A Great Calm *

A New restaurant called Not Watson's where Watson's used to be. 

 

When I was a child, my mother liked to shop at one particular department store in Knoxville’s historic Market Square Mall. The Square was quite popular until the large indoor mall came and people flocked to the huge indoor space with several big chain department stores. The store Mom loved back in the day was called “Watson’s on the Mall.” The “on the Mall” distinguished it from the other Watson’s stores in its southeastern U.S. chain founded in Knoxville at the turn of the 1900’s.  Watson’s on the Mall had its own commercial on local radio with a catchy jingle. We would park and walk past all the fresh vegetables and artists on the Square. There were lots of smiling people in hippie tie-dye, peace signs, and smiley face t-shirts. We would go into Watson’s and go to where the women’s clothes were. Mom would peruse the newest fashions on discount. Though bell-bottom pants, mini-skirts, and leather vests with leather frill tied with beads were popular, my mother was a little more conservative in her dress. My ADHD wouldn’t let me slowly walk around with her and wait while she stopped, looked, felt the fabric, held the dress up in the mirror. I would escape and climb in and out of the clothing racks while she was distracted. (Though I was undiagnosed, ADHD was called hyperkinetic disease back then. Kids like me were called “Fidgety Phil” in the journals) I once hid inside one of the round racks spinning around the colorful clothes, feeling the fabrics on my arms, smelling the freshly shipped apparel until I got dizzy. It created a kind of multi-stim psychedelic experience for me. When I emerged from the rack, my mother was nowhere to be found.  Initially, I didn’t panic, but looked around for her. When I couldn’t find her anywhere, I began to look a little more frantically. After several harrowing minutes my mother came out of the dressing room to find me with tears rolling down my cheeks running to get a squeezy hug. I promised myself never to do it again, however, “Fidgety Phil” had other designs and each time we went to Watson’s, I climbed behind the clothes. Calming down was a challenge. 

When the disciples were in the midst of a storm on the Sea of Galilee, they were anxious and afraid and could not calm down. Jesus however, was so calm, he was asleep in the bottom of the boat. Mark tells us,  “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (Mark 4:39 ESV) Sometimes storms in our lives turn our worlds upside down. Even when we try to rest, we can’t calm ourselves. Jesus can give us a peace that goes beyond understanding. His simple words to our anxious hearts are “Peace! Be still,” can bring about “a great calm,” even if we are a Fidgety Phil or Phyllis.

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

Oh Grow Up! *

Photo credit: bloomie972 Instructables

 When I was a very young boy, we moved to a new house. It had a rope swing and a tree house, as well as a traditional metal swing set with a ladder and slide. The rope swing was tied 20 feet up on a tree branch, the rope was 3 inch hemp and on the end was a large knot to sit on.  I wanted to try it. My little hands were too small to hold it well, it was very rough on my tender preschool skin, and it was so thick it was hard to make it swing, and I fell off. So, I stuck to the safer traditional swing set. The tree house was about 8 feet high and the homemade ladder was nailed to the tree.  At the top of the ladder there was a hinged hatch door you had to push up to get inside, then close it again so there was no hole in the floor. Several times I would get brave enough to climb the ladder, but wasn’t strong enough to push the solid wood hatch door open. So, I often just played on the swing set ladder and slide. When I got a little older and stronger, I decided I was ready to attempt the tree house again. I was so determined to get into the tree house that day. I climbed the ladder and pushed hard against the door. It opened but not enough to stay open and it slammed back down knocking me head first off the ladder. When I woke up, my sister was checking on me. I had a terrible headache and was so dizzy. Eventually, I conquered both the tree house and the rope swing and had hours of fun on both. Soon, the traditional little swing set had little thrill for me. I had grown up in my adventures.  

God designed us for growth. When Paul is teaching the early church about love, he makes it clear we are supposed to grow up in the ways we love people.  Learning to love other people is challenging.  Our natural bent is to love and take care of only ourselves like a child. Growing up in how we love people requires that we do some hard things. Paul reminds us: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–8 NIV11) He then goes on to say that we need to grow up in our relationships with people around us. He says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”(1 Corinthians 13:11 NIV11) It is hard to be patient, kind, and humble when others are aren't being kind to us. It's sometimes hard to celebrate when others do well when they are flaunting it. It is also hard to forgive people, protect them rather than try to be better than them. It is challenging to hang there, when relationships get really tough. It's time for us to grow up and enjoy grown up relationships that can be difficult sometimes. 

