The Fear Of The Absence of Light

Being afraid of the dark isn’t really the issue.

We naturally prefer a lit room because the light exposes obstacles and unknown variables. We tend to enjoy being able to see where we are going.

But when the lights are turned out, we tend to freeze up. If we move at all it’s with great caution and care. It’s not the dark we’re afraid of; it’s the unknowns that lurk in the darkness. Our imagination can run us wild with a combination of our worst fears, mind tricks, and the power of suggestion. Scream, ‘Spider!’ in a room filled with people and darkness, and you’ll hear screams and shrieks from every corner.

We huddle in the darkness, not moving about, sometimes holding hands and arms, whispering and talking, mostly just to hear someone else’s voice because we don’t want to be alone, and it’s in utter darkness when we feel most isolated.

Vin Diesel stars in a movie called ‘Pitch Black’, a sci-fi flick about a world whose carnivorous flying inhabitants thrive in darkness. If you’ve seen it, then you know the bloodthirsty predators in this gory thriller die when exposed to prolonged sunlight. The hero, a renegade convict, leads a dwindling band of frightened and virtually helpless individuals back to their ship, and ultimately off the planet to safety.

Here’s the funny part – he’s blind. Actually, he can ‘see’ in the dark, but he’s still considered blind because he can’t see in sunlight. What makes it funny to me – in a twisted sort of way, I suppose – is the fact that everyone in the troupe but a teenage girl and a priest are killed trying to get home. Matt. 15:14 says: “…If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."

If we stay still long enough, not move around very much, we can grow accustomed to being in the dark, to a point that we can believe we don’t need the light.

Sunday mornings are the only morning that I awaken before the rest of my family. I like to be at the church early in order to prepare, so my alarm is set for six o’clock. Since my eyesight is poor anyway, my Sunday morning rituals are usually done in the dark; I shower, shave, and dress (I’ve usually laid my clothes out the previous night) without turning on the lights. I have grown accustomed to having no lights on.

There have been a couple of mornings when I would turn on the bathroom light to put my contacts in and do my hair and realize the outfit I’ve put on – and quickly change.

The People of Israel were cut off from God’s sovereignty, and left destitute, leaderless, and without a country. They were, in fact, in utter darkness - and they had managed to grow accustomed to it.

But they had not forgotten that God, through Isaiah, had made a Promise: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light—a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow (Isaiah 9:2 NLT).

About eight years ago, I remember a thunderstorm knocking the electricity out at our house. It was about 10:30 at night, and I spent the next couple of hours frantically looking for candles and matches and flashlights – anything to dispel the darkness. When I found the lighter and held it to the wick, I remember the power of that small flame as it kept the darkness at a distance. There was a somewhat euphoric sense of peace, even in a ravaging thunderstorm, which exuded from that small candle.

When a candle is lit in a darkened room full of people, you will find that the mass of bodies tend to want to gravitate to the candle, to bask in its warmth and to be able to see.

That ‘Great Light’ that God promised to the People of Israel came in the form of the Christ Child, and during the life of Jesus, people gravitated to Him to bask in His Warmth and often found that when they were close to Jesus they could ‘see’ because of the Light that shone from His teachings and His character.

Jesus was, and is, the Promise Kept.

Here’s something to ponder: Is there ever a moment when you have no shadow? The answer is ‘yes’, and in only two situations.

When we are literally bathed in light, immersed in beams from every angle and direction, the shadows are seemingly burned away because they can’t exist where light is. Interesting, however, is the fact that shadows exist BECAUSE of the light.

The second is when we are swallowed up in utter darkness, and no light is in our presence to ward away the shadows. Everything around us is darkness, and we, ourselves, become shadow.

It would be pretty stupid to hear someone in a pitch black room say, “I can see perfectly,” or “there’s plenty of light” or “I am NOT standing in a dark room.”

How many fingers am I holding up?

John said, “…God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in the truth. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin.” – 1 John 1:5-7 NLT

The birth of Jesus made it possible for any and all who ask for God’s grace and forgiveness to escape the darkness, the void. He lived, taught, loved, then died, then battled death ‘to the death’, rising victoriously, all for the sake of Redemption, to bring us out of the dark.

It’s an either/or. Either you’re living in the light of God’s presence, or you’re swallowed up in darkness. And it’s when you’re standing next to the light, your own shadows are revealed.

So whoever has God's Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life. – 1 John 5:12 NLT

One of my former teens who is now in college texted me about the seemingly vacated status of the campus during finals week. No one was walking around, in the Student Commons Building, horsing around. He said it was kind of eerie, making him wonder if this sense of eerie-ness is what it would feel like after the Rapture.

His text made me ask the question: “Which would be worse – the Wrath of God, or the Absence of God?”

