My NFL Week 17 Powre Rankings
M.D. Wright
12.23.08
At this point, ya are what your records says ya are. These rankings don't mean anything.
1. New York Football Giants. I don't care what you say. As Steve Schwanda says, I'm right. You're wrong.
2. Tennessee Titans. Impressive win Sunday. They would not be able to do that to the Giants, though.
3. Indianapolis Colts. NO ONE wants to play them. Including the Giants.
4. Carolina Panthers. Second-best team in the NFC, but Jake Delhomme = Kerry Collins 2.0. In the playoffs, that means you'll never win a Super Bowl facing a good-to-great defence. Too bad the rest of the team is Super Bowl calibre.
5. Baltimore Ravens. Bawlamo' is another team no one wants to face. Hopefully Joe Flacco doesn't go Flaccid (nh). Ed Reed = Defensive Player of the Year.
6. Pittsburgh Steelers. Roethlisberger is killing them trying to make the Perfect Play every time he drops back to pass. Look out for this in the playoffs. They could easily slip up against their Divisional Playoff opponent -- which could be Baltimore or Indianapolis.
7. Atlanta Falcons. The Fulcons are a tough team to beat. In fact, unless they draw the Giants (possible) in the Divisional Playoff, they have a pretty good track to the NFC Championship game. The Fulcons can move the ball against anyone with Michael "The Burner" Turner and Matt "Matty Ice" Ryan is outperforming himself. Roddy White had a letdown last week, but he should get huge numbers this week (one week too late for fantasy purposes). The Saints' defence is not impregnable. The Fulcons' offence, however, is.
8. Miami Dolphins. Wow. 1-15 to 11-5 and division winners. Who's your favourite team NOW?
9. Minnesota Vikings. They've earned it. But does anyone really fear this team? No.
10. Dallas Cowboys. They're an enigma. They can win Sunday and make the Super Bowl. They could conceivably lose Sunday (and CHI, TB lose) and miss the playoffs. Dear god.
11. New England Patriots. I hate them. But hey. Poetic Justice will be if the Jets lose and Ravens win on Sunday.
12. Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Wrong time to lose 3 straight.
13. New York Football Jets. The Football Mets... uh... JETS are reeling in the late innings... uh... games. Good lord.
14. Chicago Bears. They don't deserve to go to the playoffs.
15. San Diego Chargers. (puts on Captain QB & The Big Boyz disco song) San Di-e-go... SUPER CHARGERS... San Di-e-go.. CHARRRRRGERS!!! San Di-e-go... SUPER CHARGERS... San Di-e-gooooo CHAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGERS CHARGE!!!
16. New Orleans Saints. I could not figure this team out all year. But if they beat the Panthers Sunday, they'll at least finish 9-7.
17. Philadelphia Eagles. The Iggles may very well win Sunday, but with no running game, they stand no chance in the playoffs.
18. Houston Texans. A hiccup against Oakland Sunday, but they'll end the Bears' season this Sunday.
19. Arizona Cardinals. Is there a more uninspiring team (amongst those in the playoffs) in the NFL?
20. Washington Redskins. What a train wreck the second half of the season was for them. I expected them to actually finish strong after a bad middle-of-the-season, not vice-versa.
21. Denver Broncos. They blew it. They lost two in a row and now stand to miss the playoffs to losing to the Chargers IN San Diego. They will. Philip Rivers has revenge on his mind for the Ed Hochuli Game and being snubbed in the Pro Bowl voting in favor of Denver's Jay Cutler.
22. Buffalo Bills. The Bills can end the Patriots' season Sunday. With Trent Edwards back, they just might do it.
23. San Francisco 49ers. They are finishing pretty solidly.
24. Seattle Seahawks. They really aren't that bad. Injuries killed their season before it ever began.
25. Green Bay Packers. Ouch.
26. Jacksonville Jaguars. Not even a chance to play spoiler will get this team up to win a game Sunday.
27. Oakland Raiders. Yuck.
28. Kansas City Chiefs. WE CAN BUILD ON THIS!!!
29. Cleveland Browns. P.U.
30. Cincinnati Bengals. Lawdamerrrrcy.
31. St. Louis. Good lord.
32. Detroit Lions. DEAR GOD. The agony will end at Lambeau (meaning, they'll lose -- while the buses never shut off their engines outside). The Lions are pitiful and a disgrace to the NFL.
