Month: October 2018

Here is another short, but hopefully powerful blog post. Some time ago I ran across a brief story about the world renowned British/American stage and screen actor, director and producer Charles Laughton, who died in 1962. About three years ago I shared it with the men’s group at CLC and I nearly choked up at the end. This story still touches me so deeply that I’m sure I’d do that again if I tried to tell it to you today.

As a young stage actor, he was invited by a friend to an English manor for Christmas dinner. After enjoying a fabulous meal, they all moved to the parlor where the host announced it was a family tradition on Christmas for each person to share their favorite passage of scripture. Charles Laughton began by standing and giving a passionate recitation of the 23^rd Psalm. When he finished they all cheered and applauded. They continued around the room until they finally came to an elderly aunt who had dozed off in her chair. They gently shook her and asked if she had a scripture she would like to share. She nodded yes and with a soft voice she began, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want…” When she was finished there was not a dry eye in the room. Later, as they were saying their goodbyes, the host commented to the actor about the very different response he and the old lady had received. Charles Laughton replied, “The answer is simple. I know the Psalm, she knows the Shepherd.”

We could read the Bible from cover to cover again and again memorizing verse after verse, but it would just be a mental exercise. It only becomes a matter of the heart when we know the Shepherd personally.

God continues to shower me with blessings even in my time of great trial and difficulty.

I had to give up my dog because I couldn’t afford to get her proper medical attention. A friend connected me with a rescue center for older dogs and they are taking very good care of her. This is the first time in 47 years that I have not been a “doggy daddy” and now I am completely alone; at least it may seem that way. My car is out of commission and I don’t have the funds to repair it or buy another right now, so for the first time in my life I have lost my independence. But I will never be completely alone or helpless as long as my Lord continues to walk with me every step of the way and provide brothers and sisters in Christ who are more than eager to assist me.

Albert Einstein once said, “I never think about the future. It comes fast enough.” My future has come so quickly and now I have much more past than I have future. As you get older, you learn to appreciate the wisdom of Matthew 6:34 and live for today while looking forward to one day at a time. Doing that is very liberating and I wish I could have been living this way a lot earlier in my life.

Whatever difficulties you face, never forget that as a Christian you are never alone or without help. Just keep the lines of communication open with God through prayer and worship. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will fight your battles and ease your burden. He will give you inner peace through any storm that comes your way. I have experienced it myself and I know that His promises are true and His grace, mercy and love are stronger than any power on earth. “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

I hope you don’t mind me sharing my personal struggles and experiences with you, but I know some of you are going through rough times and I want you to know that there is reason for hope and comfort. God is good and so are His children.

Have you ever had “one of those weeks” when it seems like you are experiencing both good and bad times all at once? This week has been like that for me. In just five days I have experienced three heartbreaking loses and three experiences that could only be described as miraculous blessings. My life has been an elevator gone out of control, shooting to great heights, plunging to the depth of despair then right back up to the top again. I couldn’t begin to share with you all that has happened to me in such a short period of time. It has shaken and tested my confidence in a way I have never experienced before. As difficult as it is to do, I continue to pray for and expect a positive outcome with confidence. I know God already won the ultimate victory over my life when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

Are you confident? What or who is it that gives you confidence?  It isn’t self-confidence that we need in such turbulent times as these. It is too easy to become over confident in our own abilities when things are going well and then lose confidence when we face serious challenges above our pay grade. Job said, “Their confidence hangs by a thread. They are leaning on a spider’s web.” (Job 8:14)

God’s word also warns us to be very careful in whom we place confidence. “Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there.” (Psalms 146:3) “Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot.” (Proverbs 25:19) God also warns us not to put confidence in wealth or material possessions. Those things then become our idols and He warns us about idolatry in His very first commandment that is written in stone.

So that leaves us with only one in whom we can place our confidence; the one who knew us even before we were born and knows everything about us, even the number of hairs on our head. “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.” (Jeremiah 17:7) So I put my confidence in my Lord when I face dire straits and I praise Him when I am lifted to new heights. In either situation He gives me confidence and strength.

