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!

Wasp Stings and Other Things!*

Credit: Britannica

 

When I was in Middle School, my father bought a mini-farm. It was a plot of about 7 acres on the Little River just outside of Knoxville. It had a little farmhouse, a garage that also pretended to be a small barn, a smokehouse and a boat dock. It was a place where boys could grow up, get some bumps and bruises from hard work, learn about planting and harvesting a garden, about the circle of life, and about God’s blessings. Where a kid could eat a cherry right from the tree, catch a catfish, pick a salad of bibb lettuce, green onions and a tomato.  I started growing some calluses (in the form of blisters) from using a shovel. My dad gave me a task with our new land. The smokehouse had to come down, it was falling apart and was an eyesore. So, I was given a crowbar. I started pulling boards off the little dilapidated shack that no longer smoked meat. This promised to be a fun exercise for a kid who loved to build with blocks then knock them down. As I was pulling down a board, I hit a wasp nest. They came flying out… mad as hornets. As I ran away one landed on my arm. I was paralyzed in anticipation of the pain that was coming. It felt like I was in slow motion. I couldn’t even swipe it off my arm. I watched as that wasp sat down on my arm, stinger first. My eyes welled up with tears and blurred out what happened next as that little devil stung the fool out of me.  My mother saw what happened and came to check on me. She brought a wet cloth and consoled me. This was the first of bites, stings, and bruises that I would experience on this new-to-us mini-farm. That would do it for the demo until Dad could dispatch the angry wasps and help me complete the task. I went to sit on the dock and watch the slow roll of the lazy river, the occasional fish jump, feel the embrace of the large trees and rolling green hills around me, and feel the cool breeze as my arm throbbed. After several minutes, I was throwing rocks into the water and looking for a worm to fish with. I’m thankful for parents who let me try things, and get bee stings, but also that they were there offering compassion and help when challenges beyond my capacity came. 

The prophet Isaiah tells God’s people that they will have hardships, but that God will comfort them and see them through. He tells them: “For this is what the LORD says:  “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” When you see this, your heart will rejoice and you will flourish like grass; the hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants, but his fury will be shown to his foes.”(Isaiah 66:12–14) The Bible doesn’t say God won’t give us more than we can handle, but that He will be with us through those challenges.  If we never face a difficulty that is bigger than us, what need would we have for God? God does let us endure hardships to grow us in maturity and enrich our relationship with Him. He sees us, He hears us, He is glad to be with us, He loves us, and He wants to do good things for us. (Jim Wilder) We can trust His love for us even through wasp stings and other things. 

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