As politically incorrect as I wanna be.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
ESPN's NFL Week 17 Power Rankings
ESPN's NFL Week 17 Power Rankings
12.23.08
RK (LW) TEAM REC COMMENT
1 (2) Titans 13-2-0 The Titans can play the underdog card all they like, but after beating the Steelers, they are the favorite to win the AFC Championship Game. (PK)
2 (4) Giants 12-3-0 The Giants ended their losing skid with a thrilling overtime win over the Panthers. The road to Tampa goes through East Rutherford, N.J. (MM)
3 (3) Panthers 11-4-0 The loss to the Giants cost the Panthers a shot at home-field advantage and exposed flaws in their run defense. But the Panthers still are among the best in the NFC. A No. 2 playoff seed might set up a big rematch in the Meadowlands. (PY)
4 (1) Steelers 11-4-0 A 17-point loss to the Titans showed there is still room for improvement. (JW)
5 (5) Colts 11-4-0 The Colts are waiting to see whether they're going to Denver or San Diego on wild-card weekend. (PK)
6 (7) Ravens 10-5-0 If the Ravens reach the postseason, several teams will hope to avoid this physical group. (JW)
7 (8) Falcons 10-5-0 The big victory over Minnesota gives the Falcons momentum. They still have a shot at the NFC South title. How many teams are more dangerous than the Falcons heading into the playoffs? (PY)
8 (9) Patriots 10-5-0 No AFC East team is playing better, but the Pats still might not make the playoffs. (TG)
9 (11) Dolphins 10-5-0 All they have to do is beat the Jets to make the playoffs. (TG)
10 (6) Cowboys 9-6-0 This might be the luckiest team in the league. Let's see whether the Cowboys can capitalize on their good fortune. (MM)
11 (12) Vikings 9-6-0 The Vikings remain in control of the NFC North. But can they capitalize? (KS)
12 (10) Buccaneers 9-6-0 After three straight losses, the Bucs need help if they're to earn a playoff berth. Start the offseason overhaul now. (PY)
13 (16) Bears 9-6-0 This team is starting to seem blessed. (KS)
14 (14) Jets 9-6-0 That victory in Nashville seems like it was years ago. The Jets' playoff hopes are dim. (TG)
15 (13) Eagles 8-6-1 You can't trust this team. Andy Reid's decision to abandon the run probably ended the Eagles' season. (MM)
16 (21) Chargers 7-8-0 The Chargers owe the Bills a Christmas gift. (BW)
17 (19) Saints 8-7-0 The Saints still have a shot at a winning season and can drop Carolina's playoff seed. But none of that really matters. (PY)
18 (20) Redskins 8-7-0 Good for Jim Zorn. The win over the Eagles proved he could rally his team while facing a lot of personal scrutiny. Let's see whether the Redskins can build on this against a game 49ers team. (MM)
19 (15) Cardinals 8-7-0 The Cardinals are searching for the rip cord while rock bottom fast approaches. (MS)
20 (17) Broncos 8-7-0 The Broncos might become the second team in NFL history to blow a three-game lead in its division. (BW)
21 (18) Texans 7-8-0 If the Texans beat Chicago, they'll finish 8-8 again and can at least say they haven't gone backward. (PK)
22 (22) Bills 7-8-0 With the comeback road win over the Broncos, the Bills showed they won't pack it in. (TG)
23 (24) 49ers 6-9-0 The defense has improved since committing to the 3-4 under Mike Singletary. (MS)
24 (25) Packers 5-10-0 Seven losses of four points or fewer don't lift the sting of 5-10. (KS)
25 (23) Jaguars 5-10-0 How motivating do the Jaguars find the possibility of eliminating the Ravens from the playoff picture? (PK)
26 (27) Seahawks 4-11-0 The Seahawks hope to send a message for 2009 with a victory at Arizona. (MS)
27 (30) Raiders 4-11-0 It might not matter much at this point, but Oakland's offense looked solid Sunday. (BW)
28 (26) Browns 4-11-0 Zero offensive touchdowns in five games. Need we say more? (JW)
29 (29) Bengals 3-11-1 The Bengals' first winning streak of the season came way too late. (JW)
30 (28) Chiefs 2-13-0 At this point, what can be said? (BW)
31 (31) Rams 2-13-0 Organizational overhaul under way with president Jay Zygmunt's firing. (MS)
32 (32) Lions 0-15-0 The Lions already made history at 0-15. Part II could come in Green Bay. (KS)
12.23.08
RK (LW) TEAM REC COMMENT
1 (2) Titans 13-2-0 The Titans can play the underdog card all they like, but after beating the Steelers, they are the favorite to win the AFC Championship Game. (PK)
2 (4) Giants 12-3-0 The Giants ended their losing skid with a thrilling overtime win over the Panthers. The road to Tampa goes through East Rutherford, N.J. (MM)
3 (3) Panthers 11-4-0 The loss to the Giants cost the Panthers a shot at home-field advantage and exposed flaws in their run defense. But the Panthers still are among the best in the NFC. A No. 2 playoff seed might set up a big rematch in the Meadowlands. (PY)
4 (1) Steelers 11-4-0 A 17-point loss to the Titans showed there is still room for improvement. (JW)
5 (5) Colts 11-4-0 The Colts are waiting to see whether they're going to Denver or San Diego on wild-card weekend. (PK)
6 (7) Ravens 10-5-0 If the Ravens reach the postseason, several teams will hope to avoid this physical group. (JW)
7 (8) Falcons 10-5-0 The big victory over Minnesota gives the Falcons momentum. They still have a shot at the NFC South title. How many teams are more dangerous than the Falcons heading into the playoffs? (PY)
8 (9) Patriots 10-5-0 No AFC East team is playing better, but the Pats still might not make the playoffs. (TG)
9 (11) Dolphins 10-5-0 All they have to do is beat the Jets to make the playoffs. (TG)
10 (6) Cowboys 9-6-0 This might be the luckiest team in the league. Let's see whether the Cowboys can capitalize on their good fortune. (MM)
11 (12) Vikings 9-6-0 The Vikings remain in control of the NFC North. But can they capitalize? (KS)
12 (10) Buccaneers 9-6-0 After three straight losses, the Bucs need help if they're to earn a playoff berth. Start the offseason overhaul now. (PY)
13 (16) Bears 9-6-0 This team is starting to seem blessed. (KS)
14 (14) Jets 9-6-0 That victory in Nashville seems like it was years ago. The Jets' playoff hopes are dim. (TG)
15 (13) Eagles 8-6-1 You can't trust this team. Andy Reid's decision to abandon the run probably ended the Eagles' season. (MM)
16 (21) Chargers 7-8-0 The Chargers owe the Bills a Christmas gift. (BW)
17 (19) Saints 8-7-0 The Saints still have a shot at a winning season and can drop Carolina's playoff seed. But none of that really matters. (PY)
18 (20) Redskins 8-7-0 Good for Jim Zorn. The win over the Eagles proved he could rally his team while facing a lot of personal scrutiny. Let's see whether the Redskins can build on this against a game 49ers team. (MM)
19 (15) Cardinals 8-7-0 The Cardinals are searching for the rip cord while rock bottom fast approaches. (MS)
20 (17) Broncos 8-7-0 The Broncos might become the second team in NFL history to blow a three-game lead in its division. (BW)
21 (18) Texans 7-8-0 If the Texans beat Chicago, they'll finish 8-8 again and can at least say they haven't gone backward. (PK)
22 (22) Bills 7-8-0 With the comeback road win over the Broncos, the Bills showed they won't pack it in. (TG)
23 (24) 49ers 6-9-0 The defense has improved since committing to the 3-4 under Mike Singletary. (MS)
24 (25) Packers 5-10-0 Seven losses of four points or fewer don't lift the sting of 5-10. (KS)
25 (23) Jaguars 5-10-0 How motivating do the Jaguars find the possibility of eliminating the Ravens from the playoff picture? (PK)
26 (27) Seahawks 4-11-0 The Seahawks hope to send a message for 2009 with a victory at Arizona. (MS)
27 (30) Raiders 4-11-0 It might not matter much at this point, but Oakland's offense looked solid Sunday. (BW)
28 (26) Browns 4-11-0 Zero offensive touchdowns in five games. Need we say more? (JW)
29 (29) Bengals 3-11-1 The Bengals' first winning streak of the season came way too late. (JW)
30 (28) Chiefs 2-13-0 At this point, what can be said? (BW)
31 (31) Rams 2-13-0 Organizational overhaul under way with president Jay Zygmunt's firing. (MS)
32 (32) Lions 0-15-0 The Lions already made history at 0-15. Part II could come in Green Bay. (KS)
Stand Up And Go To Your Corner
Stand Up And Go To Your Corner
Kris Swiatocho
The Singles Network Ministries
I have been working in singles ministry for most of my adult life, post college. I have had the honor of working with several churches, teaching, leading, guiding and consulting on every topic imaginable.
