I'm Not Trying To Kill You

My wife and I have enjoyed 28 pretty spectacular years of marriage so we’re really not at high risk of the wheels coming off.  Still, there are times when tension arises.  In those moments, if you were standing close by, you’d hear one of us say to the other, “I’m not trying to kill you.”  A strange admonition to pass between two love birds?  …well, not really.  Let’s listen carefully to someone else who loves us, our Sponsor:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…. (Psalm 23:3)

Israel’s King David knew a thing or two about fear.  From the time he was of kindergarten age he confronted evil of all kinds.  This verse from perhaps the most famous passage in all of scripture tells the pure simple truth – each one of us live life in “the valley of the shadow of death”.  Sometimes we don’t see our fears as ultimately the fear of death, but that’s what it is.  If you’re in a spat with your neighbor over a fence-line or dog poop, that’s not life and death, is it?  Maybe not on the surface, but if your neighbor is mad at you – really mad! – what’s his limit?  How far is he willing to go to put you in your place?  Our minds conjure up fears often greater than the immediate circumstances warrant.  Take your employment for example.  Ever been in fear of losing your job?  How did it make you feel?  Anxious?  Paranoid?  Defensive?  Why?  Because our jobs provide our “livelihood” – the means to keep us alive with food, shelter, and clothing.  If our livelihood is at risk, we drop down to survival mode pretty quickly.  Ultimately, all fear is a shadow of the fear of death (whether being killed by others or by untimely death that could have been prevented).

Many Christians shy away from some aspects of the realm of psychiatry / psychology – perhaps for good reason.  Take Sigmund Freud, for example.  He was no follower of Jesus, but let me ask you, didn’t he study the minds of people created by God?  Look at this “iceberg of consciousness” based on Freud’s findings.  Thoughts and perceptions on the conscious level are literally “floating” atop deeper things in our mind.  Among the things in the basement level are our fears.  We may not always recognize their presence, but they are still there.  Let me illustrate this with the simple event of “road rage”.  Some idiot in front of you is checking his cell phone and he veers into your lane.  You do the sane, defensive thing, you honk your horn.  The dufus “who almost ran you off the road” extends and proudly displays one of his digits.  You get hyped up, he gets hyped up, and in seconds everyone’s blood pressure is boiling over.  Sometimes people wind up getting shot, you know that.  Over what, careless driving?  Are you kidding me?  Think I’m straining here?  Go back and read this illustration about a husband who threw his marriage on the trash heap because his wife forgot to clean a little spot off the floor.  A spot!  I’m telling you, each one of us is skating around on some slick ice on top of this iceberg.

My wife and I have seen fear in action up close and personal.  We have seen our very closest friends destroyed by fear.  We have watched others disabled by anxiety and defensiveness.  We try to guard against this in our relationship.  The best way to do that, we have found, is to recognize that each of us are fragile people and prone to reacting in unhealthy ways.  So when I’m getting tense, my blood pressure is rising, my mouth is getting dry… my dear wife looks at me and says, “Clark, I’m not trying to kill you.”  And I remember that she didn’t marry me just to get a close shot at the back of my head.  If I’m sensing something it’s my own fear.  I’m going through the valley and I’m focused on the evil rather than God’s presence in my life.

Followers of Jesus don’t deny fear.  Many times we can’t even avoid circumstances that provoke fear.  It's actually a healthy response, but dealing with challenges through fear is a terribly bad solution.  All we can do is realize that we are not alone.  God loves us and has afforded us a home in heaven for eternity.  We are not guaranteed a peaceful path on earth, but followers of Jesus can have inner-peace through faith that God watches over us.

Try it out.  Say to someone today, "I’m not trying to kill you.".  And tell me what the look on their face was like.

Clark H Smith

What works for you?  How do you take the pressure off a marital spat... besides assuring your partner that you are correct and they are wrong?  Jump on the Follow Illustrated Facebook page and share your wisdom for making a happy marriage.

Leave A Mark

In the 90s, my sons had a NASCAR racing video game.  The venerable Benny Parsons recorded some chatter that played at random times during the race.  One of the more memorable quotes, often played when there was a wreck, “That’s gonna leave a mark!”  Hopefully, avoiding wrecks, all of us would like to think we’re doing something significant that will leave a mark in this world.

In the Dust Bowl Depression days of the 1930s my parents attended Wayland Baptist College in Plainview, Texas, but never managed a return visit until the 70s or 80s.  I was with my folks as they strolled the memory-laden and all-grown-up campus.  Inside the oldest building on campus, Gates Hall, my dad found a staffer and made a strange request – “Can we go up to the third floor on the east side of the building.”  I love a cliffhanger.  Let’s pause here for a word from our Sponsor.

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. (John 1:9)

Jesus was a light entering a pitch black room.  Everything was illuminated by Him.  There are no dark corners in the spiritual world which Jesus inhabits.  There is no continent where the Gospel has not been preached.  While there may be isolated tribes where Jesus’ name has never been spoken, they are spectacular exceptions which prove the rule.  Safe to say, The Word of God has left His mark in every part of our world.

In stark contrast, we have the fictional, but eerie testimony of one “Eleanor Rigby”:

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

I have no idea what was on Paul McCartney’s mind when he wrote those words testifying to a life of zero significance.  How sad that Eleanor’s name was not remembered by a sibling, a neighbor, a random stranger who was blessed by a good deed or kind from her.  Maybe that's the metaphor McCartney intended. Followers of Jesus are expected to make some sort of mark on the world, however great or small.

