Stretched!**

 

 Photo: cordelegeorgia.blogspot.com

As a young student pastor in my first church after seminary, I was excited to take my students on a mission trip to work with another church in our state outside of their cultural white suburban comfort zone. So our student leader team prayed together and I felt led to call a seminary friend who was the Pastor of a new African-American church plant in his hometown of Cordele, GA. He invited us to come and help him do a Vacation Bible School and a Revival. He was trying to reach the families in the public housing area where he had grown up. Many of the people worked very hard in the watermelon fields in season. Cordele is actually the self-proclaimed "Watermelon Capital"! I had called my friend and asked him if he was ready for 25 kids and 5 adults to come help him with his church plant for a week. He said, “Yes,” and told us he had everything planned. When we arrived, he had not secured us a place to stay! This was my rookie minister's mistake for not securing these important details myself (kinda silly of me considering that the internships I had were with guys who were planners and overly prepared). He made a phone call and within a few hours we were putting together army cots at the National Guard Armory in town, where we would stay for the week.  He had a connection having served in Desert Storm, and still served in the Guard. We then assumed we needed to figure out how and where to feed our kids, so we sent some of our adults to get breakfast foods, lunch sandwich fixin’s and some easy dinners for three days. Before we began he shared this scripture with us: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”(Isaiah 41:10 NIV) The first evening he had us go to the government apartments to invite kids to the Vacation Bible School the next day. We were received well. My friend said he would greet the people and introduce us as the students from church in Columbus, GA who were here to create a fun VBS week for their kids. I thought we would pray, sing a hymn, and go meet the people face to face, hand out balloons and invitations. The pastor got on top of our van with a speaker and microphone, and introduced us. We smiled and waved. Then an instant later he said he felt moved by the Spirit to start preaching.  He began calling out the sins of the people in that community by name. We had never heard that kind of preaching and we were taken aback. The tension, as you can imagine, was growing quickly.  As his preaching  became more animated and intense the crowds began to surround the van and move angrily toward him, shouting, and encircling us. These were not the face to face interactions we were hoping for when we imagined how this event would go. We were still standing there holding balloons and invitations with fear on our faces, unable to fully understand what was happening. He finished preaching and one of our musically inclined adults began to pray then sing Amazing Grace and our kids  and a few neighbors joined in. It was enough to calm everyone a bit. My friend got down from the van and instructed us to leave immediately.  However, we had earlier instructed our teens to go door to door and invite the children to our VBS after the pastor had introduced us. Before we could stop him, a wonderful big hearted young man with special needs made it to an apartment and knocked on a screen door and the man angrily said, “go away, NOW!” The student was unable to read the elevated emotions of the situation and he was just doing as he had been instructed. The man became more angry as the student continued with his genuine smile and rehearsed invitation. Fortunately, one of the other students saw what was happening, apologized to the man and grabbed this student and they quickly made their way to the van, just as the angry man emerged from the apartment with a knife. We gathered all the kids and instructed them to immediately get in the van and we left with dust flying before a vigilante force came together.   

We arrived at the Armory wide eyed and hungry. The adults who had stayed to cook, had dinner ready and got an ear full.  That night, one of the ladies who had done student ministry for many years started an all night prayer vigil that continued each night. She said she would start and pray for 1 hour and wake up the next volunteer, who would pray and wake the next volunteer. I and 4 others volunteered and more joined us each night. We were like prayer vigil-antes. After some dodgy sleep and lots of prayer on a squeaky cot, we woke up each morning to fresh breakfast. 

The VBS went well for the few kids that attended. On the last night, Ira held a revival at his church housed in an old warehouse. He preached again, but not as angry this time, and several teens from his community made decisions for Christ. He paired them up with some of our students to lead them through a prayer of repentance and connection with Christ. This was another first time experience for our students.  They were scared and somewhat timid, then invigorated and emboldened as the Holy Spirit led them through the experience of talking and praying with those who had just made the decision to belong to Jesus. We ended the week, and came back to Columbus with some stories that the parents would not believe. The students said their faith had been stretched, challenged, and strengthened that week. Oh yeah, the next year's mission to Florida was very well planned, but maybe a little less stretching.  