As I travel, I visit so many churches and simply do not have the time needed to get know all of people I am there to help. So one quick way to help me with this is an exercise I love to do called "a continuum."
A continuum challenges the minds of my participants while allowing me to know them a little better. It's an exercise whereby I ask a serious of questions, allowing the people to move to different corners of the room (or in some cases hold up the answers on cards) that have a yes, no, maybe, sometimes, never, etc., posted on the wall. In most cases it's not only fun, but surprising to each other at the answers people give. I am also amazed at people's willingness to be transparent.
Continuums can be used as an icebreaker with silly questions, such as your "your favorite place to go is the beach," to deeper questions, such as "I love being single," to even deeper, "I have no idea what I am doing in life." It can also sometimes open up a can of worms, exposing strengths and weakness in a ministry, including those of the leaders and pastors.
Recently I decided to do a continuum at my church where I am the singles director. I am also the teacher of a group of singles from the ages of 25 to 35. This class has the most diversity in backgrounds, so I thought it would be interesting to see where they came together on things and where they were apart. I asked them questions about where they were spiritually, if they felt they had made change in regards to sin in their lives, if God expected change. I asked over 20 questions. Almost all the answers were on target with where I felt they were until the last question. I asked them if they thought God expected a lot from them and over 80 percent of my class said “Yes.” Hmmm. Why would they say this? Why would so many say this?
I immediately put this to prayer and some serious thought.
For myself, my struggle has always been in what people expected from me. I have always felt I was a mouse in a wheel running a race to nowhere. That no matter what I did it didn't seem to be enough to please people. I am sure a lot of you can relate to this. I have learned over the years that we do not get our value from man, as man will always let us down. Our value is in Christ. As long as He is OK with what you are doing, saying, achieving, etc., then you are good.
But what if you think God expects more? Then what do you do? There didn't seem to be a corner to go to. My singles just sat there. I could see the dazed look in their eyes as most of them struggled with God approving of them. Approving of their choices, their lifestyles, their work, their friends, and their desires. That they felt they were on the mouse wheel when it came to God.
I needed more prayer on this subject as well as time to think. I moved on into the lesson I had prepared for the class, allowing discussion of the topics of pleasing God. Sure, I sometimes let God down. I don't always do what I say I am going to do. I sin. I fall short. But what I think my singles were really saying is they think God expects more from them than they can produce.
Then it dawned on me. They are making this decision based on a results-focused world. EVERYTHING in our world is based on results. Even with going to church there is the pressure to get numbers up, tithes up, members joining, etc. Our secular jobs require a certain amount of production or you're fired. Why would you keep a car salesman if he didn't sell any cars or a teacher who fails more students than passes them or a doctor whose patients don't get well?
OK, I got it. How in the world do you begin to understand God's grace on our lives when every part of our lives on this earth is results oriented? Sure, God does love results, especially if they are due to making healthy changes. Especially when we let Him make the changes in us.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2, NIV).
Praise the Lord in that He loves us so much that He doesn't keep us where He found us. But, get this: if we didn't do anything—nothing—and if we were the ONLY ONE on this earth, He would have still died for us. He would have still died for us where we are, for the results are from Him—not us. Be obedient and leave the results up to God.
May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-22, NIV).
Do the best you can with where you are. And when you fail, and you will, it's OK. He is still the same God, Abba Father, and Lord Almighty that made every part of you. His expectation is not our expectation. His expectation is not our bosses’ or pastors’ expectation. He just wants us to choose Him and leave the rest up to Him.
God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay (1 Peter 1:2-4, NLT).
Stand up … are you ready to go to your corner?
Kris Swiatocho is the President and Director of TheSinglesNetwork.org Ministries and FromHisHands.com Ministries. Kris has served in ministry in various capacities for the last 20 years. An accomplished trainer and mentor, Kris has a heart to reach and grow leaders so they will in turn reach and grow others. She is currently working on her third Bible study, From the Manger to the Cross: The Men in Jesus' Life.
Her second Bible study, From the Manger to the Cross: The Women in Jesus' Life, was published last fall and is available on her websites. Her first book, Singles and Relationships: A 31-Day Experiment, was co-authored with Dick Purnell of Single Life Resources.