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

Oh Deer!

One evening, years ago, in the Oak Knoll area of Austin, I was taking a bike ride. I had helped get my 3 preschoolers to bed and needed some exercise and solitude for a few moments. It was in the last minutes of dusk that I took a quick pedal in an effort to sweat a little and let the cooling air peel off a layer or two of the day’s tensions from a demanding day of ministry. After a few moments pedaling and praying, I heard a strange sound behind me, like hooves on the black top. I turned around to see not one, but three young bucks with ample, but not huge, racks running behind me. I had heard about bike riders being knocked off their bikes by deer crossing the road, but I had never heard of deer chasing a bike down the street. I got a little nervous knowing how fast deer were capable of running (25-30 mph). I wondered if they would overtake and unseat me. I don’t know if these three saw me on my bike in the dimly lit street as a rival, or maybe they were just spooked and I happened to be in the path of their escape route.  For whatever reason, it felt like several minutes that these deer followed me, though it probably was not more than several seconds. Even when I made a turn to a side street in an effort to get out of their way, the deer still followed me. Finally, the three bucks made a sudden turn through someone’s side yard and then, as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. For several weird moments these young bucks had been running half speed, about 10 yards behind me. I felt nervous, but invigorated and grateful to have had this curious brush with nature in Texas suburbia. I came home and excitedly told my ATX hippodrome bicycle vs.hoofed ruminant varmint odyssey to my understandably skeptical wife. 

Deer are mentioned several places in God’s Word, but my mind was drawn to the words of the Psalmist who says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1–2) While I sought some moments with God while pedaling, panting, and praying, it felt like God had allowed me to experience something so special, that I had to at least consider the fact that He had seen and heard me and was glad to be with me in those moments of solitude. Granted, it was no burning bush like Moses had experienced, but I still ponder that experience all these years later with thankfulness of getting to meet with Him in a unique way. 

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

Stories from Student Camp!*

 It was time for my first student camp as a middle schooler. The long drive to the infamous white sands of Panama City Beach seemed to take forever. Some slept, some sang, some made up limericks, and some pranked. Some high school couples paired up and didn’t “leave room for the Holy Spirit between them,”... there was a lot of smoochie face going on when the adults were not around. Thankfully the bus had facilities, because one creative prankster had carefully rewrapped Feen-A-Mint laxative gum and placed it in Double-Mint wrappers, which he generously gave out to anyone who “would like a piece of gum.” Fortunately, there were no known “accidents” in anyone’s breeches on the way there.   When we arrived we were divided into boys and girls cabins and the cabins were divided into other rooms of 6 to 8 people. In order to keep the smallish rooms livable, the leaders had made a competition for the cleanest room. At the end of the assembly of Worship and Bible Study each night the leaders would announce the winning room and they got free ice cream. Our room never won that competition for some reason, but we sure enjoyed our time together at camp. By the third night or so, it was obvious we would not be winning that award, so we thought we would have some fun with those who came to inspect the rooms while we went to the assembly. We had filled a small trash can full of water and put it over the door and we all exited out the other door. We could hardly contain ourselves when one of the parent leaders came to the worship assembly soaked from head to toe. She was smiling, but just barely. The guys from our room had extra clean up duty for the remainder of the camp. I’m thankful for the loving adults who made sure we stayed safe, had fun, and learned how to live like God’s children. This group of students would learn and grow over the next 4 years by being discipled by some caring adults and take a life-changing mission trip to New England. We had hours of Worship and Bible Study together, mission and ministry opportunities to learn how we are supposed to act when we belong to Jesus. We also grieved together over the failure of one of the pastors who led students in ministry and learned the pain of what happens when we forget Whose we are and how to act. 

It takes a community of believers to raise up the next generation of kids who belong to and act like Jesus as adults. The Wisest Man ever says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) Students need lots of loving direction from Jesus' followers who are more mature than them, who help them understand what is okay and what is not okay. Otherwise, they grow up with a twisted reality of how to act, each of them doing whatever seems right in their own eyes, forgetting that their identity is in Christ.  That youth group ended up producing four pastors, a couple of missionaries, two minister’s spouses, several deacons and Sunday School teachers. Pray for parents of students, student ministers, student leaders, and students that there will always be a generation of teens learning how to love God and love others like Jesus does. 

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

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!