We tend to think that the wrath of God would be the worst of all, when in reality, God’s absence is the absence of light, and thus, the epitome of Hell.

Happy Holidays!

Someone sent me the link below. It’s a video of still photos of a threesome called ‘Go Fish’ singing a song called “It’s Called Christmas”, and it’s very good. There are three or four snippets from comedian Brad Stine interjected throughout the clip. I watched the clip, watched it again, and then decided to try something for this next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ

It may sound totally redundant, petty, and even stupid, but, hey, it’s America, and I don’t care.

We’re officially eleven days from Christmas, the day we either accidentally or on purpose celebrate the birth of Christ. It’s not known for a fact that the 25th of December is Jesus’ birthday; that day was picked because it fell in line with another pagan holiday hundreds of years ago, and it just got stuck there.

But people today get their panties in a wad because you wish them a Merry Christmas as you pass on the sidewalk or spend your life savings at Wal-Mart or give a gift to a fellow employee. You say, “Merry Christmas,” and they look all sour in the face and pucker back, “I don’t believe in Christmas…” as they unwrap the gift you just gave them!

So this is what I’m going to do: For the next eleven days, I’m going to make it a point to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone I come in contact with. I’m going to wish everyone a “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

Then…

Next year, every holiday, EVERY holiday, I will wish people as I come in contact with them, ‘Happy Holidays’.

New Years gets roped in with Christmas, so saying ‘Happy Holidays’ isn’t that big a deal, but Valentine’s Day…? Oh yeah, it’s a comin’. St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day – yes, each and every one.

For Independence Day, I’m going to red-white-and-blue shoe polish my truck with the words ‘Happy Holidays’ and little firecrackers painted in the corners of the window.

Wait a minute –

There’s one holiday other than Christmas that I’ll respect with the proper greeting, and that is Easter, the holiday for which we celebrate the Risen LORD.

And when someone tells me how they’re offended that I say, “Happy Holidays” on Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day, I’ll ask them, “What’s the big deal? It’s a holiday, yes? And we’re supposed to be festive at this time, yes?”

Of course, they’ll reply with, “Yes, but you’re only supposed to say, ‘Happy Holidays’ at Christmas time,” to which I’ll fire back saying, “actually, I’m offended that Veteran’s Day can be celebrated for what it truly is – a Day of reflection and remembrance for those who have served, fought, and died for the liberties that we, as American Citizens enjoy – while Christmas – the celebration of the Christ Child who served, fought and died, AND rose from the dead for the liberties that anyone can enjoy - is offensive?”

I’m not out to make enemies… just a point.

What's next?

Usually, I attempt to put a lot of thought, choosing my words carefully when I construct a blog to post.

Not today. I'm feeling kind of, I don't know, 'soapbox-ish'?

I listened to talk radio today as I travelled from Haskell to Muskogee, and then later from Muskogee to Tulsa. Good ol' Rush Limbaugh was pretty entertaining, if you're into that kind of crap.

But Rush isn't the only one with a poop scooper and an energy drink: Most media is slinging it just as fast and just as badly, while members of Congress are wearing greased body suits, standing in the middle of the firing line, firing across the line.

I heard today that Obama's ratings are hitting 'record lows'. Okay, I guess. He accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today, while explaining why he was sending more troops to Aghanistan. I probably don't need to say anymore.

And George Stephanopolis (sp?) is going to Good Morning America as Diane Sawyer's replacement, who is going to replace Charles Gibson on 'World News Tonight'. More spin.

We're not far from life on the Moon or an alternate fuel source or a cure for cancer or space travel.

But if you look at how we've improved the quality of life over the past one hundred and fifty years, only to rip each other's to shred with the sharp words off our tongues in a matter of seconds, it makes you wonder: What's next?

We're not far from televised executions, or acceptable vigilante outbursts or required euthenasia or great-grandparents that are just fifty-years old.

Are we?

God

At the end of every wedding, the officiating minister usually says something like this: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

I’ve attended many weddings in my life, both as a simple guest and a musician. I’ve been to weddings that were extravagant, some simple, some very informal. My wife’s cousin married his wife in an outdoor chapel overlooking Lake Texoma, wearing Bermuda shorts and sandals on a hot summer day. Twas a beautiful wedding, but hotter than the dickens, and I was so happy to head for the reception in an air conditioned car.

Marriage is, in a sense, an act of physics, the merging of two cells, the mixing of chemistry and biology. It is synergistic, expecting the outcome of its union to be greater than the sum of its parts. There is an unadulterated presentation that takes place as bride and groom face each other, vowing to love, keep, and cherish their mate until death parts them.

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

One flesh.

There are a handful of references to the ‘Bride of Christ’ found in the New Testament, most referring to end times, how the Groom would come for the Bride, the church. Particularly, in Ephesians 5:25-27, which reads:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Modern day approaches to marriage have shifted from biblical teachings, structural beliefs, and family values. No longer is marriage considered, nor protected as a holy union, a scientific phenomenon.

