The discussion concerning Hans' theft of medication for his dying wife continued with more repetition of the same ideas.

So, I wrote the following to sum up my position on the topic:

While I sympathize with Hans' situation, I can not condone doing something wrong for the purpose of doing something right. The logic of the end justifying the means is simply bad logic.

If we apply this logic as being morally right, then Hans can rob his neighbor to get the money to pay for the medication and be morally right.

If we apply this logic as being morally right, then Hans can commit armed robbery of a bank to get the money to pay for the medication and be morally right.

My opposition is that there are too many alternative actions that can be pursued without having to resort to doing something wrong. Hans is either lazy or impatient or has no perseverance and gave up on pursuing morally right options.

My other opposition is that taking a morally wrong short cut has bad consequences. We have a legal framework for a reason. It is to minimize bad consequences. That is why we can not simply isolate our evaluation of Hans' morality to just the intent and the act.

If a metal artist steals an I-Beam from the Minnesota highway bridge over the Mississippi to build the most beautiful sculpture in the entire world. Can we simply isolate our evaluation to just the act of theft of the I-Beam from the bridge and the intent of building the most beautiful sculpture in the entire world? No, we have to consider the possibility of a bridge collapse that kills dozens of people.

In the same way, we must consider the possibility of the entire community loosing the doctor's services as a result of the theft. If the loss of $50, 000 drives the doctor out of the community, we must then consider the death of children dying from preventable diseases because of the doctor's absence.

The end can NOT justify the means!

The end justifying the means is the same logic used by the crazy anti-abortion activists who fire bomb abortion clinics.

The end justifying the means is the same logic used by the eco-terrorists who burn down homes next to wilderness areas.

The end justifying the means is the same logic used by the rioters who burn businesses in the cities hosting the G8 summit.

If you look at all the major atrocities of the twentieth century, they all started with the persuasion of an unsuspecting public that the end justifies the means.

At the end of last December, someone slammed into my car.  (Thankfully, no one was hurt.)  While my car was in the body shop, I drove a rental.  A couple of days later, I caught the flu and stayed in bed the entire week.  During that week, the city of Baltimore ticketed and towed my rental car that I parked in front of my own house.

I live near the stadium where the Baltimore Ravens NFL team plays.  Because game spectators tries to avoid parking fees by parking in my neighborhood, the city designated my street a sticker parking street during stadium events; only cars with a particular parking sticker are allowed to park there.

Unfortunately, my rental car doesn't have a parking sticker and I had not realized that there are any NFL games at the end of the year (That's when they have the college football bowl games).

To get the rental car out of the city impound lot, I had the pay the cost of the ticket, the towing charges, and the impound lot vehicle storage fee; close to five hundred dollars.

I contested it in court and won.  However, I did not receive the money back right away.  The city had to process all the documents that I submitted.

This week, just as the bills started to come in (see my previous blog), I received the check from the City of Baltimore.

The Lord is faithful once again.


Matthew 6:25-34

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I dread it when the Holy Spirit directs me to give more sacrificially than what I've budgeted.  I've already committed much more than the tithe percentage of my monthly net income.  And I've also specified a couple of percentages more for discretionary giving to the homeless that I meet on the street.  So, when the Holy Spirit appeals to me to help with more, I would spend several days praying about it.

O.K., I really don't spend the prayer time seeking God's guidance.  It's more like several days of protesting the request of the Holy Spirit.  More particularly, it's a couple of days of protesting and a couple of more asking Him to prepare me for the storm.

You see, the issue isn't about the giving of the money; I always leave some breathing room in my monthly budget.

What I dread is that whenever I give beyond what I've budgeted, without exception, a series of events/setbacks would follow and take me financially into an area that is completely out of my control.

This week was no exception.

A young woman, that I know, needed financial help with the cost of mission college training.  I wrestled with the Holy Spirit concerning the amount.  I offered an amount that I can afford but the Holy Spirit kept me restless.  I reworked my budget and offer a little more but the Holy Spirit continued to keep me restless.  Finally, I threw out my budget and asked the Holy Spirit to pick a figure; and He took away the breathing room from my budget for the next several months.

Lord, please, prepare me for the storm!  Please, please, prepare me for the storm.

When my heart calmed, I unfurled the sail.

Then, the storm hit.  My brother's Medicare prescription plan hit the "donut hole" and his prescriptions will cost $800 per month for the next several months.  My car's air conditioner gave out during the hottest part of the summer.  A lightening strike burned out the circuitry in my house's heat pump.  My main sewer line backed up into my basement bathroom tub because the tree in front of my house grew its root into it.

I am, by no mean, destitute.  I do have savings from which to draw.  I just hate to have to dip from that fund since I don't believe that Social Security nor my company pension would be there when I retire.

Besides, in all previous times, when the Lord pushed me out from the security of my safety net, He had always provided so that I would not have to withdraw a single dime from my savings.

What I truly dread is the fear from the financial freefall that He forces me to take before catching me again.

Each time, He would whisper, "Trust me. Trust me" as I watched the earth jumped up at me at two hundred miles per hour.  And just as my heart is ready to stop, He would pull the parachute.

You'd think that after so many times that He has proven that He is faithful to provide for all my needs, the fear would go away.

So, I had to learn the lesson, once again.

Matthew 6:25-34

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

One of the blogs that I read regularly is that of an young woman named Colleen.  Recently, she posted a blog entry about her dad.  My dad passed away several years ago but as I read this blog entry, I was flooded with memories of my dad bringing him back to me momentarily.

So, I am remembering my dad in this blog entry and introducing him to you.