Up on the balcony of Gates Hall, my dad pointed outward to the portion of the façade sitting atop the columns which could only be seen from the balcony.  Fifty years earlier, with a dark charcoal pencil, Carl A. Smith scrawled his iconic brand “CAS” on that façade.  You’d have to stand there yourself to realize how hard it must have been to get up to that façade six feet out and ten feet up above the balcony.  I don’t know how he did it, but it was important enough to him that, indeed, he did it.  He left a mark.

In the “inter-urban” wasteland of Mesquite, Texas in the 40s, my dad was called “The Jesus Man”.  In the unthawed wilderness of central Alaska in the 50s and 60s, my dad was called a church planter.  At my dad’s funeral in the 80s he was called a tool completely used by God.  My dad was a follower of Jesus – he left a mark.

Followers of Jesus have it easy.  We are yoked up with Him and He is doing all the pulling of the plow.  All we have to do is agree to go with Him… and we get to leave a mark.

Clark H Smith

Are you a father?  Visit my other blog - It's Good To Be The Dad - and see how dads can put this illustration to practical use.  Good stuff!


My dear FI readers, would you jump on the Follow Illustrated Facebook page and share a thought, a blessing about someone who made a mark on your life?  So many people have poured their love into our lives, It is fitting that we honor their efforts.

Mention My Name

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet / Shakespeare

I distinctly remember being about 8 years old, staring into the bathroom mirror, and thinking, “I should be named Jim.”  I have no idea where that came from.  I also remember a college dorm-mate who spent four years calling me “Kent”.  I tried correcting him a few times to no avail.  That’s when I realized that names are just handles by which we hold relationships with others.

As a teen in Texas in the 70s I marveled at the Sunday afternoon exploits of a man named Roger.  Roger Staubach is a Heisman Trophy winner, Super Bowl winner and MVP, and world-class business man.  In this short space* I cannot say enough about the man’s unimpeached character and goodness.  I had the privilege of meeting Roger and doing a little work with his company during my sojourn in the Dallas business community in the 80s.  In 2008, Roger sold his global real estate company to a larger firm for over $700 million.  Being an inquiring lad, I pried open the Annual Report of the buyer, Jones Lang Lasalle and read the details of the transaction.  Here’s the one line that riveted my attention:

“Right to use the Staubach trade name . . . . . . $101,000,000”

Page 12, section 4 – “Intangibles”

I think even Shakespeare would pause at that transaction.  Sure a rose can go by another name, but if your name alone is worth ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS, go with that.  If you put YOUR name for sale up on Ebay right now, what do you think you could get for it?  More on this after a word from our Sponsor:

God highly exalted Him [Jesus], and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. (Philippians 2:9-10)

And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

As much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. (Hebrews 1:4)

Over the course of my ministry, I have come in contact with two witches and one demon possessed woman.  I don’t toss around statements like that casually – today’s thought requires that I mention it.  In each case, I was extremely leery, but I had one approach, the Name of Jesus.  In brief, I tangibly felt evil flee the scene at the name of Jesus Christ.  It is “a more excellent name”!  I hope you never wind up in a situation where evil envelopes you, but if you do… well, now you what to do.  “Jesus” is not a lucky penny or a genie’s lamp to rub for personal benefit – it is the name to call when Heaven is your only hope (as is the case more often than you think).

In Malcom Gladwell’s Tipping Point, he talks about a fascinating kind of person – the Connector.  A conversation with a Connector would go something like this: “Ah, you’re going to Flagstaff?  Well, there’s a great restaurant there, il Pasto, only open on the weekends, but you’ll be glad you waited.  When you get there, tell the front desk host that you want to talk to the manager, Louie.  Tell Louie I sent you – he’ll fix you up.”  (My words, not Gladwell’s.)  That’s what a Connector does – he puts a person-in-need in contact with a person-who-delivers.  I have a tiny little life and only a few connections.  Only a couple of times in my life have I said “mention my name”.  (I am golden with the secretaries at Olathe Northwest High School.  If you need anything just tell them that Gideon’s dad sent you – they’ll fix you right up!)  But scripture gives us the assurance that “at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW.”  That's a connection!  I’d mention THAT name early and often if I were you.  It’s worth a lot!

Clark H Smith

*I have much more to say in praise of Roger, but I'll try to keep this short and relevant.  This is not hero worship.  I shook Roger's hand once, that is all.   What I adore about Roger is that he steadfastly pursued what is good and right.  During most of his football career, the Cowboys officed above the Dallas Playboy Club.  I don't know if he ever went there.  What I do know is, unlike so many of his peers, Roger's has had one wife.  He never got busted for drugs, hookers, or shooting his own dang leg in a dang night club.  In business he never cheated anyone or cleverly filed bankruptcy for strategic advantage.  The day Roger retired from football (March 31, 1980) all of Dallas wanted to talk to him, but he couldn't be found for about an hour.  KLIF Radio was playing a tribute song non-stop for him and they desperately wanted to know what he thought of it.  Finally, Roger called in and apologized for not phoning sooner.  He'd taken his daughters to school... in the family station wagon... listening to an Anne Murray 8track instead of the radio.  Glamorous?  His name certainly wasn't glowing in "Neon".  But I wondered how it felt writing "Roger Staubach" when he endorsed a check for $700,000,000.  What's in a name?