TheSinglesNetwork.org Ministries helps churches, pastors and single adult leaders evaluate, develop and support their single adult ministries through high-energy speaking engagements, results-oriented consulting and training and leadership development conferences and seminars. Click here to request a FREE "How to Start a Single Adult Ministry" guide.
FromHisHands.com Ministries is Kris's speaking ministry. If you've ever heard her speak, you know that Kris is the kind of speaker who keeps the crowd captivated, shares great information and motivates people to make a difference in the lives of those around them! She speaks to all church audiences on everything from "first impression" ministry to women's topics to singles and young adults. She can speak on a Sunday morning, at a woman's retreat or for a single adults conference. Bring Kris to your church today!
Singles and Relationships by Kris Swiatocho and Dick Purnell
Many singles are Christians who wonder if God will ever bring a mate their way or if they should just stop focusing on a future with a marriage partner and live the single life to the fullest. Kris Swiatocho and Dick Purnell offer solid biblical answers for singles in this newest title in Dick's popular 31-Day Experiment Bible study.
Kris Swiatocho
The Singles Network Ministries
I have been working in singles ministry for most of my adult life, post college. I have had the honor of working with several churches, teaching, leading, guiding and consulting on every topic imaginable.
As I travel, I visit so many churches and simply do not have the time needed to get know all of people I am there to help. So one quick way to help me with this is an exercise I love to do called "a continuum."
A continuum challenges the minds of my participants while allowing me to know them a little better. It's an exercise whereby I ask a serious of questions, allowing the people to move to different corners of the room (or in some cases hold up the answers on cards) that have a yes, no, maybe, sometimes, never, etc., posted on the wall. In most cases it's not only fun, but surprising to each other at the answers people give. I am also amazed at people's willingness to be transparent.
Continuums can be used as an icebreaker with silly questions, such as your "your favorite place to go is the beach," to deeper questions, such as "I love being single," to even deeper, "I have no idea what I am doing in life." It can also sometimes open up a can of worms, exposing strengths and weakness in a ministry, including those of the leaders and pastors.
Recently I decided to do a continuum at my church where I am the singles director. I am also the teacher of a group of singles from the ages of 25 to 35. This class has the most diversity in backgrounds, so I thought it would be interesting to see where they came together on things and where they were apart. I asked them questions about where they were spiritually, if they felt they had made change in regards to sin in their lives, if God expected change. I asked over 20 questions. Almost all the answers were on target with where I felt they were until the last question. I asked them if they thought God expected a lot from them and over 80 percent of my class said “Yes.” Hmmm. Why would they say this? Why would so many say this?
I immediately put this to prayer and some serious thought.
For myself, my struggle has always been in what people expected from me. I have always felt I was a mouse in a wheel running a race to nowhere. That no matter what I did it didn't seem to be enough to please people. I am sure a lot of you can relate to this. I have learned over the years that we do not get our value from man, as man will always let us down. Our value is in Christ. As long as He is OK with what you are doing, saying, achieving, etc., then you are good.
But what if you think God expects more? Then what do you do? There didn't seem to be a corner to go to. My singles just sat there. I could see the dazed look in their eyes as most of them struggled with God approving of them. Approving of their choices, their lifestyles, their work, their friends, and their desires. That they felt they were on the mouse wheel when it came to God.
I needed more prayer on this subject as well as time to think. I moved on into the lesson I had prepared for the class, allowing discussion of the topics of pleasing God. Sure, I sometimes let God down. I don't always do what I say I am going to do. I sin. I fall short. But what I think my singles were really saying is they think God expects more from them than they can produce.
Then it dawned on me. They are making this decision based on a results-focused world. EVERYTHING in our world is based on results. Even with going to church there is the pressure to get numbers up, tithes up, members joining, etc. Our secular jobs require a certain amount of production or you're fired. Why would you keep a car salesman if he didn't sell any cars or a teacher who fails more students than passes them or a doctor whose patients don't get well?
OK, I got it. How in the world do you begin to understand God's grace on our lives when every part of our lives on this earth is results oriented? Sure, God does love results, especially if they are due to making healthy changes. Especially when we let Him make the changes in us.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2, NIV).
Praise the Lord in that He loves us so much that He doesn't keep us where He found us. But, get this: if we didn't do anything—nothing—and if we were the ONLY ONE on this earth, He would have still died for us. He would have still died for us where we are, for the results are from Him—not us. Be obedient and leave the results up to God.
May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-22, NIV).
Do the best you can with where you are. And when you fail, and you will, it's OK. He is still the same God, Abba Father, and Lord Almighty that made every part of you. His expectation is not our expectation. His expectation is not our bosses’ or pastors’ expectation. He just wants us to choose Him and leave the rest up to Him.
God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay (1 Peter 1:2-4, NLT).
Stand up … are you ready to go to your corner?
Kris Swiatocho is the President and Director of TheSinglesNetwork.org Ministries and FromHisHands.com Ministries. Kris has served in ministry in various capacities for the last 20 years. An accomplished trainer and mentor, Kris has a heart to reach and grow leaders so they will in turn reach and grow others. She is currently working on her third Bible study, From the Manger to the Cross: The Men in Jesus' Life.
Her second Bible study, From the Manger to the Cross: The Women in Jesus' Life, was published last fall and is available on her websites. Her first book, Singles and Relationships: A 31-Day Experiment, was co-authored with Dick Purnell of Single Life Resources.
TheSinglesNetwork.org Ministries helps churches, pastors and single adult leaders evaluate, develop and support their single adult ministries through high-energy speaking engagements, results-oriented consulting and training and leadership development conferences and seminars. Click here to request a FREE "How to Start a Single Adult Ministry" guide.
FromHisHands.com Ministries is Kris's speaking ministry. If you've ever heard her speak, you know that Kris is the kind of speaker who keeps the crowd captivated, shares great information and motivates people to make a difference in the lives of those around them! She speaks to all church audiences on everything from "first impression" ministry to women's topics to singles and young adults. She can speak on a Sunday morning, at a woman's retreat or for a single adults conference. Bring Kris to your church today!
