Heat Relief!*

 

Credit: All Things Thrifty

One really hot Summer in Nashville, we tried to find ways to keep the kids cool and have some fun at the same time. This was before we had joined the East Nashville YMCA, a.k.a. The East Nashville Country Club. We had tried the wading pool and it provided some relief, but with 4 preschoolers the water was soon dirty and filled with grass clippings. However, the water quickly became hot from  solar heating, and maybe some swim diaper leakage… eeoowh! We decided we would try a place called Nashville Shores. It looked like loads of fun on the commercial, but when we checked the cost for a family of 6,  it meant we could either go to the water park or have groceries next week. In looking at the backyard of the parsonage, I thought, "That is a huge hill, why not make our own waterslide?"  I went to Walmart and looked at the pre-made 10 foot slip-n-slides, but they seemed so dinky. So, I went to HomeDepot and found a 100 foot roll of plastic sheeting, the thick stuff that wouldn’t tear. We unfurled the rolled up sheet of funness and turned the water on and tried to slide, but nope! Then we got a little dish soap (then baby shampoo for less eye discomfort) and just like that we had a water slide. I discovered that the soapy slide also replaced bath time, but only when Anita was not home. It had to be carefully placed in the yard because there was a big immovable rock that smarted a little when you hit it with your posterior gluteal area if not. We had hours of fun sliding down that redneck water slide and running back up the hill to do it again that Summer. Neighborhood kids would come by for slip-n-slide, pizza, whale crackers (the Aldi version of Goldfish), cheese sticks, and apple slices.  We would hang the big plastic on the fence to dry and allow the grass to grow back when we weren’t sliding. It was the perfect solution for Summer heat and boredom! 

 

According to the Disciple John in the book of Revelation, during the Great Tribulation, there will be a time that among other horrible things, the scorching heat of the Sun will be unbearable.  Unlike my temporary and short lived slip and slide solution, John says that Christ Himself will be a permanent relief and shelter from the harsh elements for those who belong to Him.  John says, “Therefore,   “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat.

 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”(Revelation 7:15–17) Air conditioners break down, droughts happen, slip and slides will rip, life on this earth can be sad and tough sometimes, but those who belong to God will be refreshed.  John the Revelator reminds us that Jesus, who loves us, will not forget us or abandon us. He will protect us and save us for all eternity, in spite of the things we may have to endure here on this earth. 

 

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

Made of the Mist!*

 

A little reminder to live humbly, because our lives are but a mist. We had moved to a Georgia town to engage in my first ministry out of seminary. The congregation was very kind and welcomed us well and the students and leaders in ministry were exceptional. One lady graciously let us live in her pool house until we could find a house to buy. We found a house that would satisfy all of the most important Real Estate factors that we had heard from my mother, who was a real estate agent who repeated: “The most important factor in real estate is: Location, Location, Location!” My father-in-law was also an expert house hunter who had bought several houses as a corporate nomad. God, and our parents' experiences had led us to wait patiently to buy a house while in seminary that was in the right place at the right price. We gave it some cosmetic TLC and realized a little equity in the couple of years of owning the house. In our new town, there was a great home in an established neighborhood that was the best choice of location, however, we also looked at a new build in a yet to be established neighborhood. We were enamored with the shiny clean and brand new everything. It had all the modern upgrades. Against all the wise advice and God’s inner urging, in our arrogance, we bought the brand new house. We enjoyed the house for a short time. Unfortunately, when it was time to sell this house after I was called to another ministry, the location was not the right location, location, location. The house sat vacant for almost a year, and we had to keep paying a mortgage. We finally took a huge loss.  Family, friends, and a church also sacrificially invested in trying to help us sell this house as we were a 1000 miles away. We couldn’t buy a house in our new city, because we were still tied to that house. We felt horrible. We knew the house God was leading us to buy, yet we said to ourselves, “we will buy this other one.” It was a painful lesson that injured several relationships with people who were special to us.  

James the brother of Jesus, tells those in the early church to be humble and listen to God’s wisdom and advice. He tells them, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”(James 4:13–17) We definitely missed the mark on that house, and learned some difficult lessons. Living in the real world and making decisions based on our own prideful desires, ended up hurting us in several ways. Though I was Christian, I acted like a nominal God follower, one who says I have a relationship with Jesus, but not listening to Him when He spoke to me.  The painful consequences of ignoring God played out in our finances, our relationships, and even our ministry focus for the year of having the stress of an unsold house.  Nothing happens in a vacuum, our sin affects us spiritually and relationally, but also with missed opportunities in our future. James reminds us to walk humbly with God, because our lives are like the Niagara Falls boat, we are (Made) of the Mist! 