I normally post to this site on Sunday and Wednesday, but this one is a day late due to a large event I was working yesterday. I do administrative work from home for the Greater Chicago Pest Management Alliance. That includes managing promotion and registration for their educational seminars and conferences. The largest event is an annual all-day conference at a Convention Center less than a mile from my home.

When that regional association was formed in 2004, I served on the board of directors and was their first education committee chairman (for the first few years I was the entire education committee). Yesterday was the twelfth year of our “Meeting of the Minds” conference. I had a desire to bring in speakers from universities throughout the country to share the latest research in their fields in order to promote the effectiveness, professionalism and safety of our members. I was thrilled that we had over a hundred attendees for that first conference. It has drawn over 300 attendees for the past five years. Attendance yesterday was 340.

Now that you know the background, let me get to the point. I spent the whole day greeting and catching up with old friends. During my 25 years working in the pest control industry and my continued work with GCPMA after that, I have formed good friendships with my supervisors and mentors; the people I supervised and mentored; my peers; and even my competitors. Those friendships are very precious to me. It is amazing and gratifying how many good friendships have formed over the years.

My men’s group at church is called Iron Men. It is based on Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron a friend sharpens a friend.” Our meetings are like those of the early churches we read about in the New Testament. We break bread together; we laugh together; we share our prayer requests and burdens; and we rejoice over praise reports about what God is doing in our lives. Last week one man shared that he has been healed of serious kidney disease. We are more than friends – we are brothers. God’s spirit moves in our midst and miracles take place. My friends not only keep me sharp they bless me. I love to rejoice about their successes and pray with them for burdens to be lifted.

There is a new TV series on CBS at 8:00 pm central time on Sunday evening called God Friended Me. It is technically oriented to appeal to young viewers, but the relationships touch my heart. Check it out when you get a chance. Long before Face Book or Twitter, God sought to restore our friendship with Him, He sent His Son to die for us while we were still enemies. There is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends. What a friend we have in Jesus.

This past Thursday, my dog wasn’t feeling well. She stopped eating and I wanted to get something to entice her to eat. I went to the store to get a rotisserie chicken for us and some coleslaw for me. I can’t use a shopping cart as a walker, so I usually shop at Walmart because they have their electric carts near the entrance. There was not one handicap parking spot available there, so I decided to try a local chain store on my way back home. I was sitting in the parking lot when a shopper stopped and asked if I needed a cart. I told her I needed an electric cart and she offered to go get one for me. A few minutes later a young lady who works there came out the door on a cart waving and shouting to me, “I’m on my way!” When she got there, I told her she was an angel of mercy. She said, “Almost. I died twice last year.” I said, “Wow! I’m glad you are still with us.” Then I told her, “I haven’t died once yet, but I have been born twice.” Her broad smile told me she knew exactly what I meant.

In the crowded store, people considerately made room for me to maneuver past them to get to the deli. There were a couple of people ahead of me and they were calling numbers but I couldn’t see a ticket dispenser so I asked a customer where she got her number and she said, “I’ll get you one.” The counter was too high to reach from the cart, so the woman waiting on me brought my food all the way around the counter and handed it to me with a smile. The man who was next in line said, “I tried save you a trip by offering to hand it to him.” She said, “I don’t mind. It’s part of my job.” On the way out of the store the same young woman who brought the cart to me followed me to my car to bring the cart back into the store. I inquired about her health problems and she told me she falls every other day. She said, “No, I literally fall every other day. I fell this morning so I’m good now until Saturday.” I wished her soft landings and improved health as I drove away.

Why am I sharing all of this with you? There is so much anger and hatred in our society today. It seems every news item is negative. Activists on all sides deliberately widen every gap or division that separates us. But when people encounter each other one on one, kindness and civility still exist. Don’t get me wrong. I know there are some uncaring, self-centered people in the world. Some of the folks who moved out of my way in the store might have done so in self-defense instead of kindness, but there is a lot more civility and kindness than we are led to believe. No one cared about my age, gender, race, political affiliation or what church, if any, I attend. They simply saw another human being in need and they wanted to help. It is at times like that when I realize my physical limitation might actually be an advantage, because it helps me bring out the best in people. For a few minutes their focus is on someone else’s needs instead of their own problems. I am blessed greatly by every kind act, no matter how large or small and I know it brightens their day when they are able to reach out and help another person. Kindness is love in action and God wants us – no, commands us – to love one another as He loves us.