Singles and Relationships by Kris Swiatocho and Dick Purnell
Many singles are Christians who wonder if God will ever bring a mate their way or if they should just stop focusing on a future with a marriage partner and live the single life to the fullest. Kris Swiatocho and Dick Purnell offer solid biblical answers for singles in this newest title in Dick's popular 31-Day Experiment Bible study.
Restoring What The Locusts Have Eaten
Restoring What The Locusts Have Eaten
Kristine Steakley
Author, Child of Divorce, Child of God
Editor's Note: This article was excerpted from Kristine Steakley's new book Child of Divorce, Child of God (InterVarsity Press, 2008).
While I was growing up, I adored my father. Perhaps it was easy to do so since I only saw him for a few weeks each year. But there really was a lot to adore. My father is handsome and charming and witty. He likes to have goofy fun, he has an artistic flair and long ago he acquired an urban sophistication. When I was little, he would take pictures of me from all different angles like I was a model posing for Vogue, then hand over the camera and ham it up while I snapped a few shots of him. He bought me my first tape recorder and encouraged me to record my thoughts and conduct interviews. He was my first interview subject, and I still giggle when I listen to the tape and hear his purposefully silly answers to my very serious questions.
By the time I was a teenager, I knew Dad was not perfect. For one thing, he was a procrastinator and was often late. I remember once running through LAX desperately trying to get to the gate before boarding closed, while Dad waited for my bags to go through security and then ran after me. (I made it, but just barely.) And he was not the most practical guy. One fun day at the beach with him resulted in the two of us lounging in agony in front of fans, our skin the color of just-boiled lobsters because Dad did not bring sunblock and I was too young to think of it myself.
Still, if ever a girl thought her father walked on clouds, it was me. And then he disappeared in the clouds, and I didn’t see him for eight long years. When I did finally see him again, he tried to get me to call him Bill instead of Dad. I remember the first few times I saw him after those eight years, when the walls that had been erected were slowly being dismantled. There were some awkward moments, some tentative conversations. Something in our relationship was broken, shattered, and while we were picking up the pieces and slowly applying glue, there were still a lot of jagged edges and missing parts.
As we began rebuilding our father-daughter relationship, I found myself always wanting more. Every interaction I had with Dad left me disappointed. It was like getting a small sip of water when what I really wanted was to gulp down a full bottle to slake my thirst. Then I read Dr. Kevin Leman’s book Making Sense of the Men in Your Life, and I realized that I was carrying around an expectation of my dad that he was not meeting. I wanted him to be Father of the Year, to suddenly turn into Pa Ingalls or Ward Cleaver.
The pastor of a church I once attended was fond of saying, “The difference between reality and expectation is disappointment.” He was right. Leman put it this way: “You know that latent sense that you’ve always been missing something but you were never sure exactly what it was? Well, this is it. This is the father you’ve always wanted, pitted against the father you’ve always had.”1
Reading those words was a breakthrough for me. I realized that my dad had never been the superstar I had made him out to be. He was not the creature from the black lagoon, but neither was he Ward Cleaver. I needed to stop holding my dad responsible for not being the father I wanted him to be and start appreciating and enjoying the father he is.
My dad is probably never going to engage me in deep conversations about my life, give me fatherly advice about men and ask how my car is running. But he is still a charming and witty man who makes me laugh and encourages my talents.
There is another side to this equation too: I have a stepfather. We do not share the same DNA, but we have history, the memories of our shared family experiences, and I know that he is always more than happy to have those big conversations, to dispense the fatherly advice and to make sure my car is running well. His presence in my life is a comfort and a blessing to me.
Some of the people I talked to as I was writing this book had stepfathers who later disappeared just as their fathers had. Some had mothers who left and never returned.
After Derrick’s parents divorced, his mother remarried, but Derrick did not enjoy a close relationship with either his dad or his stepfather. As he began to approach marriage in his early thirties, Derrick struggled with fear. He felt that he had never had a good model for what a husband should be. But Derrick recognized his fear and decided to do something about it. He began spending time with a Christian man whose family he admired. When Derrick had fears about marriage or questions about how one went about being a good husband or a good father, he had long talks with his mentor. But mostly he spent time observing.
Derrick did purposefully what author Donald Miller did by accident. Miller did not adopt his mentor, John MacMurray. It was the other way around. MacMurray and his wife invited Miller to live in the apartment over their garage. Although he was not looking for an example of godly manhood, Miller got a front-row seat. Reflecting back on the experience, Miller wrote, “For the first time in my life, I saw what a father does, what a father teaches a kid, what a husband does around the house, the way a man interacts with the world around him, the way a man—just as does a woman—holds a family together.”2
Just because we have grown up in homes the world refers to as broken does not mean that we have to remain broken for the rest of our lives. Yes, there have been a lot of broken, shattered things in our lives, and sometimes sharp fragments are still lying around, waiting to prick us in unsuspecting moments. But we do not have to live in a constant and lifelong state of disarray and destruction.
An atomic bomb was dropped on our family, but with time, new green shoots of life can spring up from the charred wreckage.
The Blight of the Locusts
The first chapter of the book written by the Old Testament prophet Joel tells a tale of utter desolation.
“What the locust swarm has left / the great locusts have eaten; / what the great locusts have left / the young locusts have eaten; / what the young locusts have left / other locusts have eaten” (Joel 1:4).
This was no ordinary event. There were locusts on top of locusts on top of locusts. This plague of insects made the Egyptian plague of Moses’ day look like one solitary bug. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder tells the true story of swarms of locusts that obliterated the sun and destroyed two years of wheat in nineteenth-century Minnesota. Over a period of five years, locusts destroyed more than thirteen million bushels of wheat and eleven million bushels of corn and oats.3
Wilder wrote of her own experience: “Huge brown grasshoppers were hitting the ground all around her, hitting her head and her face and her arms. They came thudding down like hail. The cloud was hailing grasshoppers. The cloud was grasshoppers. Their bodies hid the sun and made darkness. Their thin, large wings gleamed and glittered. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the whole air and they hit the ground and the house with the noise of a hailstorm.” 4
Before it was over, Wilder wrote, the wheat and oats—their cash crops—were destroyed that year, their vegetable garden was gone and there was no grass for the milk cows to eat.