Yesterday, I was in the home of a couple that has been married for 65 years. Talk about chemistry! Both are in their eighties, but the ‘super powers’ that they possessed was incredible. She could read his thoughts, he finished her sentences, and there was an energy field that seemed to surround and connect them, making them virtually invincible.

The Golden Anniversary page of the local newspaper is under attack, and fewer and fewer celebrations are taking place of long lives together. Instead, the column that displays the ‘Court Records’ grows, evidence of divorces requested and granted, while children are born to two individuals with different names.

But, believe it or not, this paper is not about the demise of marriage in the world today, and I ask forgiveness from you, the reader, for my side-track – ‘chasing bunnies’, I call it. This paper is truly about the connection between the bride and the groom, both as they make their vows, and as they live to carry them out.

This paper, in fact, is about the connection between God, the Groom, and me, the Bride.

Such a sentence can be sure to cause alarm - if all that is imagined is the thought of the author, a man, dressed in white linen and lace, carrying a bouquet down the aisle to wed another man. Such an imagination is one of the controversial topics of society today, and shallow thinking, at that, if the reader doesn’t press to go deeper into the meaning of the sentence.

The Union between God and man is easily construed if taken out of context and the intention of Scripture. In a sense, you could say that there came a time in my life when I encountered God for the first time, whether through the reading of Scripture, the preaching of Scripture, or the testimony of others. At any rate, I met Him who loved me greater than I’ve ever been loved, even in spite of my flaws.

This is the pattern by which we all encounter God, as Paul explained to the Thessalonians in 2 Thes 2:13-14:

As for us, we always thank God for you, dear brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. We are thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation, a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and by your belief in the truth. He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News; now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But the mere encounter of God is not the basis for ‘salvation’, which is a hard word to swallow for those who don’t understand what it is they must be saved from. Just by knowing there is a God doesn’t procure security. Simply referring to God as one of your ‘friends in high places’ isn’t going to cut it.

I watched Dan Brown’s book-turned-movie entitled, “Angels and Demons” this morning. From the standpoint of entertainment, five stars in my books. I’ve read the book some time ago, and what I remember seemed to be fairly accurate with the movie – but my memory alludes me sometimes.

The point that kept coming up for me over and over and over again was how God was portrayed to need our help, almost as if He were a retarded sibling, incapable of absolute sovereignty without assistance, and we were charged with caring for Him, to help Him in the responsibility of being God.

What struck me was that relationship with God was never brought up, but the work of God, however fallible it was, was the purpose of the Church.

One of the greatest statements that I ever heard came from a fellow minister, my friend Jim, who said, “We ministers often times excuse ourselves from true God-encountering time, placing our sermon preparations and our course studies in its place. What would happen if we focused on our relationship with God to the point that the ‘ministering’ that took place to our churches would happen as an overflowing of what God was doing in us? (paraphrase)”

What would happen if I sat down, sat still, and looked at my relationship with God from the standpoint that He and I were one, unified through the marriage that He invited me into? What if God became the most important reality in my life, surpassing all other responsibilities and relationships?

What if my marriage with my God became so impassioned that I found it easy to obey the Greatest Commandment, which says to “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

What if, at the end of my life (and I pray, selfishly, that it’s a long one!), I see my relationship with God as the couple in their eighties, reading each other’s thoughts and finishing each other’s sentences?

And you, the reader, may at this point of this paper, be concerned with the idea of heresy, because God is God and we are not, and to consider the idea that we can be unified with God to the point of becoming one flesh… well, what is it that we call ‘being filled with the Holy Spirit’ then? Is it not, in essence, one flesh?

‘But we can’t comprehend God in His entirety, nor can we devote all of who we are to Him without sacrificing other responsibilities and relationships…’

Oh, really?

If that is your stance, then I challenge you to re-address your relationship with God. Not ‘is it’, but do you want it to be shallow or intimate? Superficial or genuine? Effort or over-flowing abundance?

If you are married, now consider your marriage to your spouse: Do you want it to be shallow or intimate, superficial or genuine, effort or over-flowing abundance?

Now, pull out your dictionary, study the word ‘synergy’, and determine if you and your God share it together.

And I close with this Scripture, for I don’t wish to lead you to believe that I’ve got it all together:

“I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!

I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.” – Philippians 3:7-14 (NLT)

Oh, Baby It's Cold Outside!

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

But the fire is so delightful.

And since we’ve no place to go,

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

I was on my way to work yesterday morning, grateful for a working heater in my pickup. The thermometer registered a brisk thirty-six degrees – though not freezing, it’s still cold. The sun was out, the clouds were sparse, and from the cab of my truck, it seemed to be a warm day outside. Amazing.

