, John Wayne. Jacob is a quiet man staying home among the tents, Woody Allen. You've got the same dad, the same mom, and you've got just different people, they're just different people.
Now they have all sorts of problems and here, look at this, now here's the problem, Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, He loves Esau, Rebecca, oh she loves little Jacob. And there's no problem, I don't think, with you saying, I have an affinity for one of my children more than the other. I mean it's natural, it's natural to think Isaac's going to have an attraction to Esau, he'd rather be out playing ball with him than in there, you know, drawing diagrams and doing flow charts with Jacob. The problem is that the kids know that you have that affinity. But they're just different. It may be that the cause of much of your conflict is simply that you're different.
Unresolved Conflicts from Years Past
Or it may be, and we stay with Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Esau, it may be that you've got conflicts from years and years and years ago that were never dealt with. This story unfolds and here's what happened, Esau gets it put to him by Jacob, Jacob steals his birthright, his double portion, he puts it to him and Esau resolves that he's going to get him.
And now his father is getting ready to die and he said, the days of mourning for my father are near and when they do, I'm going to kill you, you little punk. And he runs and decades are now wasted in trying to resolve and run away from this conflict that was never dealt with. It may be that you've got this kind of peaceful coexistence because there's this conflict that's never been resolved but needs to be and it's an underlying source of tension.
What Do You Do When There's Conflict?
What do you do when there's conflict in your life with other people? Well, here's my number one option always, stuff it, forget it, you're in denial, whatever, you put whatever label you want on it, this is my first thing, stuff it. I think that's the best option. But if you're going to stuff it, you need to be able to forget it. If you're holding this back but it's still a source of contention, then you have to deal with it.
But if you don't stuff it, you've got to confront it. You have to go to that person and you have to say, you know what? There's this thing here, there's this issue. Every time this comes up, we've never dealt with this. Do you know what? And a lot of times they're going to go, I never even knew.
The Power of Confronting Old Wounds
I had a person that came to me three weeks ago and said, and I haven't seen this person in years, and they said, I am so sorry about the letter that I wrote you. And I said, really? And they said, do you remember the letter? And I said, nope. And they said, do you remember what was in it? And I said, I don't remember the letter. And they said, well, here's what I was in, it was an awful letter. And as they started to talk, I kind of remember the letter again.
And they came back and they said, I just, I am so sorry, and will you forgive me on that? And I said, yeah. I mean, I didn't even know it was there. And this person, as they describe it, for years has felt awful about this very letter that I had forgotten about. It was a point of contention for them. And every time they saw me or heard my name, they were filled with tension over this. And once they confronted it, it went away.
Now, sometimes when you confront them, they don't go that well. But at least the topic's on the table. Here's the fourth thing, and I'll spend a ton of time on this. Because I've, this is just me. In my relationships, I think, human relationships, marriage,
Expectations in Relationships
Child rearing, job, friend to friend, whatever it is, I find this to be frequently the cause of tension and conflict. It's unrealistic. I would add to that undefined and unfulfilled expectations.
I had a guy that came to me a few years ago. Here's what He said: "Would you be my friend?" And I said, "Sure, I'll be your friend. It would be an honor to be your friend." About two or three weeks later, He came up and said, "You're an awful friend." And I said, "Really, why?" He said, "Because a friend is somebody who calls. A friend is somebody who thinks about the other person. They go out together. They do recreational things together. They dine together. Their families get together. If you haven't done any of that in the last three weeks, you're an awful friend."
I said, "Whoa, I'm not looking for that. My dance card's filled with those people. I got all of the friends on that level I need. When you say friend to me, I'm thinking somebody that returns your call. Then when we go out to eat, we'll go out and let you buy. That to me is a friend—to not insult you by having to grab the check every time. You're my friend. You can pay. I'm comfortable with that. That's my definition of friend."
Here's what I thought was a friend. I thought I was a great friend. He thought I was an awful friend. What was the problem? We had misaligned expectations.
