Four Stories Part Four – The Teenager

I accepted Christ as my savior in a Vacation Bible School in Evansville, Indiana, in 1954 when I was eleven. My parents found a small Baptist church that some of their friends attended and my mother and I were baptized on the same day. She died of Leukemia two years later, the first real test of my Christian faith.

As a freshman in high school, I joined the Youth for Christ club that met weekly after school in the teacher/sponsor’s class room. Each meeting began and ended with a prayer usually led by the teacher, Mrs. Saltzman. We would discuss temptations and problems we were going through as teenage Christians and would plan outings together. As Youth for Christ members we were notified of every Billy Graham crusade. We watched them on TV then discussed them at our next meeting. In that time of racial hatred and tension I was struck by the scenes of African-American and white men and women peacefully worshiping together and I instinctively knew that is how it should be. I saw Billy Graham and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stand side by side on the platform at Madison Square Garden and proclaim that there is only one race – the human race and everyone in that race needs Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. I witnessed the love and respect Billy Graham and his team had for Ethel Waters, the very warm reception she always received from worshipers of all races, and the love she showed to “My boy, Billy” and his team.

I had been spared from the racial hatred that existed in some homes in those days. I never heard my parents say anything negative about African-Americans and as president of his local auto workers’ union my father welcomed African-American workers into the union in the face of very strong opposition.

More than 50 years later, when I visited Christian Life Center for the first time it felt like I was coming home to the Spirit filled services of the Billy Graham crusades where all of God’s people worshiped Christ together listening to a message not based on church doctrine or tradition, but on the inspired word of God.

 

 

Discrimination

Being a discriminating person was once a very positive attribute. It meant that person was able to wisely choose the best food, clothing, furniture, etc. The term began to turn negative when people began to choose one group of people as better than other groups. I grew up in a time when there was some very real negative discrimination that was based on what political party a person supported; whether they were management or labor; rich or poor; had a college degree or high school diploma; and yes – the color of their skin.

According to scripture, bad discrimination doesn’t always involve race. To choose one group of people over another for any reason is a sin. James wrote, “My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others? For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, ‘You can stand over there or else sit on the floor’ well doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?”  “Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Lev. 19:18) But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.” (James 2:1-5 & 8-9)

That brings me to one of my favorite topics – stereotyping. Judging a person by the group to which they belong. Our society has become increasingly divided because stereotyping more groups of people than I can even begin to list here has become standard practice. Stereotyping puts each of us in a box with others who share one quality with us. We then become fearful or hateful toward anyone in a different box. EVERY stereotype is false and exposes evil motives. Every box is falsely labeled and is a figment of someone’s evil imagination. God created each of us as unique individuals. We each have unique DNA, experience different environments and have free will to react to those environments differently. With the possible exception of identical siblings, no group of two or more people is alike. The larger the group the more variety exists within it.

The main way to explode those many stereotypes and break out of our boxes is to begin to judge each individual we meet only by their words, actions and character, just as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed for his children. Paul made it clear many times in his letters that individuals who teach false doctrines or create dissension in the church should be expelled. As far as is possible we need to expel those individuals from our lives too.

As Christian believers, we share a most important quality. We each have the same Holy Spirit within us and I gladly share that box with my brothers and sisters in Christ in spite of any superficial differences we may have. But instead of fearing or hating those non-believers outside of our box we are commanded to love them and try to lead them to Christ.

Four Stories Part Three – The Preacher

 

In 1918, a baby boy was born on a farm in North Carolina. He was named William Franklin Graham, Jr. and since his father was Bill, everyone called him Billy.  As a teenage farm boy, he attended a tent revival meeting in a nearby town and came forward to accept Christ as his savior.  As he attended high school and college he felt God’s increasing call for him to preach the Gospel and he discovered to his surprise that he had a gift for it.

In 1945, at the age of 27, he began to put together an evangelistic team to hold revival meetings in auditoriums and stadiums (even a circus tent on one occasion). He called the meetings crusades because he had a vision of conquering the world for Jesus Christ. With the help of local churches the services were packed and large choirs were assembled. They soon began broadcasting the services on a national radio network and the young preacher became respected and admired throughout the country.