The apostle Paul had stirred up some people with his preaching and they followed him to the next city to cause him trouble. They formed a vigilante group and came after him. Acts 14:19–23 tells us,  “Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.” Sometimes our faith journey stretches us and doesn’t look like we thought it would, but God uses it to all accomplish His Gospel plans. BTW Some of those Georgia kids went on to be missionaries, ministers, and teachers of the Gospel of Christ and point to that experience as a significant event in beginning to realize their calling. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Feet of Clay: Learning Love from a Tennis Story!*

I had played tennis several times a week in Middle School at the asphalt courts owned by the church next to my home and loved it. I was hopeful in trying for a spot on the team at my new high school, my freshman year.  I was a little intimidated because I was largely self-taught, unconventional and modestly equipped compared to the kids that I would be competing with. They were the well-coached kids. They were every-summer-all-summer tennis camp kids, with elite equipment and facilities. The tryout was a simple challenge system. You could challenge someone for the vacant spot on the team and you got to name the court. If you won you earned your spot, if you lost you were out, no challenge backs. There were 4 of us freshmen trying to make a spot on the team. I had defeated two others and thought I was assured of a spot at least playing doubles (the top 6 players play singles and 7&8 play doubles). My insecurity began displaying itself in pride about those first wins.  However, there was a late challenge from classmate #4. He had done his homework and strategically selected a clay court, first, because he knew I had likely never played on clay (his country club was the only place in town that had clay courts) and, second, because he knew the moist court would slow down my serve and forehand. He also knew my feet would slide a little on clay, unlike asphalt and it would slow my quickness. We were fairly evenly matched going to deuce several times. In the end, his strategy had served him well.  He had changed the whole game with his court selection and turned my strengths into weaknesses. My dreams of playing high school tennis were dashed to the clay.  (I ended up on the swim team, but that’s another story for another day). 

The Apostle Paul was concerned because there were Judizers who had come to the church in Philippi.  These hyper-religious people were very impressive with how well they could follow the rules and they insisted that everyone else do the same. These admirable attributes of rule following, sounded like something every Jesus follower should do, but actually this self-righteousness threatened the very core of what it means to belong to Jesus. This salvation based on ascetic rigor AND following Jesus was antithetical to a simple humble relational connection with Jesus. Sure, acting rightly is what happens when we begin to mature in Christ, but the Judiazers made it sound like it was necessary for salvation. Having a place on Jesus' team has nothing to do with our own strength or rule-following ability, and everything to do with a real attachment to Jesus, who changes us and then matures us through relationships with other true believers to do the right things. God's plan, through Jesus, had turned all the strengths of Judaizers into weaknesses.  Paul knew this first hand, he used to be one of the best of those super-rule followers. He tells his friends, “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ  and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.  Philippians 3:8-9 (NLT2) We all have feet of clay, our greatest strengths can be considered our greatest weakness if we value them more than our relationship with Jesus. God's love for us is immeasurably greater than our ability to follow the rules.

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Hot Buttery Popcorn, Warm and Safe Hospitality!*