The Vacation Story
We're coming home one year from vacation, and this was the most active vacation we've ever had. We were in San Diego. We were at the zoo. We were at SeaWorld. We went up the coast. We went to Phantom of the Opera. We did some other stuff in the LA area. We went up north. We were at Great America. We went through the city in the Bay. We were up at Sea Ranch. We were there a couple weeks. We were driving back to the desert.
I said to the girls, "Hey, how was the vacation?" They said, "It was okay, but we really didn't do much." I'm swinging, and Susan said, "You can't reach Him." I said, "You're going to hit the wrong one." I said, "I don't care. I'm going to hit somebody, whoever one's on the right. That's the one I'm after."
So the next year before we left, I made them get a piece of paper. I said, "Girls, write down everything you want to do on vacation and everything we're trying to do." As we went through the vacation, I said, "Okay, now we did something." I'd say, "Okay, check it off. Boom, got your list. Got it right here. Check it off." About three days before we were done, I said, "Oops, here's some things that aren't done." They said, "Well, we don't need to do that." I said, "Okay, cross that off and put your initials there, initial that page."
When we were driving back at exactly the same point in the desert, I said, "Girls, how was vacation?" They said, "Man, we did a lot of stuff. Yeah, it was a great vacation." You know what? We did about half of what we did the year before. But it was defined, and it was clear, and it was fulfilled.
The Problem of Undefined Expectations
See, these expectations, if they're not talked about, you're saying, "Here's my expectation. Here's what I expect of a sibling. Here's what I expect of a parent. Here's what I expect of a child." But if they're never defined...
Monday night, I'm sitting home one Monday night, phone rings, weeping on the other end. A gal. She said, "Tom, this is so-and-so. We need to get together." I said, "Okay." She said, "We need to get together. It's marriage. Our marriage is—we just got problems, and we're just going to get together." I said, "Okay, well, when do we need to do it?" "Tonight." I said, "Well, the Packers are on. It's Monday night." "No, we need to come. Tom, it isn't going to make it. We're not going to make it." I said, "Okay, come on over."
Now, they've been married 90 days. They walk in the door, and she looks like she hasn't slept in a week. She's crying. She comes in, and He comes in behind her, and He goes, "I don't know." They sit down, and I've done enough of this to know I don't even need to ask Him, because He has no idea why He's here. I said to her, "Honey, what's the problem?" "This marriage is never going to work."
A Marriage in Crisis
I said, "Okay, why?" She said, "It's just not going to work. We're too different." I said, "Well, we've only been at this 90 days. We ought to give it a little more of a chance. I've got a longer warranty on my radio. What's the problem?" "I thought He was a godly man, that's why I married Him."
So I said, "Now I know, okay, I got a piece of information, now I can bring Him in the conversation." So I said, "Are you a godly man?" He said, "I thought I was till I married her." Okay, now I know we're done with Him, because He doesn't bring much to the party again until we have more information.
So I said to her, "What's the problem here?" She said, "I thought He was a godly man." I said, "What is ungodly about Him?" She said, "In all the time we've been married, we pray together every night, we've only prayed together a couple mornings a week, and we only study the Bible together on the weekends. He's just not a very godly guy."
Well, most gals would say, "Gee, that's pretty much up there with Moses and Abraham and David." So I said to Him, "Is that true?" He said, "Yeah, Tom, that's true. I mean, we got a lot of stuff going on. I get up early, I leave, but yeah, that's true."
You know who's made the mistake in this whole equation? We did, when we let them get married, when we said to her, "What's the most important thing to you in a husband?" And she said, "A godly husband." We said to Him, "Are you a godly guy?" He said, "Yes." We never said to her, "What does it mean to be a godly man?" See that? I mean, it took about 30 seconds. I said, "Oh, this is perfect. I'm going to be back by halftime on this deal, because this is a real easy deal."
home and just talk this through about, honey, what you think godliness is, and what you think's realistic and godly in that, and then if you need me, call again. We never hear from these people again because all I have to do is go home and just talk about these things.