I thought of how the day is slow to heat up, usually hitting its peak between three and six o’clock in the afternoon. As the day gives way to darkness, the temperature drops, and the only source of heat is what rises from the earth.

Then there’s the wind factor. A cold day can actually be comfortable if the wind isn’t blowing. On the other hand, a strong wind on even a cool day can seem to slice through your jacket. The dead of winter in the dead of night is absolute with strong winds pounding the earth and all that rests on its surface.

In that moment, I thanked God for my heater, my jacket, and my pickup.

I don’t really think about how cold it is outside until I have to go out into it; and the colder it is, I’m less apt to go out.

I get to the church parking lot, pause, then open my pickup door, feeling the wind outside roughly slide across my face and through the gaps in my coat around my collar and cuffs. I get out of my pickup, grab my bag and move quickly toward the front door. Once inside, I shake the cold off like a menacing gremlin, appreciating the building that keeps the outdoor climate conditions at bay.

I walk back to my office, turning up the thermostat a little bit as I walk past.

Human nature, I think, tends to like to stay where it’s comfortable. Minnesota homes don’t usually have air conditioning, did you know that? When it’s too cold, we complain. When it’s too hot, we complain.

And I should clarify the word ‘we’. A lot of speakers and writers use the word ‘we’ more with the definition of ‘you guys’, and I don’t want there to be any question that I do bunch myself into the whole ‘we’ crowd.

It’s just my opinion, but I think we are comfort driven to a fault, choosing our own comfortability over the needs of others. It’s easier to stay in our nest; it’s more work to get up and out and over to… someplace that’s not comfortable.

My mother used to like her house to be cold; around 65 in the summer, with the ceiling fans on high. When we would go visit, we could see our breath as we tried to sleep at night next to the sides of beef hanging from the ceiling. Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration.

And don’t you dare touch the thermostat without permission. Man, you’re just asking for a verbal ruler across your knuckles.

We protect our comfort zone as well. We train our bodies to require a small window of variance, mostly somewhere between 65 and 78 degrees in order to be physically comfortable. Any more or less, and we’re sweating or shivering.

My boss, whose wife is a pediatrician, was telling me yesterday about how he’s heard many middle-of-the-night phone conversations between his wife and the parent of one of her patients, which would go something like this: “Her temperature is what?... 104?... Yes, that is warm, but fever alone isn’t something to worry about. That’s how the body fights infection. Give her Tylenol and maybe a lukewarm bath in order to make her comfortable. Now how much does she weigh?...”

Can you imagine what life would be like if the sun’s heat wasn’t as hot as it is, even by five degrees?

Or, what if the earth stopped in mid-rotation for an entire day, say, on the other side of where we are? They would get an extra day of heat, while we sit in darkness, the cold getting deeper.

That’s what happened in Joshua 10. Joshua asked for home court advantage over the enemies of the Israelites by stopping the sun, and the LORD did just that.

But what if God shut the sun off for a while? Just pretend there wouldn’t be any global ramifications for a moment. By not having a sun, it would be dark and cold outside. No sun means no light, which means confusion. No sun means we’d stay close to what ever means of heat and light that could be found and maintained.

In a sense, God did shut off the sun for the Israelites. Coming into Advent, we remember the coming of the Christ child, and celebrate in the promise of the Second Coming.

The word ‘coming’ has an understood word attached to it – ‘back’.

The coming ‘back’ of God happened through the birth of a baby.

The ‘coming back’ of God was the beginning of the end of darkness and cold.

The ‘coming back’ of God was the beginning of the redemption of all who call Him LORD, the reclamation of His people, the re-instatement of the Holy Nation, whose citizenship is now open to all who confess Him as Savior and King.

As Christmas is coming, I hope to spread joy, sharing Christ with as many as possible. I do not wish to be one of the ‘we’ that is referred to in James 2:16: “If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”

I want to say, “Hey, why don’t you come in out of the cold?”

Mending the Broken

In my honest and humble opinion, the most overused words that come out of kids’ and adolescents’ mouths are ‘it was an accident’.

When they were young, one of my girls would come running into the room, tears in her eyes and crying hysterically because one of her sisters kicked her or punched her or pulled her hair or broke her toys. The culprit usually would be following close behind, prepared to plead her case, often times using the words ‘on accident’ in her defense.

Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes you can tell immediately when something is broken because it doesn’t work right, or even more obvious, when it’s lying on the floor in pieces. The sound of plates crashing to the floor is usually a dead giveaway, even before you look.

The brother of my friend, Jenny was in a horrible motorcycle accident; he was hit by an oncoming car in the middle of an intersection, a scenario often called a ‘T-bone’. I went to the hospital to visit him.