Photo: Simply Recipes / Mihaela Kozaric Sebrek

Mrs. Blackburn made the most delicious skillet popcorn, salted and buttered just right, served warm, right out of the pan, with lots of smiles and laughter, and a glass of lemonade in the Summer, or cup of hot cocoa in the Winter. Miss Bonny was a neighbor on our cul-de-sac on Fox Chase Lane with a long straight uphill driveway, so she could see all who entered the cul-de-sac. The driveway up to this lookout was built where an old wagon trail had traversed the neighborhood a hundred years before.  She was quite a golfer, who loved to coach teenage girls to play the links, some of whom went on to play in college. Though her husband, Henry, was kind of sickly and ill, she was gregarious and very social. She loved to host my sister and me for impromptu snacks when she saw us playing or riding our bikes around the end of the street circle.  The cul-de-sac oval, with four houses,  had a little patch of grass inside the asphalt loop, a perfect place to play “rolly bat" or find 4 leaf clovers, but watch out for the bees! Miss Bonny would come out her front door, see us playing, smile and wave us up to her house. We knew that meant a delightful snack was coming. One particular day, my sister decided to ride her bike by herself around the circle, on our little hill in Lakemoore Hills.  She was gone for a long time, but when she returned, she was talking a mile a minute, eyebrows up, and smelling like hot buttered popcorn. We knew where she had been. She explained that she had run over a black snake that was so long, it stretched all the way across the driveway.  She was so scared that she didn’t stop pedaling until she got to the top of Miss Bonny’s drive. She knocked on the door and Miss Bonnie welcomed her, fixed her the wonderful skillet corn, and later sent her home after making sure the snake was gone. Whenever we heard the 1972 international hit, a cool Moog synthesizer instrumental song, “Hot Butter - Popcorn,” we were reminded of sitting in Miss Bonny’s kitchen watching her pour the oil into the large skillet, waiting for the test kernels to pop, pouring in the rest of the kernels, then shaking the pan like crazy it until the last pops sounded, dumping the steamy white mushroomed puffs into a bowl, drenching them with melted butter and generously sprinkled salt, then putting them in little bowls for each of us. Though I don’t remember her being an overly religious person, Miss Bonny acted like Jesus, welcoming people, protecting them from scary things, offering warm hospitality, and feeding them puffy delicious grains with salty melty butter.  More of us need to be like Miss Bonny, a safe, caring, fun, friend to those who are in the cul-de-sacs of our lives. 

Before Moses died, he wanted to bless and encourage God’s people, reminding them of His kind protection, provision, and care. God had used him to bring them out of Egypt, he had been with them in their desert wanderings, and rescued them many times from danger. He knew there would be more difficulties to come, but he also knew Yahweh’s arms were not weak. God had already brought them through many trials. Moses told the children of Israel, “There is no one like the God of Israel. He rides across the heavens to help you, across the skies in majestic splendor. The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. He drives out the enemy before you; he cries out, ‘Destroy them!’ So Israel will live in safety, prosperous Jacob in security, in a land of grain and new wine, while the heavens drop down dew. How blessed you are, O Israel! Who else is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your protecting shield and your triumphant sword! Your enemies will cringe before you, and you will stomp on their backs!”(Deuteronomy 33:26–29 NLT-SE)  Hymn writer A.J. Showalter was encouraging some of his former students who had just experienced tremendous loss with these verses. He reminds them, “What a fellowship, what a joy divine, Leaning on the everlasting arms; What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, Leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.” We can take comfort in God’s care and great love for us, but we also need to give that comfort to others in real, tangible ways, just like Miss Bonny Blackburn. It's a great excuse to make hot buttered popcorn for some friends! (Oh and you are welcome for putting these two songs in your head today!)

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Who Rules?*

 On safari in Africa, our friend, who had been in the Rhodesian army, was our guide. My college friend and I had been invited to join him and his family as they returned to visit South Africa from the U.S.  He drove us in a Landcruiser in the Kruger Park and he was fearless. He drove us up to a large bull elephant that could flip our vehicle with no problem. As we approached, the elephant began flapping his large ears as a warning to back off. Did I mention our guide had no fear? We finally got too close and the elephant charged. Our driver threw the SUV into reverse and backed up faster than the charging pachyderm could run. Just when we thought we were out of danger and far enough away not to be gored by a tusk or trampled under foot, our “friend” put the vehicle back into drive and approached the ticked off elephant again. His ears flapped and our driver inched closer, until once again, he charged. Once again, he sped backward, and out of danger. We were hoping that he felt he had sufficiently scared the Americans, but he was not finished. He did this a few more times, laughing harder at our fearful shouts to please not to do it again. We finally moved on and saw some Zebras, Ostriches,Warthogs, and other game.  We watched from 100 yards away as a small female lion unsuccessfully stalked and chased a Giraffe.  A bit later, our personal guide saw 3 large male Lions crossing the road ahead of us and drove between them, putting us face to face with a huge male lion inches away from our window. We were so close, I couldn’t get a picture of him with my telephoto lens (the one I thought I would need to photograph lions in the wild). His head was as big as the window. I was just glad he wasn’t hungry for American cuisine under glass at that moment, because the widow would have just been an annoyance to break, before dragging our flailing bodies out of the back seat to dine on us in the SA Highveld (broad grassy, plateau) to be the latest "lion kill" viewed by all the passing tourists. Our last meal would not have been our own. The night before, we had just heard the petrifying roars of one of his own just outside of our Kruger Lodge. His Panthera leo cousin had isolated a Wildebeest, he would later eat.  His guttural roar was like none other, the power of its reverberation, freezing in terror his prey and us in our tracks. He left no doubt that he was the King of Beasts. The inconvenienced lion on the road gave us a sideways glance and finally walked around the car and disappeared into the bush. We were glad that, at that moment, Solomon’s words were not true in this case, “the lion, king of animals, who won’t turn aside for anything,”(Proverbs 30:30 NLT)