Misplaced Expectations: The Story of Naaman
I love this story because this is Naaman, and Naaman thought that he was going to get a healing. He needed a healing. He had leprosy. His body was deteriorating around him. Literally, body parts falling off. When you got leprosy, they isolated you.
He had heard about this guy named Elisha, and how Elisha was a prophet, and how Elisha could heal. So he wants to race to Elisha for this healing, and he goes, and Elisha sends out a messenger to him that says, "Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you'll be cleansed."
Now, look at this. He's going for the healing. He gets the message, go do this, and Naaman goes away angry. Why are you angry? "I thought He'd surely come out, stand over me, call the name of the Lord, wave His hand over the spots, and cure me." In other words, he said, "I thought here's what was going to happen. I'd come in, they'd come out, CNN would be there, everybody would be around, and this would be—that's how I thought this would take place."
Now, look how this is. This man wants to be healed. He's going to be healed, but his problem isn't that he wasn't healed. It didn't happen the way he thought it would. So he says, "I could have stayed home. We got rivers at home that are better than the Jordan."
The story ends, by the way, with him going to the Jordan. You remember the end of this. He dunks seven times, and he thinks like you do, and I do, results-oriented. Dunk me once, I'm 14% clean, twice, 28% clean, and remember the story goes: one, two, three, four, five, six. He comes up the sixth time. He's still filled with leprosy like he was. He says to his servant, "This is dumb. I'm a fool. People are going to remember me as a fool forever." His servant said, "Look, you've already done this six times. You ought to just do it again. What do you have to lose?" He goes down, and he comes up literally ivory, snow, fresh body. What was it? He almost missed this over misplaced, unrealistic expectations.
Going Into the Holidays with Realistic Expectations
As you head into this holiday time, and you go into these environments, and these gatherings, go with realistic expectations. If every year holiday together has been a disaster, you're a nut if you think it's not going to be this year. They're going to be just as goofy as they were last year.
Don't expect them to do something—listen closely—it's crazy of you to expect them to do something either A, they're not going to do, or B, they can't do. I have a friend who used to get frustrated every year on Father's Day because he didn't get what he thought he deserved: cards and gifts and all the other stuff.
If you've got goofy people in your family, don't expect them to come together and take a one-day sabbatical from goofiness. If anything, it's going to be exacerbated by the holiday, not relieved by it. So go with realistic expectations. You can be the one in the middle of that who brings some sanity to it.
Different Philosophies: The Story of Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark
A couple more things real quickly. It could be that you've got contrary philosophies. This is the story of John Mark. He blew out of the first missionary journey. Barnabas wants to take him on the second missionary journey. Paul says, "Absolutely not." God divides Paul and Barnabas, and we get two teams—that's two for the price of one. Barnabas goes with Mark, Paul goes with Silas, and we have two vibrant teams.
You had two guys, Barnabas and Paul, both looking at Mark. Here's what Paul said: "A guy who couldn't cut it. Here's a guy who failed. Here's a guy that doesn't have what it takes to be in the mission field." Barnabas said, "Here's a guy that's got what it takes, but he needs some time for nourishment and development." By the way, in the final analysis, Paul says, as he writes to Timothy, "Bring Mark with me because he's good for service."
You just simply may have a different philosophy than the people around you, arguing about something that doesn't have a right answer. That's why I have no problem when I'm in meetings and we've got staff meetings and all that going on. I have no problem when we're debating something that has a right answer. Where I wear out is when we're talking about something that doesn't have a right answer. There are lots of ways to skin that cat.
That's where I'll frequently say, when I reach my point, "Okay, guys, I got all the information I need." That is my way of saying, "That's it." They said that when Ronald Reagan was in a cabinet meeting, with the yellow jelly beans you hear about, when he reached for a jelly bean, that was a clear message to everybody at the table: "I'm done listening to this. Move on to the next topic."
Political and Generational Differences
It may be that in these family gatherings, you just simply say—you're a liberal Democrat, you're a conservative Republican—you come together at the holiday time. I remember during the Vietnam War, my father and I—my father's got a Purple Heart from World War II—our views of Vietnam were very different, and it was a continuing source of conflict for us, especially at holiday time.