In the midst of his success and popularity, Billy Graham did the unthinkable at that time; he made the decision that he was never again going to hold a segregated crusade. He felt so strongly that this was God’s will that in 1953 he held his first integrated three night crusade in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where more than 100,000 people of all races worshiped side by side and came forward together to accept Christ. Later that year he held an integrated crusade in Jackson, Mississippi. Satan decided he had seen enough, so in 1955, a major TV network offered Billy Graham a five year, one million dollar contract to host a daily TV show opposite Arthur Godfrey. That would have made Billy and his family financially set for life but also would have put the crusades on hold for five years (maybe forever). Billy already had commitments to hold crusades in London and New York City so he turned down that tempting offer.

In 1957, a very ambitious sixteen week summer crusade was planned for New York City. They would hold nightly services in Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium or Time Square. To make sure the services were well integrated, in addition to his nightly sermons; Billy preached in the largest church in Harlem and then preached to thousands in Brooklyn. One of his team heard a radio interview with Ethel Waters. When she was asked if she thought the New York City crusade would be successful, Ethel answered, “Of course it will be. God doesn’t back no flops.” Billy contacted her and invited her to a crusade meeting in Madison Square Garden to sing His Eye Is on the Sparrow and she accepted. She rededicated her life to Christ that evening. At the end of that sixteen week New York City crusade which drew an estimated 2,300,000 people not counting the huge radio and TV audiences, Billy asked Martin Luther King, Jr. how he could help with the civil rights movement and Dr. King told Billy to stay down south holding integrated crusades while he took to the streets with protest marches. So Billy held crusades all across Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas with Ethel Waters traveling with him and performing as her health permitted. If you google “ethel waters with billy graham” you will see a You Tube video of Ethel Waters singing His Eye Is On the Sparrow on Mothers’ Day at a 1975 crusade in Jackson, Mississippi. She was 78 but her voice and witness were as strong as ever. What you don’t see and hear in that video is the 90 second standing ovation she received from that multicultural crowd that would have gone on even longer if she hadn’t motioned for them to be seated.

Protection From Fear

Most Americans are familiar with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous statement, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR was very familiar with fear. As a college student he struggled to overcome his great fear of public speaking. Then when polio struck him and paralyzed his legs, he faced a new fear that stayed with him for the rest of his life. He became deathly afraid of being trapped in a burning building and not being able to get out because of his handicap.

Fear is a powerful emotion and that makes it a powerful weapon in the hands of the enemy. We live in an age of terrorists whose threats and actions are designed to create extreme fear. They know once fear controls us, in a very real sense, they have gained control of our lives as well. Every dictator the world has known has use fear to gain and maintain power over their citizens. A lot of times we fear the unknown or something that might happen tomorrow or in the future. Research has shown that most of those things we fear never actually happen and the ones that do take place are not nearly as bad as our imagination made them out to be, but even when our fear is unfounded, it can still cause us to react irrationally.

This winter we have experienced a lot of bugs going around including; colds, flu, bronchitis and pneumonia affecting families and groups of all ages. In a way, fear can be a contagious disease too. When we are around fearful people we begin to show the symptoms of fear; becoming over cautious and even a little paranoid. How can we protect ourselves from this sickness?

When we are already suffering from fear we need an antidote and the best one I know is God’s perfect love. As the Apostle John wrote in one of his letters, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.” (1 John 4:18) The only one worth fearing is God who has both our body and our soul in His hands. When we are adopted into God’s family through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we no long need to fear God’s judgement. Jesus died in our place and has paid the penalty for our sins.

Once we are free from fear, what we need are regular inoculations of God’s love that will prevent fear from reentering our life. A weekly shot of worship will not do the trick. It will take a daily dose of prayer and devotional Bible study. Maybe a good place to start would be 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.”