My devotion this morning described C.S. Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. Lewis was an English professor and a devout atheist. He began to study the Bible in order to disprove it. He later wrote, “I became convinced it was true. I admitted that God was God and at that moment I was the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.” Then he found that “following Jesus was just the opposite of what I had expected. I was surprised by joy that I had never connected to faith in God.”

This morning before that devotion, I found a bank pouch with my check book in it for which I had been frantically searching for several days. Without going into detail, I found it in the most unexpected place; a place I would have never placed it. So I too was “surprised by joy”. As I read that devotion, I was reminded of the parables Jesus told of the lost lamb, the prodigal son and this parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.” The only joy greater than finding something that was lost is the joy you feel when you are the one who is found.

I have discovered in my years as a Christian that God is full of surprises. Deep down I believe “with God all things are possible,” but for some reason I am surprised each time He proves it to me. One of my favorite gospel songs tells us, “Expect the unexpected when God’s about to move. He will meet our every need in ways we wouldn’t choose. Be still and know He’s in control; His power will come through. Expect the unexpected and watch what God will do.” Following Jesus presents us with a lot of experiences, but boredom is certainly not one of them.

Contentment is something every human heart longs for. Even as far back as the Christian Reformation, Martin Luther found that “Contentment is a rare bird, but it sings sweetly in the breast.” During the founding of our nation, Ben Franklin wrote, “Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.” What Ben didn’t say is what Christians throughout the ages have found to be true; the source of real contentment is found only in a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul found the secret of contentment and he shared it in his teaching and his letters. “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little, for I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13)  His advice to Timothy also points out that contentment doesn’t come from material riches. “Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8)

Sometimes I think we confuse contentment with comfort. I can find physical comfort in my easy chair or my bed, but it is when I am actively sharing my testimony and serving others that I find my greatest contentment. When we search for comfort, we turn our focus on ourselves. Jesus pointed that out in the parable of the foolish rich man who decided to build bigger barns to store his bumper crop then take life easy, but he wound up dying and leaving his wealth for others to enjoy instead. Had he sought contentment instead of comfort, he would have turned his attention to God, praising Him for the blessings he received, and to those in need, sharing his good fortune with them. (See Luke 12:13-21) Whether that would have lengthened his life or not, he would have experienced true contentment and that is something we can take with us.

 

“And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgement.” (John 3:36) This verse makes it perfectly clear that belief in Jesus Christ always involves obedience. One of my favorite hymns is Trust and Obey which describes how the two are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” (John 14:15) So, when we believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and love Him because He first loved us, obedience will be our natural response. Without obedience our faith and love for God are hollow and lack meaning.

Have you ever found yourself bartering with God? “Lord, hear and answer my prayer for resolution of this crisis in my life and I’ll study the Bible every day; do or say whatever you want me to do or say; I’ll even start tithing.” If you have found yourself doing that, as I have, then you know God’s reply, “You go first!” Obedience is required of us by our Heavenly Father. Obedience doesn’t require our understanding; we do it because He said so. All we need to know is that obeying God is always in our best interest, because He alone knows what we need and what is best for us.

Jesus demonstrated putting obedience before blessing when ten lepers came to him for healing (Luke 17:11-14) “As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. As he entered a village there, ten men with leprosy stood at a distance, crying out, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ He looked at them and said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priest.’ As they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.”  Instead of healing them immediately, He simply told them to go and show themselves to the priest and it was when they obeyed and were on their way to the priests that they were healed. Their faith was demonstrated in their act of obedience and they were greatly blessed as a result.

We can’t obey God if we aren’t paying attention to Him. We can receive His instructions through carefully and regularly reading His word; paying close attention to the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us; or even through the wise council of other Christians. However we receive His command, it is our duty as His children to obey.