Several years ago, I gave a book to all the men in my house church.  It was a book by Stu Webber called "Tender Warrior".  In his book, Webber identifies four aspects of true manhood.

He is a Leader/King.
He is a Protector/Warrior
He is a Magician/Mentor
And he is a Friend/Lover

He is a Leader/King who receives his calling from the Lord, casts that vision for others, and invites others to come join the call.

He is a Protector/Warrior who fights for and provides for those the Lord puts under his care.

He is a Magician/Mentor who motivates and teaches those, which the Lord had brought to listen, by showing them the wonders and delights of what the Lord had shown him.

He is a Friend/Lover who speaks and acts with care and compassion for all those around him.


My dad, he was all four.

My dad was a leader who abandoned his lucrative teaching career in Taiwan to follow his calling to bring his wife and children to America.  But most importantly, he was a leader who continues to take his family on his journey of faith.

My dad was a protector and provider for our family.  He worked hard to earn a living and worked hard at attending to our needs at home.  But there were always times when my dad made the decision to sacrifice the financial security of the family in following his calling and allowing the Lord to be our protector and provider.

My dad was a mentor.  He was not just a teacher to his students.  He wasn't just interested in dispensing information.  My dad nurtured his students' growth as individuals, helping them acquire wisdom.  Especially for my brother and me, my dad surrounded us with an environment for learning and character development.  He exposed us to world literature while my mom exposed us to music and the arts.  All the while, they encouraged us to pursue the sciences.   But most important of all, he instilled in us a calling to pursue compassion and faith.

But of the four aspects of manhood that Webber identified, and my dad exemplified, the most indelible in my heart, is that last one.  My dad was a man of love.

My dad was a man who loved his God, who loved his wife, his children, his students, his neighbors.  During my childhood and into my adult years, my dad demonstrated every day that he was a man of love.

Although my dad was an English professor, words were not what he used most to express his love.  My dad loved with action.

I remember, when I was a child, my dad would rush home from work to spend time with me before dinner.  He would take me riding on his motorcycle.  We would go downtown to see all the lights And we would go to the rail station to watch the trains.  How I treasure those rides with my dad!

I remember one year, on my birthday, during a major ice storm, my dad insisted on going out to the store because we didn't have a cake with which to celebrate.  He ended up in an automobile accident.  But that day, there was a cake.

Even without action, my dad showed how much he loved my brother and me and showed how proud he is of us.  No one can miss the way his face beamed whenever he presented his boys to his friends and colleagues.

My dad loved my mom.  My dad loved her by being the husband who strives to build the home for his wife.  My childhood images, of love in the home, were that of my mom and dad enjoying each other's company as they work around the house together.  There is joy in their faces when they painted the living walls together.  There is laughter when they prepared the soil for planting or when they harvested from our backyard garden.

My dad loved his neighbors.  One of our neighbors was an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kaiser.  I remember my dad cutting the grass in our yard and when he's done, he'd roll the lawn mower over to the Kaiser's to mow their yard.  He'd rake the leaves in their yard after he raked our yard.  And He'd trim their bushes after he'd trim ours.  I remembered asking him why he did that, asking him if Mr. Kaiser had asked him to do their yard.  My dad, he'd say, "No, they didn't ask.  But they are old and have a hard time doing it themselves."  And he left it at that as if the answer was self-explanatory.

My dad loved his students.  He tutored them.  He encouraged them.  And the evidence of his love for them is their love for him.  Year after year, my dad was selected by his students as their favorite professor.

Once, one, of his students, needed someone to co-sign his education loan.  Evidently, the student's parents were either unable to or unwilling to co-sign the loan.  My dad co-signed the loan.  I don't know how often he did that for his students.  I would not have known about my dad co-signing the student's loan if it wasn't for that particular student having defaulted on the loan.

My dad's income as a college professor was quite meager.  My dad's income was definitely not large enough to be able to cover a student's defaulted loan.

So, early on, my dad taught me that love requires sacrifice.  What better foundation than that is there for understanding scripture verses like John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God's ultimate demonstration of love through sacrifice.

But coupled with the constant reenforcement of my dad's demonstration of love through sacrifice is his demonstration of  his trust in the Lord to provide when we step out in faith.

Often, my dad's spontaneous generosity would put our family's budget at risk.  And each time, my dad allows the Lord to prove scripture verses like Matthew 6:33

But Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you.

And indeed, the Lord provided for our family abundantly: through the time when my dad didn't have an income because he was trying to complete his Ph.D. and through times of medical crisis for my dad and my brother.  The Lord even provided pretty much a free ride through college for my brother and me.

Most important of all, the Lord brought salvation to my life through my dad.  My heart was hard toward the Lord until my dad's massive stroke twenty years ago.  When he had the stroke, the doctor said that my dad would not live beyond the week.  It was at that point I went on my knees to ask the Lord to spare my dad's life.  And if He saves my dad, I would give my life to the Lord.  My dad was out of the hospital before the end of week.

My dad had set for me a wonderful example of godly manhood.  This legacy, that I inherited from my dad, is of greater worth than a hundred-acre estate or a multimillion dollar trust fund.

It was a priceless gift of being an apprentice to a man who had mastered the art of godly love.

No, I can't honestly say that I have acquired all that character that my dad had modeled for me.  There are good days and there are bad days.  On bad days, I fall flat on my face.  But on the good days... On those days when I came close...

when you see me, you've seen my father.

Although my mother, my brother and I miss my dad very much, we are also very much at peace and are filled with joy for my dad.  When he was a young man, my dad received the faith to accepted the Lord's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and because of this faith my dad is now with the Lord.  And because of that same faith, he was given the grace to raise a family whose foundation is firmly set in Christ.