There he lay on the bed, with his current best friends, IV and pain meds, poking into his arm. Jenny showed me some pictures she had taken with her camera phone.

Talk about obvious. Rodney’s leg was absolutely, without a doubt, broken. The shin is supposed to be a straight line from the knee to the ankle, not take a detour midway down and protrude outward. Rodney was soon wheeled back for surgery, and they fixed the break and put a rod in the leg in order to straighten and reinforce the leg. Give it a couple of months, and he’ll be back on his feet, good as new.

A couple of month.

Crutches, pain meds, being off work, and incapable of living life to the full, life as it was before the accident can make a couple of months seem like forever. Sometimes the healing process can be more painful than the accident that rendered the break.

Sometimes there are warning signs that are less than subtle, screaming that something bad is about to happen. The sound of screeching tires and a car horn as you are preparing to cross an intersection is never a good sound.

America’s Funniest Home Videos puts together montages of ‘saw that coming’ type videos, clips that often include a toddler, a ball bat, and a father standing too close. Every time I see a piñata clip, I know someone’s about to get hit in the crotch, usually dad. It never fails. You’d think that Dad would know that by giving his toddler a ball bat, he ultimately expects to have no more children.

There’s a story where Jesus gives Peter a huge warning sign. In essence, he says, “you’re about to be broken, but after you have been mended, you’re going to be able to help others who have been broken. (Luke 22:32-33)”

And yes, Peter was broken, and yes, after the mending he became a Helper of the Broken.

For Peter, the point of ‘breakage’ was absolutely obvious - to him and everybody else. In a split second, he lost his honor, tainted his integrity, broke his word, and compromised his relationship with Jesus.

I’m sure that in that split second moment, Jesus’ words of promise, using the words “once you’ve returned”, were nowhere to be recalled. And that’s usually been the way it was with me; I forget important Scripture Promises, like “All things work to the good of those who love HIM, and are CALLED according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)” because the gravity of the situation is so in my face that I can’t shake away to see.

But sometimes there are no apparent warning signs.

Sometimes, stuff just happens, regardless of the blame, and things – and people – sometimes get broken.

Sometimes people are broken on the inside. Sometimes their drive is kicked out from under them, their momentum is shut down, their heart is ripped up. Sometimes, just by looking, you can’t tell that they’re broken, but they are.

Sometimes the break is instantaneous, other times it’s a gradual slide.

Sadly, sometimes they don’t realize they’re broken, or they deny the break, saying - and I quote Monty Python - ‘it’s just a flesh wound’.

Sometimes it’s obvious to everyone else but them.

I think we all know that feeling when something we value is broken; that gut sinking feeling that hits when you realize, not just the damage as assessed immediately, but the damage yet to be discovered.

In that split second, Peter’s gut sunk.

Healing and mending usually come by way of baby steps, often so miniscule that they’re immeasurable. It’s like watching a slug race.

Which goes against how we, as humans are. Being an’ instant gratification’ driven race, we expect to be able to be back on schedule, back on track, back on our feet in no time to return to work or before the game starts or by Christmas. The healing process doesn’t stay on track or abide within the schedule we establish. In fact, it laughs.

Healing does take place, but it also takes its time, a time of waiting. “But those who wait on the LORD will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30)”

Someone gave me a broken piano. Actually, it’s a beautiful piece of furniture, but as an instrument, it was genuinely worthless. What a shame that such a beautiful piece of furniture would be useless.

And when people are broken, we may still see them as beautiful; just not complete. We expect that when a person is ‘damaged’, then they’re not good for anything anymore.

Which is probably what Peter felt, even after Jesus came alive again. Damaged. Broken. Useless.

Jesus said, “and when you returned, you’ll strengthen your brothers.” This prophecy was pre-broken. It means that, although Peter was going to be broken, he was going to be repaired. Not only repaired, but stronger than before.

The piano cabinet set in my garage for over a year before I gleaned the parts out of it that I wanted. I remember thinking, “such a shame this piano is going to go to waste.” But then I thought…

I began to scheme and plan and reconsider the cabinet. I pulled the piano keys out, decorated them with outlines of my kids’ hands, and hung them on my wall. It’s now a piece of art; I call it “A Mother’s Wish.”

The cabinet has been gutted completely. It’s a computer desk now, complete with flat screen computer monitor and hideaway concealment of everything. When fully closed, you see it as a piano cabinet.

When we are broken, sometimes we have opportunity to be stronger than before. Sometimes we become a completely new creation. Even in the midst of ‘converting’ the cabinet, it was in ‘process’. And so are we when we are healing. In process.

“And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again. (Philippians 1:6)”

Opportunities

My brother drove all day and all night to get to Tahlequah, Oklahoma from Jacksonville, North Carolina for Thanksgiving - with his four children in the car.