 

Four Stories Part Two – The Singer

In 1905, while Civilla Martin was writing the lyrics for “His eye is on the sparrow”, a nine-year-old African-American girl was growing up in the slums of Philadelphia. Her teenage mother had been raped at knife point by John Waters and she rejected her daughter at birth, sending the baby to live with her grandmother and two aunts. Her grandmother worked long hours as a housekeeper so little Ethel didn’t really have a childhood with someone to nurture and rear her. At that young age she had dropped out of school and was working as a housekeeper, doing other odd jobs and pretty much running wild. She had a gift for singing and dancing and as a teenager even performed in local clubs. On her 21st birthday she was performing at a Halloween party when she was signed by a promoter from an African-American vaudeville troupe to travel with them singing the blues. She was tall and slender so they billed her as Miss Stringbean. While on tour she began recording. One composer wrote a blues song especially for her titled “Stormy Weather”. She was also cast to sing; dance and act in several movies. She received national attention and became a celebrity in the 1930s and 1940s. By 1950, she was no longer slender and was showing her age. The director of a Broadway show, “A Member of the Wedding”, wanted her to play a middle aged nanny for two white children. In the play she would sing a song to calm and comfort them. That song just didn’t feel right to Ethel and she suggested “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” instead. He loved the idea; signed her for the part and put that song in the play. Two years later they made a movie by the same name and she kept her role and sang that song in the movie. So the well-known and loved Ethel Waters would now be forever associated with that song.

Heaven On Earth

At my wife’s memorial service three years ago I began by sharing a quote from one of Mark Twain’s last writings. He depicted Adam as an old man kneeling beside Eve’s grave and saying, “Where she was – there was paradise.” In his old age, even that naturally cynical writer recognized that love can bring a bit of heaven to earth.

At our weekly breakfast meeting, one of my brothers in Christ shared that he recently came to the realization that Jesus didn’t just come to make a way for us to enter heaven some day when we die. He brought heaven down to earth with Him. His love and ministry give us more than a glimpse of heaven. He taught his disciples (and us) to pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9-13) He told us and then showed us just how much God loves us. (John 3:16) He taught us and then demonstrated how to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul and all of our mind, (Matthew 22:37) and then to love others as much as we love ourselves. (Matthew 22:39) His life, death and resurrection not only opens the gates of heaven to all who believe, but allows us, in His name, to actually enter God’s presence while we are still here on earth. It has been my experience that as we worship, praise, petition and give thanks to our Heavenly Father in prayer and song, we experience as much heaven as our finite minds and earthly bodies can handle.

We say that we strive as Christians to become Christ-like, emulating Him in our words and deeds, but are we sharing a bit of heaven with everyone around us as He did? We don’t need to have influence over the entire world. We can share God’s love and our love with everyone in our corner of the world. When we do, we will give family, friends, neighbors and even our enemies a taste of heaven here on earth and with the help and prompting of the Holy Spirit, that appetizer can stimulate a hunger within them for more of heaven and of God’s love.

Jesus has shown us that love is not just an emotion. It is a way of life – His way of life – and ours as His followers.

Four Stories Part One – The Song

Storytelling is becoming a lost art, but that is the way history and culture has been passed from generation to generation over the centuries. I have always enjoyed telling true stories about my own experiences or sharing stories of others I have known or studied. Beginning today and for the next three Wednesdays, I want to share four separate stories with you that have converged to explain how I became the Christian man I am today.

Four Stories Part One – The Song

In 1905 (when my parents were just entering the world) Civilla Martin, a Canadian born preacher’s wife, travelled with her husband to Elmira, New York, where they encountered a saintly married couple named Doolittle. Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle were always smiling and gave encouragement and inspiration to everyone they met in spite of the fact Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for almost 20 years and Mr. Doolittle was an incurable cripple who propelled himself to and from his business each day in a wheelchair.

Once, while the Martins were visiting that wonderful Christian couple, Reverend Martin asked them, “What is your secret for keeping such a positive outlook?” Mrs. Doolittle quickly replied, “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.” That simple statement of faith deeply affected Civilla Martin and when she got home she wrote down those words and then began to write the words of a song. The next day she sent the lyrics to a friend of theirs who was a composer and he added the melody. Although it would later became widely known as an African-American spiritual, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” was inspired by a white couple and was written by a white preacher’s wife. It is a perfect example of how God’s truth crosses all cultural and racial divides!