Sometimes some of us act like lions who won’t turn aside for anything.  We act like predators, seeking weaknesses in others to exploit for our own benefit, especially those who disagree with us, or those we see as competitors. At one point in Israel's history, as the Prophet Isaiah is speaking to God’s people, he tells them of a time to come when there will no longer be predators and prey, but all will be at peace, and love will prevail.  The Evil One’s ways of destruction and domination will no longer be the norm, but “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle, but the serpent’s food will be dust! They will not do what is evil or destroy on my entire holy mountain,” says the LORD.”(Isaiah 65:25 CSB)  It will no longer be the fearful life of “survival of the fittest,” or “only the strong survive,” or “natural selection” that seems to currently rule in the world. When Jesus came, He showed us another way…He tells us to love each other, even our enemies (Luke 6:35) rather than seek to destroy them. He teaches those who belong to him to be gentle with the weak, not take advantage of the weaknesses of others, but protect them.  The “King of Kings,” “Lion of Judah”(Jesus) is driven by love, joy, and peace and He is a protector. We gotta stop acting like the one we used to belong to who came to steal, kill, and destroy, the Evil One, the Predator… We will act like the one who rules our heart, Predator or Protector. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all! 

Out of Balance?*

 

As a kid, my sister and I  used to get excited to go to the playground. We had a few favorites that had forts to climb in and tunnels to run through. These were great for playing hide and seek.  One had really tall swings, that would tickle your stomach because you were going so high, and merry-go-rounds, that at a certain RPM, would sling us off when the centripetal force pulled our sweaty little hands off the metal handles, flinging us spiraling to the ground. This was back before the cushioned, rubberized playground coverings and soft mulch, so we got some playground rash raspberries coated in dirt. Some places had seesaws. I always thought the seesaws would be more fun. My sister would get on the other side and because she was older, she weighed more than my skinny childhood self. She had to push a little harder with her legs to make my side go down, so eventually she got tired and just jumped off to go play something else, slamming me to the ground, jarring my whole body, causing me to bite my tongue or clack my teeth together.  

‭‭In Proverbs‬ ‭21:21‬, the wisest man to ever live says,“The one who pursues righteousness and faithful love will find life, righteousness, and honor.” There is a balancing act with this verse between righteousness AND faithful love. If we get it right, there are blessings and life is good! But if we are out of balance, someone gets slammed to the ground like a pile driving teeter totter. Having only righteousness leads us to a fear based, pharisaical self righteousness that is arrogant, narrow minded, and judgmental and God is sure to humble us for not having love for others. But having only love can lead us to accept, embrace, even celebrate sinful behavior, and in doing so, we disrespect God. We and others are harmed because we are going to break ourselves against the Rock Solid Truth of God’s Word. Jesus reminds us of this balance when He says, the greatest commandments are to love God and love others. ‬He also says, if we love Him, we will obey His commands, and interestingly, He additionally gives us a new command to love others as He does. 

I’m no Hebrew scholar, but my research led me to some interesting discoveries. The Hebrew Word for righteousness is… tsedaqah. You can remember it by remembering the American Pop singer, Neil Sedaka (Breaking up is hard to do). Tsedaqah is right living, right behavior, right thinking, being right with God in all things. It’s the way God’s people act and think when we belong rightly to Him. The Hebrew word for faithful love is hesed. It is a complex word that has several elements: God gives hesed freely, it is Who He is. It is His loving attachment to us. There is an expectation that God’s People will reciprocate this love back to Him. Hesed also has the expectation that God’s people will share His hesed with others.  Faithful love does not end, it is forever. Hesed is unconditional, it is the “I love you no matter what”kind of love. Hesed is a way of living, it permeates life and involves mercy, grace, kindness, favor… in love.  