Thanksgiving was everything it was supposed to be today: family, laughter, good food, fond memories, and new memories created. It's the one day of the year that is truly all about being thankful for what you have, with no hidden agendas or hurried schedules.

My parents, grandmother, sister and her three kids, brother and his four kids, my cousin and his wife and three kids, and my wife and I with our three filled the house out pretty good. We spent most of the day talking and corraling kids and eating - oh, my, did we eat!

It's now the end of the day. My sister and her kids went home, as did my grandmother. My brother and his kids are staying with my parents, and my cousin and his family are heading back to Tulsa for a BMX Tournament that his son is participating in.

And we've gone home ourselves. I'm about to post this blog and go to bed, but not without wondering if I couldn't have done a better job of loving my nieces and nephews, listening - just listening - to my brother and sister and grandmother, and appreciating my mom and dad, this of all days.

We, as a family are a blessed family. May your Thanksgiving Day today have been filled with love, laughter, and opportunities to value one another.

48 Words

Paul says, in I Thessalonians 2:4b-6:

"We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed - God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else."

Today's blog will be short, more in line as a challenge than a thought provoker.

What if this short 48-word shpiel were the primary premise in how we operate? If everything we did was not done for the sake of kudos or paychecks or future back scratches.

I'm not writing this because of the problems in the world, although I do see many of them. I write to suggest that to live with these 48 words as the main motivator in how we live, how we do things, would reduce many of the world's problems, like hunger and poverty and war and poor economic conditions and racial strains to little or no impact.

But I don't wish to be seen as writing this from the disengaged comforts of my home office, to safely and simply proclaim that there are problems in the world out there, and these 48 words alone would fix all of it's problems.

I confess to you, the reader, that I see a lacking, a falling short in my own life, and sometimes, no, most of the time, I stink at being real.

Which is why this verse gets me. These 48 words expose what I see in the mirror - a mask at times, a man-pleasing facade instead of pushing to be a God-reflection.

Real. Genuine. Honest. Trustworthy. These are traits that I don't just wish I had; I want to be known for having these characteristics.

Before I am seen as being clergy, I pray that I am seen as being genuine. Before I am known as being religious, I hope that people know me as being dependable and unselfish. Before I say a word, I desire that whoever is listening won't doubt that I believe what I speak to be the truth.

Today, I will work to leave my mask off all day long, and tomorrow, and the next day.

I pray that all that I do and say is pleasing in God's eyes, and that these 48 words, as spoken by God through the writings of Paul, will speak to me - and you - today.

My Man Card

Friday night, I stood in line with a sea of women to watch the latest in the Twilight Series, New Moon.

Lost in this sea of women was a smaller group, which included myself, my wife, our three daughters, a friend from out of town and her daughter, a friend of my middle daughter, and my oldest daughter's boyfriend, Justin.


Seven girls, two guys. Nine of us in all.


If we could have, I think Justin and I would've escaped to another theatre, maybe watch 2012, or The Blind Side, or even Where The Wild Things Are - anything but a teenybopper flick. But, you know as well as I do that that wasn't going to happen.


I looked around and I realized that Justin and I were grossly outnumbered. There must have been two or three hundred other females ranging from junior high to senior adult just to see the new short-haired, beefed up Jacob.


I look back over the crowd of waiting movie patrons - a line that goes out the exit door and curves down the sidewalk - and count the heads of my male counterparts. From my point in the line, which is close to the front, I count seven.

I take out my cell phone. Technology, even my limited LG Shine, allows me to update my status on Twitter and Facebook. I post my place and position, expressing the raging excitement in my bones - ugh - and put my phone away.

Within the next five minutes, I must have 4 or 5 replies from women, friends of mine, wishing to trade me places at that particular moment in time.

I get a text message from a friend named Holly, replying to my Facebook post: "How many man cards did that cost ya?" Before thinking, and with a poor attempt at humor, I reply, "All of them!"


Hey, wait a minute! What was I thinking?! Justin, myself and the other seven shmucks may have come kicking and screaming, giving in to the puppy dog eyes of our wives and girlfriends, but give up our man card? I don't think so!!


We are finally admitted to the theatre and fill an entire row of seats. The previews come and go, and the movie begins.


This is Friday evening, and the movie officially opened at 12:01am, earlier that morning. I tell you this because I'm not certain if the group sitting right in front of us had read the book (if these details are even in the book) or saw the movie the night before, but they literally shushed the entire theatre during the motorcycle scene, when Jacob was about to take off his shirt.

Omigosh!

And when he did, there was this massive air movement as every woman in that overcrowded theatre gasped at the same time. I almost blacked out from oxygen deprivation.

Throughout the movie - which is very, VERY teenybopper - I realized that the premise behind the story is really nothing new. Girl falls in love with two different guys from opposing gangs, which results in heightened levels of aggression, leading to a climactic fight scene. Sounds a lot like West Side Story, only the gangs are vampires and werewolves.