Look Up

I tend to spend a lot of time looking down. I walk with difficulty with a cane, so I keep a close eye on the ground or floor to make sure I don’t trip or slip on something. I do most of my writing and computer work in my easy chair with the laptop actually on my lap requiring me to lean forward a little to look down at the screen and keyboard. As a result, my neck tends to get stiff and sore unless I stretch frequently by straightening my shoulders and looking up for a while. I think that is what we also need to do frequently in our daily walk with the Lord. The Message translation of Colossians 3:1 clearly points that out to us; “So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

Spending time every day alone with God is an important stretching exercise. Reading and studying His word; thanking Him; praising Him; then asking for His blessings for me and for others gets the kinks out of my neck spiritually as I look up to Him. I can’t even imagine feeling grateful and not knowing who to thank or feeling lost and not knowing who to ask for directions. We are so fortunate to be able to have such a personal relationship with God through His Son.

When death takes your soulmate, it is a painful reminder when you come home and want to say, “You’ll never guess what happened to me today” and there is no one with whom to share your experience. Thank God I am never alone. I share everything with Him, not just when I get home or during my devotions, but every minute and every step of the way. When something unexpectedly falls into place, I immediately look up and say, “Only you Lord, only you.” When I have a close call, I immediately thank Him for His protection. When I see someone else doing something stupid or foolish, I look up with a smile and say, “There but for your grace go I”.

There is another form of stiff neck we must avoid – stubbornness. May the Lord never say this about us, “For I know how stubborn and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron. Your heads are as hard as bronze.” (Isaiah 48:4) Lord, keep our necks flexible and our minds open to your truth.

 

 

 

Hatred

Will Rogers traveled throughout our great country and then said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” I can’t honestly say that and I doubt there are many people who can. What I can say is that I never met anyone – man or woman – that I could hate. To like or not like someone is a rational decision we all make every day based on a person’s words, actions and attitude. To hate someone, on the other hand, is a very strong emotion that has nothing to do with rational thinking.

One common misconception people have is that hate is the opposite of love. Actually the opposite of love is indifference. You care about someone or you don’t. Love (deepest caring) is at one end of the spectrum and indifference (not caring at all) is at the other end and hatred is nowhere to be found on the love scale.

Another misconception is that anger and hatred are the same thing only differing in degree. Anger is our rational reaction to an action, event or injustice. It is focused and it is temporary. Hatred is an irrational reaction toward a person or group of people based on lies by someone who intends it to be a permanent condition. Once inside us hatred eats away like termites quietly eating away the inside of a wood support beam until all that is left is a hollow shell. Yes, it sometimes causes harm to those who are the object of the hatred, but it always destroys the hater mentally, spiritually and even physically.

No one is born with hatred in his or her heart. So what is the source – how does it get there? Someone respected and trusted teaches it to us, using our trust and respect to instill lies about a person or certain group of people to promote that person’s bias. A refugee from North Korea spoke about the severe starvation in that country. He said all of the hungry first graders are taught when they enter school that the reason they are so hungry is because every time their caring leader buys ship loads of rice to feed the people the United States sinks every ship before it reaches shore. Those are seeds of hatred against us that are being sown in the hearts of five and six year old children.

The sparks of racial hatred that were all around me as I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s were fanned into flames by the lies of cult groups that even debased the symbol of Christianity (the cross) in their expression of that hatred. My father became the object of some of those haters when as president of his local union in Evansville, Indiana; he made sure his union represented all workers, including African-Americans.

We all saw firsthand the flames of hatred as those planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. Some have asked how those terrorists could hate us so much, insinuating that we must have done something really bad to deserve that much rage against us. The fact is, those men were educated in mosques and schools run by Muslim clerics of an extreme cult in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. From the beginning of their “education” they were indoctrinated daily with the lie that Israel, the United States and anyone who supports them are part of the great Satan that threatens the very existence of Islam and the sparks of hatred within them were produced. Those sparks were fanned into flames of hatred with the lies that it was their duty to Allah to eliminate all who threaten Islam. By that time, their hatred included everyone who was not a member of their cult. Nothing we could say or do as individuals or as a nation could influence them in the least.

The antidote for hatred has always been truth. All sources of hate have one lie in common. They all say that those who are the object of the hatred are liars. That keeps the haters from getting to know those they hate and learn the truth about them. The lies of racial supremacy groups were shattered when integration and individual racial interaction made the truth clear that we all share the same needs and hopes. As Christians, we are in the best position to combat hatred with the truth of God’s word, the teachings and example of Jesus Christ throughout his life, death and resurrection, and the promptings of His “Spirit of truth” within us.