Blog Archives

QUITTING TIME!

7/30/2018

As many of my regular readers will know, I have been away from my blog for the past few days. This is because I spent this past week on vacation sorting through my mother’s belongings with my sisters. Obviously, such an endeavor brought back a flood of memories related to this precious lady, who passed away the last week of May.

While we are not yet ready to dispense with everything, the time had certainly come to begin the process of thinning out certain things - especially everyday items such as clothes, shoes, and the like…

I must confess that I left much of this to the decision of my sisters. I myself am more interested in written records. And it was on those that I focused. My mom was an avid reader. She also had the knack of writing; and had written down much of her life story. Had she come along under different circumstances, or at least in a different time, she might well have been a novelist. Either way, she wrote down her life story in numerous vignettes. And for this, I will be eternally grateful.

Among her other documents, in addition to financial records and other such legal papers, we found many personal keepsakes. It is one such document, a novelty version of a QUIT CLAIM DEED, that particularly caught my attention…

As you can see, I have taken the liberty of removing what was written in. But it was clear from what had been written that she had given to the Lord not just her material possessions, but also every heavy burden she had carried with her from her past, including painful failures, broken dreams, and personal regrets. To her credit, she also gave to the Lord all of her hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future.

And she obviously meant this; for while he listed herself as the earthly aforesaid items, under the witnesses she had listed Almighty God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

As I sat reading this, I felt the tears well up inside me. Being her child, I knew many of the past items of which she now desired to let go. I also knew all too well the many hopes and dreams and aspirations she harbored. And now, I knew above all else that she had entrusted these things to God!

But I knew one other thing as well. I knew the reality was that I had not yet done what she had done – at least not completely. There were things in my own life that I had not yet given wholly over to God. I needed to do so. And I resolved to do so as well. Suffice to say that a son has now followed the lead of his Godly mother.

What about you? Of what do you need to let go? What part of your past, present, or future do you need to give completely over to God? Why not follow the admonition of Holy Scripture (in the First New Testament Letter to Peter, chapter 5, verse 7) and cast all your cares upon the One God Who truly cares for you?!

To my knowledge, the document that I cleaned up with white out and then inserted above is not copyrighted. I pasted it in as a simple j-peg file. Therefore, why not simply print it off right now and fill it in?! Why not sign a QUIT CLAIM DEED of all your past regrets, present worries, and future fears over to God this very moment?! Trust me... You’ll be very glad that you did!

SCRIPTURE REFERENCE: http://biblehub.com/1_peter/5-7.htm

PORTRAIT OF A FATHER’S LOVE

7/22/2018

Dr. J. Allan Peterson once shared the following story:

I read about a small boy who was consistently late coming home from school. His parents warned him one day that he must be home on time that afternoon, but nevertheless he arrived later than ever. His mother met him at the door and said nothing.

At dinner that night, the boy looked at his plate. There was a slice of bread and a glass of water. He looked at his father's full plate and then at his father, but his father remained silent. The boy was crushed.

The father waited for the full impact to sink in, then quietly took the boy's plate and placed it in front of himself. He took his own plate of meat and potatoes, put it in front of the boy, and smiled at his son.

When that boy grew to be a man, he said, "All my life I've known what God is like by what my father did that night."

May we always remember what our Heavenly Father did for us in giving his Son, Jesus Christ to redeem us! He took what was on our plate, sin and all its consequences, and exchanged it for what was on His plate, grace and all its consequences!

NOTE: Dr. J. Allan Petersen first began traveling in the mid 1940s as an evangelist, speaking in churches throughout the U.S. and Canada. Out of his concern for people and his vision for the church came a focus on strengthening marriage, family life, and relationships.

In 1975, he conceived and directed the Continental Congress on the Family, bringing together some 2,500 leaders to address marriage and family issues and also to help form national strategies to support and encourage marriages and families, as well as to help prepare future leaders in this area of ministry.

This in turn led to his publishing of a family information and enrichment bulletin which he called Happiness is Home Made. Later, its name was changed to Better Families.