Many of you who are my age remember awful holiday times with your mom and dad, generally, by the way, guys, because we were out of line and didn't respond to authority the way we should have, arguing about Vietnam. That problem only got worse as we threw a little booze on top of it.
When Faith Differences Enter the Picture
It may be you have different philosophies. It may be, and this is a huge deal, it may be that your faith is different. Some of you have become—
Be a Witness Through Your Changed Life
Christians as adults, you go back into a family structure that has no faith, or this dead religious faith, and you feel like God's ordained you to be Saul of Tarsus in the middle of the regeneration of this family. So you hit the door, anticipating, and in a dark, sick way, welcoming a fight over faith and truth, because now you can go to your friends and say, "My family didn't respond, but I stood for truth." Yes, you did. You alienated everyone in the room with your truth.
For a lot of you, that's real, and it's hard, and I sympathize. How do I remain true to the Christian faith and still share with my family, who I love, what it means to know Christ? That's a real issue for you, isn't it?
Well, here's what Stephen does. You might find a different opening line. "You stiff-necked people." That never works. If you don't get them there, with "uncircumcised hearts and ears," people don't warm up to that. There's a better way to do this.
But you need to go back into those—and I'm not minimizing this. If anything, I'm saying I understand this problem. It's to go back in, and you dread it. So many of you share that with me. It's holiday times, and you're going to get on a plane, and you're going back to Michigan, or South Dakota, or Ohio. You're going back, and you're going to be with family, and your family doesn't know Christ. They don't know you.
The minute you get back there, they want to put you back in that same lost, whole stereotype that you were in, and you don't like going there, and there's all sorts of conflict. And it's, "How do I witness to my family?" Here's how you do it. You let them see the difference in you, and then you tell them the reason for the difference. That's how you do it. You let them see that you're different, and then you tell them it's Christ.
Resolve to Be a Peacemaker
Well, here you go. Here's your wrap-up here. Number one, in the midst of this, you've got to resolve that you're going to be a peacemaker. As far as it depends upon you, live at peace with one another. Romans chapter 12, verse 18. You resolve to be at peace. You resolve to say, "I'm not going to get swept away into these contentious conversations. I don't need to be right. I don't need to correct everybody. I'm not the soul keeper of truth in every relationship in the world."
"Well, Tom, last year, the year before, and the year before that, that's what the attitude was that I went into the holiday season with, but I just simply couldn't do it." I knew that. That's why God says, "Let all your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord's near. Don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything."
It's to pray, "God, will You let me be salt and light? God, will You let me be loving? God, can I represent You in these family get-togethers and these business get-togethers?" Here you go. And when you do, the peace of God that transcends all understanding will be in your life. You'll be able to do things you never thought you could do because you're right. You can't do them. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.
I'll tell you this though. You are never going to have the peace of God until you have peace with God. See, this flows from a peaceful relationship with God. I become a peacemaker.
The Fruit of a Right Relationship with God
Somebody the other day, we were in a meeting the other day, and they said, "Tom, here's your problem in all these things. You're always the peacemaker." And I'm not kidding you. I could hardly stop laughing because in all my years, I've never had anybody say that to me. And you know why? You know why now after almost 20 years somebody's seeing it? It's because my relationship with the Lord is as vibrant as it's ever been.
When that relationship was right, the fruit of that is evident. You don't have to say, "Well, you know, look at my Bible. And look at how I say, 'Praise God.' Do you see it?" You don't even have to say that. They come back to you and say, "I see it. You're a peacemaker. You look like one of His."
That's how they used to identify the Christians, wasn't it? They didn't use to identify the Christians because they wore a cross. They would never wear a cross. They'd be like wearing an electric chair around. They knew them because they said, "Look how they love one another. Look how they care for one another. Look how they study. Look how they weep were those who weep and mourn were those who mourn and rejoice were those... Look how they do that." See, that's how they start to see that then.