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

Finding God's Will in the Rough Times.*

 After some particularly rough years in ministry as pastor of a church in Nashville, I had determined to resign my position. The church had experienced a congregational split the year before I arrived. The part of the church that now remained had fired the last pastor in a public meeting because they didn’t like his preaching or leadership style and about 100 families who disagreed with what was happening walked out with the pastor that day too.  When I was asked to come lead the church, the search committee was up front about the incident and the challenges that remained. In my ignorance, I said, “how bad can it be?” and I accepted the position. I knew that this church was much more of a challenge when the “pastoral honeymoon” was over within 2 weeks, when normally they give the new guy a couple of months to settle in before hitting him with big problems.  We navigated those relationship challenges between two families and it seemed like there was some reconciliation between the two. However, the next challenges were not far behind. I was soon exhausted from being a weekly pastoral referee, as well as, writing and preaching 3 sermons each week. It was an older congregation so there were many hospital visits,  home visits and a funeral every few weeks. I also had a wife and four preschoolers who needed me at home.  This went on for about 4 years until one particularly rough Wednesday night business meeting. I had no energy left to navigate the seemingly insurmountable challenges and determined I was going to resign the next day. When I returned home, my wife and I had gotten the kids to bed and sat down in our den to watch TV before heading to bed.  It just so happened to be on a channel with a sermon by Charles Stanley. He was a pastor who had gone through many church challenges himself at the much larger, First Baptist Church of Atlanta.  As Dr. Stanley was preaching, he stopped preaching from the passage he had chosen for that day, looked straight into the camera and said, “The Lord just told me that right now there is a pastor out there, who is about to resign from his church. I am telling you that if you do, you will be outside the will of God.” Then he returned to his sermon. I was floored! Anita would not have believed it unless she heard it too. We looked at each other and laughed and cried at God’s intervention at that moment. I stayed another year before resigning during an aggressive takeover by another pastor I had hired. While we were at that church, God had done some amazing things: dozens of people had been saved, the church had shown some growth again, the sanctuary was remodeled, and we started a summer day camp in an effort to reach the neighborhood kids, many of whom didn’t look like our homogeneous congregation. God had also used this church experience to humble me and knock some hard edges off of my prideful self.  

The Apostle Paul tells us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices for God’s work. Paul knew that the way of the world was to self-protect.  Paul tells us that those who belong to Jesus don’t think that way.  He says living sacrificially opens our minds to knowing God’s will. He says, “Do not conform 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)  As God was working to renew my mind, He knew that I needed something so obvious that I couldn’t deny it was Him speaking to me. He had to speak to me through a pastor on television at the very moment I was about to step outside God’s will. Thank the Lord that He sometimes speaks to us even when we are too exhausted and hurting to realize we have not asked for His perspective on our situation. 

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

Need A Hand?*

 Need a hand? When I was a young boy, my parents took my sister and me to the amusement park. It was usually the one set up at the Tennessee Valley Fair. The Fair had huge pumpkins, produce, and prize livestock, but we were most interested in the flashy lights, rides, corn dogs, cotton candy, candied apples and the games. The corn dogs were great but they came with mustard and my junior palate was not yet ready for the spiciness I now enjoy, so my Dad wiped the mustard off with his handkerchief, which he forgot about when he later tried to blow his nose… oops, sorry Dad! The carnival games were strange to me, with people who called out to you and tempted you to play, then heckled you to do it again and again when you lost, only to try to win a giant prize that wouldn’t fit in the car even if you had won it. We loved going to the fair because there were so many things to see and do and we got to stay up past bedtime and ride the rides. There were many multicolored flashing lights and a Ferris wheel, flying swings, a big swinging ship and a thing we now call the “Tilt-a-hurl” rather than the Tilt-a-whirl, because it twisted and tilted and spun so fast that many people hurled their cookies. I think the amusement people hired teenagers who took just a little too much glee in how many people they could make sick. My earliest memory of riding any amusement ride was a giant spinning open topped circular cage that spun so fast that the centripetal force held you to the wall while the floor dropped out. The entire circular caged room with no top tilted and spun until the floor came back up under your feet and the ride came to a stop. My physician dad must have thought it would be fun for us to ride the human version of the centrifuge he used at his office that spun so fast that it separated the solids from the liquids and gas in various bodily fluids to help determine what was causing a patient’s illness. As the ride started I was standing against the wall next to my dad. I looked up at him, eyes wide with an excited but nervous smile. The RPM’s increased and we were spinning really fast, then the floor began to drop out slowly, most people were suspended against the wall with their bodies firmly stuck to the wall, but my scrawny little frame was not heavy enough and I slid down the wall as the floor dropped further and further. I looked up at my dad in panic, just as he was reaching down to grab me and keep me from being flung out into the crowd of TVA&I Fair goers, who were waiting to be spun around in the giant human juicer too. My Dad held fast to my hand and pulled me back up the wall as we waited what seemed to be an eternity for the floor to come back up and the ride to stop. I was shaken and scared, but it wasn’t long before I was ready to ride something else.