At the time of his retirement, Dr. Peterson had traveled extensively, having spoken to over 9,000 audiences in over 50 countries. Along the way, he managed to speak to religious leaders at the White House and help found the Family Research Council.

In 1995, the International Family Congress awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to preserving the Christian family. Dr. Petersen went home to be with the Lord in October of 2000.

SOURCES: https://bible.org/illustration/father-god
and http://betterrelationships.com/about/history.html.

DR. PETERSON’S BOOKS INCLUDE:

The Myth of Greener Grass: Affair Proof Your Marriage
For Men Only: The Dynamics of Being a Man and Succeeding at It
For Women Only: The Fine Art of Being a Woman (with Evelyn R. Petersen)
The Art of Being a Man
Your Reactions Are Showing
Before You Marry
First Aid for Faltering Families
The Marriage Affair: The Family Counselor
Conquering Family Stress
For Families Only: Answering the Tough Questions Parents Ask
Hi Fidelity Marriage

Cf.: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/27605.J_Allan_Petersen.

THE GRAND SCHEME

7/20/2018

My wife and I have now been blessed with two precious little grandsons. They are both under the age of two; and each one is busily living every new day to the full as he discovers all about life and the world around him.

What is more, a third grandson is now on the way. Soon, we will have three rambunctious little fellows, lovingly inserting themselves and their agendas into our lives. And we welcome this! For in the short span of less than two years, we have come to see just what a blessing it is to become grandparents.

In fact, we agree that we have only now begun to appreciate the significance of the old bumper sticker that says, “If I had known grandchildren were so much fun, I would have had them first!”

Our grandchildren are indeed a blessing to us. But my wife and I also agree that, in return, we hope to be a blessing to our grandchildren as well. For they benefit from us every bit as much as we do from them!

I recently came across some interesting research regarding the mutual impact and value that grandchildren and grandparents have upon and give to one another. It is based on interviews with grandchildren and grandparents; and it clearly indicates that children need their grandparents and vice-versa.

I quote:

“The study shows that the bond between grandparents and grandchildren is second in emotional power and influence only to the relationship between parents and children. Grandparents affect the lives of their grandchildren, for good or ill, simply because they exist.

Unfortunately, a lot of grandparents ignore the fact, to the emotional deprivation of the young. Of the children studied, only five percent reported close, regular contact with at least one grandparent.

The vast majority see their grandparents only infrequently, not because they live too far away, but because the grandparents have chosen to remain emotionally distant.

These children appear to be hurt, angry, and very perceptive about their grandparents. One of them said, “I’m just a charm on grandma’s bracelet.”

Positive roles that grandparents play are caretaker, storyteller, family historian, mentor, wizard, confidant, negotiator between child and parent, and model for the child’s own old age.

When a child has a strong emotional tie to a grandparent, he enjoys a kind of immunity—he doesn’t have to perform for grandparents the way he must for his parents, peers and teacher.

The love of grandparents comes with no behavioral strings attached. The emotional conflicts that often occur naturally between children and parents do not exist between grandparents and grandchildren.”

In light of all this, there is one more thing upon which that my wife and I agree. Such findings remind us that we must be intentional in building strong relationships with our grandchildren. We plan, therefore, to do just that! And we trust the fruit of this effort will manifest itself in our relationship with each of our grandchildren, irrespective of how many of them with which we will eventually be blessed.

In his Second New Testament Letter to Timothy (chapter 1, verse 5), the Apostle Paul reminds his young protégé in the ministry that the faith that now lives in him first lived in his mother, and before that in his grandmother. He then challenges Timothy (in verse 6) to fan into flame that which is within him as well!

The greatest blessing my wife and I will ever have is to live to see the same faith in God that now lives in us, and in our own children, spring up in our grandchildren as well! Accordingly, we accept the God-given responsibility to help foster that.

And we pray that, having embraced such faith in God themselves, our children and grandchildren (and should the Lord tarry His coming, even our great-grandchildren and beyond) will also embrace that same responsibility to pass their faith along.