So Soloman says, pursuing a balance of righteousness (tsedaqah) and faithful love (hesed) come with a promise that we will discover life, righteousness and honor. The Hebrew word for life is chayyah. Its plural form, chayyim and is used as a blessing or toast today. Chayyim also has complex meanings:  life, health, longevity, refreshment, nourishment, and maturity or growth.  We have already looked at righteousness (tsedaqah). The Hebrew word for honor is kavod, meaning glory, honor, respect, distinction, and importance. The word actually means heavy or weighty. When someone has kavod, they are the person others turn to when important answers are being sought. 

The truth is we are not capable of living right or loving right unless we have a relationship with Jesus, who is perfect in both of these things. He is perfectly righteous and perfectly loving. He is our righteousness and He is love. As we belong to Him and we belong to those who belong to Him (the church), we begin to mature and act more and more like Him.  Apart from Him we can’t do either of these things. As we grow in Him, He blesses us with more life, righteousness and honor. So, let's ask God to balance our righteousness and love teeter totter. We gotta be careful not to disrespect God, by embracing or celebrating the sins of those we love. God's Word is the Rock Solid Truth and it doesn't end well when we say wrong things are right to try to please people. We also, havta be careful love people and not to become self-righteous and judgy. The last time I checked God says we've all messed up.

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Joy Substitutes*

Tall Eastern White Pines bordered the property between my preteen home and the neighborhood church.  One of the tree’s low branches invited me to climb up after a particularly difficult day of Middle School.  As I climbed, I looked for the next branch, until I reached my perch, 3 or 4 stories up. My heart pounded with the adrenaline rush from looking down. I felt a bit dizzy, but exhilarated.  I was well hidden in the dark green canopy, but coated in sticky sap.  I could feel and hear the breeze as it quietly whistled through the needles. It made the tree sway gently. I was suspended there between childhood and young adulthood, heaven and earth, faith and fear. It helped me forget the pain I felt not knowing what to do with the butterflies in my stomach I experienced when I was around girls, or the knot that lodged there when the bullies were close enough to threaten, give a “wedgie,” “nuggie,” a sock in the arm, or deadlegging me. I was also not sure what to do with the disappointment (my own and my parent’s) that came from the increasing number of red marks on my papers, which felt as real as the red heat of an embarrassed face when I responded awkwardly in social situations, or the red marks inflicted on my body by schoolmates who pushed, punched or pinched to show their dominance. My adventurous heart was getting wounded, so I took flight to the tree that day. Another day I may have self medicated with a loaf of bread made into cinnamon toast smothered in butter, or played hours of sports, or escaped to the far reaches of the neighborhood on my bike. Or, perhaps, endlessly mindlessly watching afternoon television featuring Gilligan’s Island and other favorites which left me 30 minutes dumber but still amused enough to not have to think about the day’s challenges and defeats. There were many ways of attempting to "just make it stop hurting." On even more challenging days, I would go nap for hours to escape it all before dinner. 

As a new believer I wondered, where was Jesus?  What could He do when the cute girl flirted with me (or didn’t even acknowledge me) and I said something awkward, silly or inappropriate.  Where was He when the overaggressive classmate made sure I “knew who was boss.” And where was He when the angst, anxiety and fear chemicals took over my brain, rendering it incapable of recalling what I had just read or studied? I read my Bible often and was at church as often as I could go, even attending the church next door on the Sundays my family didn’t go to our church across town. But I couldn’t be at church or reading my Bible every time trouble, temptation, or pain came my way.  It was difficult to grasp what it meant in Matt 1:23, that Jesus was called Immanuel, meaning “God WITH us.” I had trouble understanding that the Holy Spirit actually lived IN me (John 14:17), My concrete brain still struggled with where He was when all the physical and emotional pain was happening. I wanted Jesus to actually physically be with me. I was like the Sons of Thunder, I wanted Him to strike the bullies with retribution, not thinking perhaps they were all hurting too and inflicting pain on me was one of their attempts at escaping their own pain.