During this time when the world seems to be spinning out of control, we can feel too small to hang on and we fear being flung into the physical and emotional unrest of the disturbing political season in our country that seems to be fueled by distrust and fear, and the social unrest sparked by violent actions and reactions by so many different groups that has spiraled into hate. Our Rock, our Heavenly Father has more than enough weight and power to be our anchor when our footing is falling out from under us. He holds us through the spinning, and tilting and unrest and His grip on us is unwavering. The writer of Hebrews was concerned about God’s people, because there were many things that threatened the stability of their faith, so he tells them God is a trustworthy person in whom they can anchor their souls. He says, “God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us.” Hebrews 6:17-20a (NLT2) We gotta remember that when this spinning world is shaken that our Hope transcends this world. Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is the most solid, most reliable reality we have. Nothing on earth is more important than this relationship and nothing is more reassuring when we feel like we are losing ground. We gotta quit looking at the floor falling out from under us as the things we once thought were so solid don’t seem to be, and we’re gonna hafta look up and reach up for God’s hand like our brother Peter when he was walking on the water.

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

Sharpening!*

Whittled Walking Cane from this Story

 In my early tween-aged years I learned to whittle. True whittlers can make such thin slices of wood they curl up.  Their knives are so sharp they can hold them loosely and still cut through wood like butter. I was fascinated by their skills.  Though a sharp knife seems dangerous, a dull one is even more so. My father, who provided my first pocket knife, also got me a sharpening stone. I was so excited about the knife, I whittled and whittled, but sharpening was not quite as exciting, so I didn’t shapen very often. On one of my father’s hunting trips, he found a small tree uprooted for some reason, so he put it in the Jeep Wagoneer, thinking it may be good for making a walking cane for someone. He cut it the right length for an average adult and asked me to whittle it smooth.  The handle was formed by the root. I was elated to carve that small tree. The shape already looked right, it just needed some whittling and sanding. One day when I was carving, I hit a knot and the knife stopped. The knot was in a critical spot so the walking cane could be gripped right. Instead of sharpening my knife and trying again, I chose to try and force it through the extra tough wood. The knot was also in an awkward spot, so the rule of “never put anything in front of your knife that you don’t want to be cut,” was one that I chose to ignore. I became impatient and held the wood in front of the knife exposing the tips of my fingers. Yep, it happened, I sliced off the very end of my ring finger and blood was going everywhere. I grabbed a rag and put pressure on it and ran to show my parents. My father, who was a physician,  took a look at it and determined that because of the way I sliced it, that it could not be sutured. It would just have to heal over the raw flesh. I was in whittling “time-out” until my finger healed. I still have that smooth straight cane that was finally completed and my finger eventually healed up so you can’t see the scar all these years later, but there were life lessons of patience, diligence and skill development that I wish I could say I learned that day. Unfortunately, those character traits require some maturity that doesn’t come easily. 

The words of the wisest man who ever lived help us remember, “If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success.” (Ecclesiastes 10:10) King Solomon, in his book called the “Preacher,” reminds us of the importance of taking the time to sharpen our skills when we take on a task. I would say this is especially true in the challenge of nurturing healthy relationships. Difficult conversations can easily become harmful by word choices, tone of voice, and the force of will to just “power through it.” By valuing the personal relationships more than desiring just to win the conflict, we can take care to prevent personal injury and avoid putting that person in the dangerous path of our unhoned conflict resolution skills.  Another of Solomon’s proverbs reminds us, “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”(Proverbs 12:18) Oh how often I need this reminder! 