Westminster Theological Seminary professor Raymond Dillard writes of the passage in Joel that even today a large swarm of locusts can devastate a region. Once the crops are destroyed, food becomes scarce, lowering the immune systems of the starving people and making them more vulnerable to disease.
The scarcity of food prevents the affected area from trading its surpluses, driving up prices and weakening the economy. Once the locusts die, their rotting carcasses breed typhus and other communicable diseases. Dillard goes on to say that swarms “have even been observed twelve hundred miles at sea. The swarms can reach great sizes: a swarm across the Red Sea in 1889 was estimated to cover two thousand square miles. A swarm is estimated to contain up to 120 million insects per mile.”5 Imagine a swarm of locusts roughly the size of Delaware’s land mass! With so many ravenous insects, not a single piece of vegetation would be left. In fact, as Hampton Keathley points out, the locusts Joel talks about would have destroyed even the grain that the Israelites used in their grain offerings to the Lord, meaning “their sacrifices had to stop and their relationship with God was severed.”6 In other words, this proclamation by the prophet Joel tells us everything that mattered had been destroyed.
The loss of our families can make us feel this way—forsaken and utterly destroyed. We can feel like that wheat field next to the Little House on the Prairie, stripped bare and good for nothing. The family we knew is gone, blown apart, obliterated. Maybe more than just our family was gone. For many of us, divorce meant leaving the house we grew up in, leaving our neighborhood, our friends, our school. For some of us, divorce even meant losing our church, either because we felt ashamed that our family did not fit the image we thought everyone expected of us or because we felt and even heard condemnation from those who should have been most concerned for our souls. To use Joel’s metaphor, locusts ate our family, but then other locusts came and ate our friendships and childhood home, and still more locusts ate our church.
But there is more to the book of Joel. We need to keep reading. Joel did not write just one chapter. There was destruction and famine and hopelessness for a time, but God did not leave his people in such a state.
In chapter 2, God offered this promise: I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. (Joel 2:25-26)
What a great promise! God does not promise that we will eke out a living from the dusty earth left behind by the locusts. He says we will have an abundance, that we will eat until we are full. It is like the children’s Sunday school song that says “he feeds me at his banqueting table.” The tables are overflowing with good things to eat, more than we can possibly need, and God invites us to sit down and eat until we cannot eat another bite.
God is not stingy with his blessing. He promises to fully restore the lost years and bring us to a place where we will be completely satisfied. This is a lifeline, a hope we can hold on to when things look bleak.
I cannot tell you what that restoration will look like in your life, nor can I tell you when it will happen. Some of us will see broken relationships with our parents and siblings mended and new ones forged that are stronger and deeper. Others of us will build our own great marriages and loving families that will bring us tremendous joy. And some of us may have to wait for heaven, where all wrongs will be righted, all wounds healed, all tears wiped away.
One man I talked to described the announcement of his parents’ divorce as his family’s own personal 9/11. “We were sitting in the house, secure and safe, watching television, not suspecting a thing; and then suddenly, wham! You turn away from the television for a minute and think, ‘I couldn’t have just seen that; it couldn’t have been real.’ But then you turn back to look and see it all replayed, over and over again.” He is still waiting for the restoration to begin in his life, to see God bring him to a place of feasting after the blight of locusts.
What he has seen, however, is that God has used his ministry to urban youth to teach him about the power of persistent, unconditional love to break down walls of insincerity and falsehood. He is trying to apply this principle to his relationship with his father and hopes that he will one day see his father come clean with him about the real story behind his abandonment of their family.
Like this man, and like most of the people I interviewed for this book, I too am still in the process of healing, of watching the young green shoots poke through the barren soil. I do not have a perfect relationship with my dad, but we talk from time to time, and each time it is less awkward and less stressful. It has not been easy and it has not been quick, but the locusts are not having the last word!
When we are still in the locust-stripped field, we need to remember that God knows where we are. Think about all the great people in the Bible who encountered God or his emissaries:
Abraham, who entertained angels in his tent home (Gen 18); Jacob, who saw the ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending
(Gen 28:10-22); Moses, who saw God in a burning bush (Ex 3); Daniel, whose prayer was answered by a visit from the angel Gabriel (Dan 9); the virgin Mary, who received a special message of her own from Gabriel (Lk 1:26-38).
In not one of these passages do we read that the angel got lost or had to ask around for directions.
God did not burn up ten bushes on random mountains hoping that Moses would stumble across his path. None of the angels says, “Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Even Gabriel, who had to stop and fight a battle on his way to deliver his message to Daniel, knew exactly where to find him. God knows exactly where we are. He knows it geographically, he knows it spiritually, he knows it emotionally. Your bare, locust-eaten field of a heart is no surprise to him, nor has it escaped his notice.
There is an old spiritual that says, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” Part of us is actually glad that nobody knows our deepest trouble. We do not like the vulnerability of letting others see the anguish of our souls laid bare. In many Christian circles, it can be very tempting to paste on a smile and pretend that nothing in the world is troubling us. This is shallow Christianity, and it masks the truth. If we could see into the lives of those other nicely dressed and pressed members of our churches, we would see many wounds and scars as deep as our own. Life does that to us, but sorrow is not all bad. I am convinced that without deep sorrow, deep joy and deep peace are not possible.