Welllll, I'm not going to ruin it for you, but that basic premise is almost true. The ending is abrupt, with no defined winner, or loser - at least, not until later in the movie series. We go out to eat after the movie, then head home.

I check my Facebook account the next morning, and I don't know if he's trying to encourage or antagonize me, but a close Marine friend of my brother has slammed me, using words like, 'sitting to pee' and stuff like that. I met Israel in August when I went out to North Carolina to visit my brother, and automatically liked him. Rugged, manly, military, Officer, kind of the typical Marine... need I say more?


On the day I met Israel, I looked at him, then I looked at my brother, both Marines, both Officers, and then I looked at myself: Clergy, musician, non-military, non-Monday Night Football, Non-hunter, living in a house full of women.


Now, I know what you're thinking. But before you go there, let me let you in on a little sumpin, sumpin.


I am, and forever will be a Lifetime Card Carrying member of the Male Gender. My Man Card has no expiration date, and is 100% non-revocable, non-transferrable, non-takeable or giveupable. I'll put my Man Card up against anyone's, any day, any time.


And even now, as I am comfortable in preparing to sort laundry and empty the dishwasher, I can safely say that any man who says they don't do laundry or dishes or don't go to the chick flicks with the women in their life is in denial, and your Man Card is at risk. Doing these things is just part of being a man.

Let me explain.

Real men do laundry, or else they wear traintracked underwears and wrinkled shirts. Real men do dishes, or else they eat off of paper plates and takeout. Real men help clean house, or else they never get to have friends over. Real men go watch New Moon when their wife or girlfriend asks, no, tells them to, or else they sleep on the couch, alone, with a bankie.


And another thing: Guys, if you're married, or dating, guess what? If you haven't been to a chick flick yet, your time's comin'. You will go - just get your Man Card out and show it to the clerk when he takes your ticket stub at the gate. Who knows, you might even tear up during the kissy-face scenes. And never, never deny it.


So if you're proud of your Man Card, you'd better man up, boy.

Not As It Appears

Today is Friday, my official day off. After I drop the girls off at school, I have an errand to run, then I'm heading to the storage shed to work on my piano.

Well...

It's not really a piano anymore, you see. It's days of melodious beauty are long, long gone, and my choices were to either rebuild it, strings and action and all, throw it away or burn it, or find another use for it.

I chose the latter.

There were hundreds of piano manufacturers at the turn of the twentieth century, many of which put more emphasis on building beautiful looking pieces of furniture instead of beautiful sounding instruments. Elaborate woodwork, exotic and fine woods were the selling point, more so than the 100-200 individual components per key, and the craftsmanship that most people would never raise the lid to appreciate.

If you've ever moved one of these archaic monstrosities, you know that they didn't skimp on materials. They usually require three or four, maybe six strong guys to heft them through the doorway... and please, please stay away from stairs with one of these babies. Glad bags are strong, but not THAT strong!

Anyway, being a beautiful cabinet sitting in storage, I got the crazy idea (maybe not so crazy - we'll see) of converting the piano cabinet into a useful piece of furniture, say a computer desk.

Yes, I'm aware of the fact that I may have thrown a bone to the curious, and I promise that once we're closer to being completed, then I'll take pictures and post, either here or on Facebook.

It's a funny look on people's faces when they see something not used as it was intended. But I just can't throw it out; it's too pretty.

It's Like Playing Piano

It's now 7:28am, and my daughters, Shelby and Sara, are punching and pounding on the piano behind me. And I smile, because they're one-fingering Jingle Bells, independently of one another, and on both ends of the keyboard, and honestly, it's pretty horrible.

Now, Sara has pulled out one of the intermediate piano lesson books (which is considerably more advanced than her abilities), and is trying to figure out the left hand part of Allen Ellmenreich's 'Spinning Song' - while Shelby starts on the top end of the keyboard with a purely accidental improv that mechanically fits and sounds, well, kind of cool.

It doesn't take Sara long to get overwhelmed or bored or impatient or whatever it is that makes her turn the page and look at other music. The girls are having a good time, playing together and laughing - more having a good time with each other than seriously trying to make music, although, in essence, they really are.

Here's the spot where I could go on a tangent about how a culturally rounded individual is a great contributor to the home, the workplace, and the community, but I won't. The research is there to prove it - plus, I'd look like a hypocrite, since none of my kids are in private lessons of any kind at the present (although they sing, and are developing nicely).

Instead, I listen to my girls play Heart and Soul, sometimes laughing as they listen to one another butchering the piece. The music that emanates from their hearts by way of their brain, through their fingers, onto the keys and out through the piano's cabinet is their own, based on their abilities...