SOURCES:
STATISTICS: https://bible.org/illustration/children-need-grandparents. Here, the original source cited is the September, 1981 edition of Youthletter Magazine. This particular publication is apparently now out of print; but it appears to have been a monthly 8-page newsletter originally published by Evangelical Ministries. Numerous articles dating from various back issues from this magazine are referenced online.
SCRIPTURE: http://biblehub.com/niv/2_timothy/1.htm.

GOOD READS

7/16/2018

I will forever be indebted to a favorite college professor of mine, who, years ago, taught me always to prepare and complete a summer reading list. With varying degrees of faithfulness, and success, I have followed his admonition ever since.

To be sure, most every reader has a selection of “beach reads” ready for vacation.  I have been little different down through the years.

In part, because the whole purpose of a vacation is to get away, relax, and clear the mind, I have always included adventure and thriller fiction novels on my list. These allow my mind the opportunity to escape and focus on things other than the everyday matters with which I must deal on a regular basis.

I am often asked who my favorite authors are. In this particular genre, at least, they include the likes of authors such as Steve Berry, Michael Crichton, Clive Cussler, Ian Fleming, Raymond Khoury, and James Patterson, to name but a few.

Through the adventures of their various protagonists, I have travelled the world vicariously.  Along the way, I have fought off man-eating beasts, salvaged long lost treasures, defeated sinister villains, won the hearts of fair damsels, and generally saved the world!

As of late, however, I have become somewhat convicted about my summer reading lists. The simple truth is that there are so many classics of yesteryear that I have not yet read that I can hardly justify reading many more modern tales, no matter how inviting, until I have checked off some of their more worthy predecessors.

Accordingly, I have now spent the better part of June and July of this year plowing through such adventure classics as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (first published in 1719), James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (first published in 1826), and Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (first published in 1844).

And what I have discovered in the process is just how rewarding this venture has been. For I have found the same, if not a deeper, level of reader satisfaction in these older works as in any of the newer ones.

And I have found something more as well. Early western novelists, such as Defoe, Cooper, and Dumas, did not have modern technology and machinery with which to wow their readers. There were no airplanes, no trains, no automobiles, no machine guns, no computers, etc...

They had, therefore, to develop intricate plots, exotic settings, and, above all, rich characters who were deep in quality, complexity, and value.

What is more, they used these articulate creations to communicate and underscore fundamental truths about the world and the nature of we who inhabit it. In short, their purpose was not merely to entertain; but also to educate, and above all, to inculcate.

For their finely crafted tales serve to underscore the fundamental values that have made men and women worthy of admiration and emulation ever since our species first began to relate tales of heroism to one another.

In this regard, Defoe's book is actually the story of a man who comes to know and rely upon the God of the Bible as his protector and provider.  Cooper's work is a gentle reminder of the temptation to confuse man's will with the will of this very same God. And Dumas' work is a cautionary tale about the seductive, though ultimately destructive, power of revenge when undertaken by a mere man, given that revenge is the purview of this God alone.

Albert Camus once said that a novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. If this is true, then the classics of western civilization’s fiction are images worthy of our inquiry and investigation. And for this reason, therefore, as you prepare to go off on vacation, I ask not, “What’s in your wallet?”, but rather “What’s in your book bag?”

NOTE: And excellent blog post on the value of reading fiction for believers can be found here: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-fiction.html.

TELL ME A STORY…

7/12/2018

Famed preacher Charles Spurgeon once said that an illustration is like a window for the soul. In my own experience, I have certainly found this to be the case. In truth, people soon forget my sermon outlines, as well as the individual points within them, but they seem to long remember the stories I tell.

In the days before the internet, other than my own experience, about all I had to draw upon as a speaker and writer for illustration purposes was either newspapers, magazines, and/or a few books devoted to the topic. For this reason, as a young preacher, I was particularly thankful for the works of men like Walter B. Knight.