Taken from Child of Divorce, Child of God by Kristine Steakley, (c) 2008 by Kristine Steakley. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426. ivpress.com
Kristine Steakley is a freelance writer and a grant-writing consultant living in northern Virginia. She is a graduate of Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and worked for more than a decade at Prison Fellowship Ministries. She is a blogger for The Point (www.thepoint.breakpoint.org) and also blogs at www.childofdivorce-childofgod.blogspot.com.
Kristine Steakley
Author, Child of Divorce, Child of God
Editor's Note: This article was excerpted from Kristine Steakley's new book Child of Divorce, Child of God (InterVarsity Press, 2008).
While I was growing up, I adored my father. Perhaps it was easy to do so since I only saw him for a few weeks each year. But there really was a lot to adore. My father is handsome and charming and witty. He likes to have goofy fun, he has an artistic flair and long ago he acquired an urban sophistication. When I was little, he would take pictures of me from all different angles like I was a model posing for Vogue, then hand over the camera and ham it up while I snapped a few shots of him. He bought me my first tape recorder and encouraged me to record my thoughts and conduct interviews. He was my first interview subject, and I still giggle when I listen to the tape and hear his purposefully silly answers to my very serious questions.
By the time I was a teenager, I knew Dad was not perfect. For one thing, he was a procrastinator and was often late. I remember once running through LAX desperately trying to get to the gate before boarding closed, while Dad waited for my bags to go through security and then ran after me. (I made it, but just barely.) And he was not the most practical guy. One fun day at the beach with him resulted in the two of us lounging in agony in front of fans, our skin the color of just-boiled lobsters because Dad did not bring sunblock and I was too young to think of it myself.
Still, if ever a girl thought her father walked on clouds, it was me. And then he disappeared in the clouds, and I didn’t see him for eight long years. When I did finally see him again, he tried to get me to call him Bill instead of Dad. I remember the first few times I saw him after those eight years, when the walls that had been erected were slowly being dismantled. There were some awkward moments, some tentative conversations. Something in our relationship was broken, shattered, and while we were picking up the pieces and slowly applying glue, there were still a lot of jagged edges and missing parts.
As we began rebuilding our father-daughter relationship, I found myself always wanting more. Every interaction I had with Dad left me disappointed. It was like getting a small sip of water when what I really wanted was to gulp down a full bottle to slake my thirst. Then I read Dr. Kevin Leman’s book Making Sense of the Men in Your Life, and I realized that I was carrying around an expectation of my dad that he was not meeting. I wanted him to be Father of the Year, to suddenly turn into Pa Ingalls or Ward Cleaver.
The pastor of a church I once attended was fond of saying, “The difference between reality and expectation is disappointment.” He was right. Leman put it this way: “You know that latent sense that you’ve always been missing something but you were never sure exactly what it was? Well, this is it. This is the father you’ve always wanted, pitted against the father you’ve always had.”1
Reading those words was a breakthrough for me. I realized that my dad had never been the superstar I had made him out to be. He was not the creature from the black lagoon, but neither was he Ward Cleaver. I needed to stop holding my dad responsible for not being the father I wanted him to be and start appreciating and enjoying the father he is.
My dad is probably never going to engage me in deep conversations about my life, give me fatherly advice about men and ask how my car is running. But he is still a charming and witty man who makes me laugh and encourages my talents.
There is another side to this equation too: I have a stepfather. We do not share the same DNA, but we have history, the memories of our shared family experiences, and I know that he is always more than happy to have those big conversations, to dispense the fatherly advice and to make sure my car is running well. His presence in my life is a comfort and a blessing to me.
Some of the people I talked to as I was writing this book had stepfathers who later disappeared just as their fathers had. Some had mothers who left and never returned.
After Derrick’s parents divorced, his mother remarried, but Derrick did not enjoy a close relationship with either his dad or his stepfather. As he began to approach marriage in his early thirties, Derrick struggled with fear. He felt that he had never had a good model for what a husband should be. But Derrick recognized his fear and decided to do something about it. He began spending time with a Christian man whose family he admired. When Derrick had fears about marriage or questions about how one went about being a good husband or a good father, he had long talks with his mentor. But mostly he spent time observing.
Derrick did purposefully what author Donald Miller did by accident. Miller did not adopt his mentor, John MacMurray. It was the other way around. MacMurray and his wife invited Miller to live in the apartment over their garage. Although he was not looking for an example of godly manhood, Miller got a front-row seat. Reflecting back on the experience, Miller wrote, “For the first time in my life, I saw what a father does, what a father teaches a kid, what a husband does around the house, the way a man interacts with the world around him, the way a man—just as does a woman—holds a family together.”2
Just because we have grown up in homes the world refers to as broken does not mean that we have to remain broken for the rest of our lives. Yes, there have been a lot of broken, shattered things in our lives, and sometimes sharp fragments are still lying around, waiting to prick us in unsuspecting moments. But we do not have to live in a constant and lifelong state of disarray and destruction.
An atomic bomb was dropped on our family, but with time, new green shoots of life can spring up from the charred wreckage.
The Blight of the Locusts
The first chapter of the book written by the Old Testament prophet Joel tells a tale of utter desolation.
“What the locust swarm has left / the great locusts have eaten; / what the great locusts have left / the young locusts have eaten; / what the young locusts have left / other locusts have eaten” (Joel 1:4).
This was no ordinary event. There were locusts on top of locusts on top of locusts. This plague of insects made the Egyptian plague of Moses’ day look like one solitary bug. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder tells the true story of swarms of locusts that obliterated the sun and destroyed two years of wheat in nineteenth-century Minnesota. Over a period of five years, locusts destroyed more than thirteen million bushels of wheat and eleven million bushels of corn and oats.3
Wilder wrote of her own experience: “Huge brown grasshoppers were hitting the ground all around her, hitting her head and her face and her arms. They came thudding down like hail. The cloud was hailing grasshoppers. The cloud was grasshoppers. Their bodies hid the sun and made darkness. Their thin, large wings gleamed and glittered. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the whole air and they hit the ground and the house with the noise of a hailstorm.” 4
Before it was over, Wilder wrote, the wheat and oats—their cash crops—were destroyed that year, their vegetable garden was gone and there was no grass for the milk cows to eat.