Which is one of the motivators of music students and musicians. We hear what others play and we want to play it too. I'd love to be able to play Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is", but that would require the time to sit and listen and study, maybe watch a YouTube video or two.

So from the musical standpoint, Proverbs 27:17 applies to the gleaning and mentoring that goes on between musicians, whether it's direct or even cognizant of the gleaning. It reads: "Let iron sharpen iron, and so let a person sharpen his friend."

There's a show on the Public Television channel called "The Piano Guy", where the host, Scott Houston shares a familiar tune with step by step instructions on how to play it. He also has guest artists present their renditions of familiar numbers, which is always cool to me because I love to 'borrow' riffs and chords from other players.

In college, I had a friend who could play the intros to many of the piano rock songs on the radio: Journey, Van Halen, the Eagles. He always picked them out by ear, and he was pretty good. I think that's as far as he wanted to develop at that time as a musician. He was a smart guy and had other interests, but he wanted to be able to play a few songs on piano, so he learned to play them by ear.

I will tell you that it's easier to glean what you're wanting to glean when you have what it takes to know how to glean it.

Sara couldn't grasp Ellmenreich because her abilities are not developed enough. I can't play some of the things I hear others play, mainly because my ear training isn't developed enough to pick it up. Musical maturity arrives in platforms and stages, kind of like climbing a staircase, each one dependent on the platform of learning that the student has come from.

Some students can figuratively run up the stairs of learning, while others struggle from step to step.

The parallels of maturing musicianship and the maturing relationship with God are very much alike in that both 'ships' often mature in small baby-like steps, often times with significant markers along the journey.

One of the markers in my life as a musician was when I conquered Beethoven's "Fur Elise". The day that I played this song completely and without errors, I remember such an air of accomplishment, of victory. "Ah", I thought, "I have arrived at greatness..." which was so far from the truth, and, honestly, I now admit to you that I hate Fur Elise in its traditional form.

When God called me to leave the secular workforce and go into ministry, well, that was a huge marker, with tons of baby steps leading up to it. It was at the precise moment of taking just so many baby steps that I was at the place where God would be able to get my attention and make the call on my life come to fruition. But contrary to my sense of victory following my first performance of Fur Elise, I can't tell you that I've arrived at greatness.

Just more baby steps.

I have learned that my walk with God is so much like learning to play piano; the true pianist never quits learning, practicing, growing and listening.

Here's your 'iron' for the day: Just because you know a few songs on the piano doesn't make you a pianist.

I Feel Like Christian Slater...

My wife thinks Christian Slater's hot.

And I'd love to say that that's why I feel like Christian Slater. I mean, don't get me wrong, my wife thinks I'm hot too (at least I HOPE she still does...), and I like Christian Slater as an actor... not so much his hair though.

But that's not why I feel like Christian Slater today, especially if you know that I can't slick my hair back like he does.

Have you ever seen his movie, "Pump Up The Volume," where he's this quiet, reclusive high school student that doesn't have any social life whatsoever? That is, until the sun goes down, and it's time for his nightly radio rant show.

It's during his one-hour show that the meek and introverted Mark Hunter, whose radio alter-ego is 'Hard Harry' (both played by Christian Slater) hooks up his radio broadcast equipment, turns his microphone up, and blasts his thoughts and ideas across the air waves, not seemingly knowing or caring who hears.

Can you imagine the idea of sloshing your thoughts and ideas out into the air like a bucket of water, letting them fall where they may, and not worrying about criticism or rebuke?

Yeah...

I never thought of blogging, posting my writ on the Internet to be read, reviewed, and agreed or disagreed with, until a friend suggest I do so. I've been slapped with moments of situational inspiration for years, writing my thoughts and ideas in Word documents and saving them to my computer... but on the Internet?

Wow, that's scary! What if someone doesn't like what I have to say? What if they disagree? What if it positively or negatively affects their view on the subject, or... what if it's never read at all?

Yeah...

Today I feel like Christian Slater. Or maybe it's Hard Harry. Or Mark Hunter.

In any case, here goes.

My writings and thoughts tend to revolve around biblical relevancies and applications to life as a husband, father, youth pastor, interactor of sociey, son, brother and friend. I am far from perfect, nor am I an authority in Biblical Literature or Theology - I don't read Greek - but it seems that I am an expert in my own experiences, and I believe that the audience of God's Voice in Print is not limited to the highly astute and well versed, but the layman, the parishioner, the 'child at heart' as well.

If my writings do anything, I hope that they ignite a desire and passion to go deeper, look harder, listen more closely to what God says through His Words as it applies to their life situations and conditions.

I've never done a blog before, so I'm a little apprehensive about sloshing myself out there, especially on a routine basis. I have begun to pray daily for a pillar of clouds and fire.

With all of this said, welcome to my Blog. Thanks for reading.