After pastoring for decades in the Chicago area, he felt led back in the 1950's to assemble a collection of sermon illustrations, then indexed them, and finally published them in book form. He later updated this volume several times, before finally producing his last version, which attained a length of over 750 pages, containing thousands and thousands of subject-indexed illustrations.

Such a collection was a veritable gold mine for young pastors such as I was when just beginning my ministry. And I still occasionally draw upon Knight’s material even today. For instance, I was recently addressing the subject of ascertaining God’s will for one’s life, and then being willing to embrace it once we do, when I found myself somewhat stumped as to how to effectively illustrate my point.

I soon came upon this wonderful story in Knight’s material that helped me to illustrate how we so often refuse to embrace what we know to be God’s will, preferring instead to pursue the way we desire to go.

An old Scottish woman went from home to home across the countryside selling thread, buttons, and shoestrings. When she came to an unmarked crossroad, she would toss a stick into the air and go in the direction the stick pointed when it landed.

One day, however, she was seen tossing the stick up several times. "Why do you toss the stick more than once?" someone asked. "Because," replied the woman, "it keeps pointing to the left, and I want to take the road on the right." She then dutifully kept throwing the stick into the air until it pointed the way she wanted to go!

If you are a communicator in need of assistance in finding stories that help you better convey your message, then I highly recommend any or all of these basic works by Walter B. Knight, easily obtainable on used bookstore websites all across the country.

Knight’s Treasury of Illustrations.
Knight’s Treasury of 2000 Illustrations.
Three Thousand Illustrations for Christian Service.
Knight’s Up to the Minute Illustrations.
Knight’s Master Book of 4000 Illustrations.
Knight’s Master book of New Illustrations.

WINNING WAYS

7/9/2018

One of my favorite actors was Don Knotts. Ever associated with the bumbling and highly strung character known as Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, in real life, Knotts was an accomplished actor with twenty-nine movie roles, fifty-eight television roles, and five Primetime Emmy Awards, among numerous other accolades, to his credit.

Knotts left The Andy Griffith Show after the fifth season, having signed a contract for five movies with Universal Studios. This package includes three of my favorite Don Knotts flicks. The first was 1966’s The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, where he plays Luther Heggs, a wannabe reporter who works as a typesetter in the basement of a local newspaper, yet somehow manages to break the town’s biggest story in decades.

This was followed by 1967’s The Reluctant Astronaut, where he plays Roy Fleming, a NASA janitor who actually gets a chance to go into space. And this by 1968’s The Shakiest Gun in the West, where he plays Dr. Jesse W. Heywood, an incompetent dentist who unexpectedly becomes a hero defending off an Indian attack.

One cannot help but laugh at Knotts in each of these lead roles. With his small physical frame and nervous, easily excitable demeanor, he was well suited for the respective characters he plays in each of these three comedy classics. The common theme of each one was that of the “nobody from nowhere” who stumbles his way into becoming “somebody from somewhere”.

One also cannot help but empathize with his characters. Watching these movies, one finds oneself relating to what it means to be an underdog up against seemingly insurmountable odds, yet somehow, almost incredibly, still emerging victorious in the end. And perhaps, after all is said and done, this is what makes Knotts’ characters so appealing.

To be sure, all of the characters portrayed by Knotts are entertaining. His comedic genius is undeniable. But ultimately, the encouragement one garners from seeing his portrayal of the various characters he depicts far exceeds the entertainment value.

Seeing an obviously below-average individual with a limited skill set persevere amidst seemingly interminable setbacks until he eventually comes out on top reminds us that, under similar circumstances, we too can experience victory in life. Sure, you and I may not be the most talented, the most gifted, the most intelligent, the best looking, or even the most financially endowed; but with patience and persistence, we may yet find ourselves triumphant in life.

This is especially true with the Lord on our side. In the Old Testament Book of First Samuel, a young man named David (a nobody from nowhere) rose to the highest office in the land (becoming somebody from somewhere). And he did this, despite having almost everyone from family to authority to enemy against him, because God was for him!