Westminster Theological Seminary professor Raymond Dillard writes of the passage in Joel that even today a large swarm of locusts can devastate a region. Once the crops are destroyed, food becomes scarce, lowering the immune systems of the starving people and making them more vulnerable to disease.
The scarcity of food prevents the affected area from trading its surpluses, driving up prices and weakening the economy. Once the locusts die, their rotting carcasses breed typhus and other communicable diseases. Dillard goes on to say that swarms “have even been observed twelve hundred miles at sea. The swarms can reach great sizes: a swarm across the Red Sea in 1889 was estimated to cover two thousand square miles. A swarm is estimated to contain up to 120 million insects per mile.”5 Imagine a swarm of locusts roughly the size of Delaware’s land mass! With so many ravenous insects, not a single piece of vegetation would be left. In fact, as Hampton Keathley points out, the locusts Joel talks about would have destroyed even the grain that the Israelites used in their grain offerings to the Lord, meaning “their sacrifices had to stop and their relationship with God was severed.”6 In other words, this proclamation by the prophet Joel tells us everything that mattered had been destroyed.
The loss of our families can make us feel this way—forsaken and utterly destroyed. We can feel like that wheat field next to the Little House on the Prairie, stripped bare and good for nothing. The family we knew is gone, blown apart, obliterated. Maybe more than just our family was gone. For many of us, divorce meant leaving the house we grew up in, leaving our neighborhood, our friends, our school. For some of us, divorce even meant losing our church, either because we felt ashamed that our family did not fit the image we thought everyone expected of us or because we felt and even heard condemnation from those who should have been most concerned for our souls. To use Joel’s metaphor, locusts ate our family, but then other locusts came and ate our friendships and childhood home, and still more locusts ate our church.
But there is more to the book of Joel. We need to keep reading. Joel did not write just one chapter. There was destruction and famine and hopelessness for a time, but God did not leave his people in such a state.
In chapter 2, God offered this promise: I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. (Joel 2:25-26)
What a great promise! God does not promise that we will eke out a living from the dusty earth left behind by the locusts. He says we will have an abundance, that we will eat until we are full. It is like the children’s Sunday school song that says “he feeds me at his banqueting table.” The tables are overflowing with good things to eat, more than we can possibly need, and God invites us to sit down and eat until we cannot eat another bite.
God is not stingy with his blessing. He promises to fully restore the lost years and bring us to a place where we will be completely satisfied. This is a lifeline, a hope we can hold on to when things look bleak.
I cannot tell you what that restoration will look like in your life, nor can I tell you when it will happen. Some of us will see broken relationships with our parents and siblings mended and new ones forged that are stronger and deeper. Others of us will build our own great marriages and loving families that will bring us tremendous joy. And some of us may have to wait for heaven, where all wrongs will be righted, all wounds healed, all tears wiped away.
One man I talked to described the announcement of his parents’ divorce as his family’s own personal 9/11. “We were sitting in the house, secure and safe, watching television, not suspecting a thing; and then suddenly, wham! You turn away from the television for a minute and think, ‘I couldn’t have just seen that; it couldn’t have been real.’ But then you turn back to look and see it all replayed, over and over again.” He is still waiting for the restoration to begin in his life, to see God bring him to a place of feasting after the blight of locusts.
What he has seen, however, is that God has used his ministry to urban youth to teach him about the power of persistent, unconditional love to break down walls of insincerity and falsehood. He is trying to apply this principle to his relationship with his father and hopes that he will one day see his father come clean with him about the real story behind his abandonment of their family.
Like this man, and like most of the people I interviewed for this book, I too am still in the process of healing, of watching the young green shoots poke through the barren soil. I do not have a perfect relationship with my dad, but we talk from time to time, and each time it is less awkward and less stressful. It has not been easy and it has not been quick, but the locusts are not having the last word!
When we are still in the locust-stripped field, we need to remember that God knows where we are. Think about all the great people in the Bible who encountered God or his emissaries:
Abraham, who entertained angels in his tent home (Gen 18); Jacob, who saw the ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending
(Gen 28:10-22); Moses, who saw God in a burning bush (Ex 3); Daniel, whose prayer was answered by a visit from the angel Gabriel (Dan 9); the virgin Mary, who received a special message of her own from Gabriel (Lk 1:26-38).
In not one of these passages do we read that the angel got lost or had to ask around for directions.
God did not burn up ten bushes on random mountains hoping that Moses would stumble across his path. None of the angels says, “Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Even Gabriel, who had to stop and fight a battle on his way to deliver his message to Daniel, knew exactly where to find him. God knows exactly where we are. He knows it geographically, he knows it spiritually, he knows it emotionally. Your bare, locust-eaten field of a heart is no surprise to him, nor has it escaped his notice.
There is an old spiritual that says, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” Part of us is actually glad that nobody knows our deepest trouble. We do not like the vulnerability of letting others see the anguish of our souls laid bare. In many Christian circles, it can be very tempting to paste on a smile and pretend that nothing in the world is troubling us. This is shallow Christianity, and it masks the truth. If we could see into the lives of those other nicely dressed and pressed members of our churches, we would see many wounds and scars as deep as our own. Life does that to us, but sorrow is not all bad. I am convinced that without deep sorrow, deep joy and deep peace are not possible.
Taken from Child of Divorce, Child of God by Kristine Steakley, (c) 2008 by Kristine Steakley. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426. ivpress.com
Kristine Steakley is a freelance writer and a grant-writing consultant living in northern Virginia. She is a graduate of Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and worked for more than a decade at Prison Fellowship Ministries. She is a blogger for The Point (www.thepoint.breakpoint.org) and also blogs at www.childofdivorce-childofgod.blogspot.com.
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