It took me many years to understand that, as promised, God had never left me or forsaken me, even in the middle of my traumatic experiences (Ps. 9:10).  God was glad to be with me as I endured the hardships, but I wanted something more instant and tangible to escape the discomfort, so, self medication came in many forms for me: endless activity, food, sleep, adrenaline rush, solitude, anger, and even more destructive addictive behaviors as life went on. I sought whatever would give my brain a chemical bath and make me feel better for the moment.  These things actually added more pain from guilt, regret, and shame.  

The definition of joy is “the emotion you have when someone is glad to be with you.” We desire joy from the time we are born, we look for it in the eyes of our parents and those who are in our world. The angel, at the announcement of Christ, said in Luke 2:10, “I bring you good tidings of great Joy that will be for all the people.”  God is glad to be with us in great times and hard times, but too often we settle for “joy substitutes,” otherwise known as addictions and self-medications when we are hurting. Researcher Brene Brown says, “We are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.” Our joy substitutes have squeezed God out of our consciousness, fooling us to believe that God lied to us and that He is not with us in our most difficult moments. God does not lie, He IS with us whether He allows us to experience  difficulties or not. We have to leave room for Him in our awareness, so we can notice His omni-presence. In order to find that He is with us, we must be seeking relationship with Him, not just seeking relief from our problems and pain. Through the “Weeping Prophet,” God says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”(Jeremiah 29:13) We cannot keep running to whatever numbs or stimulates us just to make the pain stop momentarily. The pain, guilt, shame, and regret just returns as soon as the chemical brain bath subsides. We gotta start with the most important relationship (our relationship with God), and go for real joy, not joy substitutes.

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Beautiful, But Empty!*

Photo: Carrie Borden

After my freshman year in high school, I had the wonderful privilege of going with my choir to Europe. Yes, you read that correctly, I sang in the choir in High School, not because of my vocal abilities, but because I needed another extracurricular activity to “round out”my time with the Swim Team and Student Government.  We toured and sang in Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland... we floated the Rhine River, went to the bear pits in Bern, and saw the beautiful Alps from the resort town of St. Moritz, went to the tiny country of Liechtenstein, went to the place of the filming of The Sound of Music, we even sang in the Mozarteum.  The bus was our second home, because we were only in cities for a night or maybe two. The guys once had to pick up a small car to move it so the bus could get through the narrow streets. The trip was wonderful, the acoustics in the Cathedrals in which we sang in Latin and English were amazing. The tones came alive, echoing and reverberating off the beautifully decorated ceilings, stained glass windows, stone floors, and walls and beautifully crafted wood pews, lofts, and pulpits. The buildings used to be some of the largest, most ornate buildings full of people when the Christian faith was highly valued in Europe. Now, the buildings are largely empty and faith is only practiced by a few.  We loved every city and had wonderful experiences. Our least favorite city was Paris, not because "The City of Lights" wasn't wonderful with the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Musée du Louvre and other sites, but because someone pulled a gun on us in the train station our first hours there and our hotel wasn't in the best district. On the last morning in France as we were boarding the bus for the Charles de Gaulle airport to return home, I noticed my sister and her friend were not on the bus. Just before they closed the doors, I ran up to their room and frantically knocked on the door with no response. I kept knocking. They sleepily opened the door with a "What is your problem?" attitude. I began yelling, “the bus is leaving.” Their eyes got large, they said something about the alarm not going off and slammed the door in my face.  They threw clothes on and grabbed  their bags. We barely made it. Because the bus had such a thin margin of time to get us to the airport, the driver would have had to leave the two teens in Paris to fend for themselves, so the rest of the group could make it to the plane in time. 

When Jesus was giving the church a warning, He tells them to wake up, turn back to Him, and strengthen their faith before He surprises them with an unexpected and unpleasant visit. The people, who, at first glance, had an attractive facade of  being His people, weren’t acting like Him. They had gone away from their relationship with Him and their faith was empty. They were about to miss the boat.  To one of the early churches He says, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.” (Revelation 3:1b –3) I believe this warning is not only for the church at Sardis, but churches in Europe, our own country and around the world right now. As one of our U.S. presidents said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation.” We need to make sure we are hearing the alarm. We need to make sure we are awake,  refresh our connection to Jesus and act like His people act once again. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!