In the New Testament, likewise, a young man named Peter (yet another nobody from nowhere) rose to become the leader of the church of Jesus Christ - the organization that, according to what others were saying about them in the Book of Acts (chapter 17, verse 6), “turned the world upside down”, eventually conquering even the throne of Rome.

The relevance of all of this for you and me is found in two Biblical affirmations given by the Apostle Paul. The first is found in the New Testament Book of Romans (chapter 8, verse 31), where he asks: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

And the second is found in the New Testament Book of Philippians (chapter 4, verse 13), where Paul states: “I can do all things through Jesus Christ, who gives me strength.”

The same God Who was with David, and Who was with Peter, and Who was with Paul and the rest of the New Testament church promises to be with you and me. And this same God promises that we too can and will be victorious with Him on our side!

SCRIPTURE SOURCE: http://biblehub.com/.

GIVE IT A REST!

7/6/2018

I love the old story about little Johnny returning to school from summer vacation. It seems that…

Summer was over and the teacher was asking the class about their vacations. She turned to little Johnny and asked what he did over the summer.

“We visited my grandmother in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” he said. “That sounds like an excellent vocabulary word,” the teacher said, “Can you tell the class how you spell that?”

Little Johnny thought about it and said, “Come to think of it, she lives in Ohio…”

As we all know, summer vacation is a good time for two things: first, to get away and rest one’s body, and second, to clear one’s mind and not have to think too hard about anything.

For my part, along with my family, I have spent a little time trying to do both over this first week of July. And I’m glad I did. Every so often, both the body and the mind just need a little rest.

For this reason, no doubt, many people in the Bible took time away to rest and recuperate. In chapter 17 of the Old Testament book of First Kings, just prior to his famous confrontation with the false priests at Mt. Carmel in chapter 18, Elijah the Tishbite got away to a place called Cherith Brook and rested for several days. One clearly sees that the Lord intended him to get rested up for what all God had in store for him to do.

In the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark (chapter 6, verse 31) tells us that Jesus, sensing that His disciples were tired, said to them: "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." Here, the disciples have already been working hard and appear to have simply worn themselves out.

Even Jesus Himself often took time to get away alone for some needed peace and quiet. Examples of this can be found in Matthew 14:22-23, Mark 6:45, and Luke 5:16.

In truth, no thing and no person was ever designed to run wide open all the time. To do so is to run the risk of burnout, and thus of premature breakdown. For this reason, I hope you too will see the need for and avail yourself of some occasional down time. Give it a rest – in both mind and body! You’ll be glad you did!

JOKE SOURCE: https://www.funnycleanjokes.com/my-summer-vacation/.
SCRIPTURE SOURCE: http://biblehub.com/.

PRECIOUS POSSESSION

7/2/2018

Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997-2007. In 2010, he published his memoir, titled A Journey: My Political Life. He concludes the introduction to this acclaimed work with the following story and accompanying admonition.

A friend of mine whose parents were immigrants, Jews from Europe who came to America in search of safety, told me this story. His parents lived and worked in New York. They were not well off. His father died when he was young. His mother lived on, and in time my friend succeeded and became wealthy.

He often used to offer his mother the chance to travel outside America. She never did. When eventually she died, they went back to recover the safety box where she kept her jewelry. They found there another box. There was no key. So they had to drill it open.

They wondered what precious jewel must be in it. They lifted the lid. There was wrapping and more wrapping and finally an envelope. Intrigued, they opened it. In the envelope were her U.S. citizenship papers. Nothing more. That was the jewel, more precious to her than any other possession. That was what she treasured most. So should America today.

The story itself is powerful enough. But the admonition contained in the last four word sentence is even more so.

Most who call the United States of America home will understand and echo this sentiment; for here in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, we have blessings beyond compare.

In light of this, I hope our citizenship in this country remains more precious to us than any other earthly possession. I hope we treasure it most among all this world has to offer us.

Happy “Fourth of July”!

SOURCE: Tony Blair, A Journey: My Political Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), p. xlviii.