 

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

Wedding Ring Zing!*

Driskill Hotel: photo cred. The Knot (not the couple mentioned in this story)

 As a pastor, I have had the tremendous honor of performing around 100 weddings in my years of ministry. I have also had the wonderful privilege of officiating the nuptials for all four of my own children. Each of those were wonderful and memorable in their own way.  Most of my weddings came as a young adult pastor in a large church more than 20 years ago when many couples from around the city chose our church as their wedding venue. That church had 3 unique wedding venues that were booked more than 40 weekends each year. However, one wedding, years ago, at the historic, iconic, Driskill Hotel in Austin was one I won’t forget. It was a beautiful wedding, just the bride and groom with a best man and maid of honor and about 50 people in attendance. The couple was very young. In the pre-marital counseling, I had pressed them pretty hard about their responses on their Prepare/Enrich Marriage Inventory (a tool I use to help me get an idea of where the couple’s relationship stands). Their answers to me seemed honest and mature enough to give me some assurance that they would be willing to do the hard work required for a marriage to stand the test of time.  The petite blushing bride had on a multi-layered ruffled crinoline petticoat hoop dress with about a 3 foot radius, the groom had to reach over it to hold her hand. Everything was going well, until we arrived at the exchange of rings. The best man was stressed out, shaking, and sweating.  Sure enough, when he tried to hand me the Bride’s ring, he dropped it and it hit the beautiful tile floor and Zing!.. it shot right up under that giant dress. The bride was frozen, afraid of stepping on them. Everyone looked at me in a panic. So I dropped to my hands and knees and began pushing the dress layers back like looking for something under curtains. About the time I found the ring, I realized how inappropriate this must have appeared. The audience began to laugh, the bride giggled, and my face turned beet red.  I chuckled at myself and attempted to return some decorum to the service. In the end, the couple was married, the crowd cheered,  and they always had a story to tell when anyone asked about their wedding day. 

In a rough time in history, when God’s people had embarrassed themselves and forgotten how to act right as God’s representatives, God had disciplined them significantly enough to get their attention and encouraged them to turn back to Him and get back on track.  The Prophet Isaiah was telling them that God could make all things right again.  He says, “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” (Isaiah 61:10–11) Sometimes embarrassment is a good thing because it reminds us that we have lost sight of what is appropriate and can urge us back to a right relationship with God. 

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

Fireworks and Fiery Words!*

 As a young man, I may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to fireworks. I loved lighting the tiny little fuse and waiting for the big BOOM! Something about the smell of the gunpowder that excited me as a young boy and the thought of blowing up small things. Even when I didn’t have fireworks, I had learned that if you put “strike anywhere” match heads in the nut between two bolts and drop it on its end, it would explode with a loud noise and shoot the bolts into the air… (unless you twist the bolts too tightly and it blows up before you drop it… you wanna know how I know that?) Now the warning on the side of the Roman Candles says “do not hold in your hand, light and get away,” obviously did not apply to me, especially when my college friends and I would shoot them at each other. Any time we passed a firework stand we bought a few to make the evenings interesting. You would think that having a firecracker blow up in my fingers as a 10 year old would have cured my recklessness with the small incendiary devices, however, that was not the case. There were many fireworks launched by me and others that I wish I could have brought back, but that is impossible once the fuse is lit.  My friends almost burned down my bestman’s neighborhood at my bachelor party while shooting Roman candles at each other without considering that a dead and dried up 20 foot evergreen tree was in the blast area.  The resulting conflagration could be seen throughout his fancy neighborhood and the heat was so intense that we couldn’t approach it. Fortunately, by the time someone got the presence of mind to grab a garden hose, the fire had lessened considerably. I was just glad it wasn’t close to the house and that the grass was green and well watered. I did finally get some sense and better judgment when my own kids were young, but the firework danger was just as present.  At one family gathering some nephews decided to shoot some bottle rockets into my dad’s field that had been cut, but not yet baled. The hay ignited immediately. If not for the quick thinking of my niece, who grabbed a water hose and dowsed the flames, the whole field, and neighboring fields, houses, and barns could have been destroyed as the wind was whipping that night. 

In the early church, apparently there were some people who were “shooting off at the mouth” saying harmful and hurtful things to other people and not considering the consequences of their verbal recklessness. Their words, once spoken, like a lit Roman Candle, could not be retracted. So, James the half brother of Jesus, gave this reminder to God’s people: “Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” (James 3:5–6) Sometimes we all need to be reminded to be careful about our words. Our words, carelessly launched into the lives of those around us can be so destructive, some to be remembered for a lifetime, even in spite of our attempts to take them back later. Our words can also be like gasoline or water on a fire of gossip.  So let’s be careful out there, with our fireworks and our words. 

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