Month: April 2022

I have written about how important it is to have a positive attitude and concentrate on our blessings. But a Face Book friend who is a wife and mother recently shared how she has found her blessings hiding behind some mundane and tiresome tasks.

“Sink full of dirty dishes – thank you Lord for the food we have to eat.

Food crumbs under the table – thank you Lord for family meals together.

Baskets of dirty clothes – thank you Lord for the clothes on our bodies and shoes on our feet.

Long shopping list – thank you Lord for the provisions we need daily.

Utility bills – thank you Lord for light in the dark and shelter from the heat and cold.

Dirty toilet bowl to clean – thank you Lord for indoor plumbing.”

You get the idea and I’m sure you can add several things of your own for which to thank God. Knowing her, her husband and their children as I do, in spite of the battle to get everyone ready for church on Sunday morning, I know she is thankful to God that she and her husband put God first in their life and love each other and their children as described by the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians chapter thirteen. They worship as a family and the children are learning to love God and each other as they see their parents do. Actions do speak much louder than words.

You and I are quick to praise God for the miracles in our life and all of the obvious other blessings that are the result of answered prayers, but do we look behind the toilsome mundane tasks in our life to thank God for those hidden blessings? When we are tired and weary, we need to take a moment to step back and see that even those efforts are all worthwhile because of the blessing hiding behind each of them. If you don’t think of any miracles in your life, maybe you have forgotten that you are one, knitted together marvelously in your mother’s womb.

I’m sure I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating; it is much more relaxing to count your blessings than it is to count sheep and it will give you a perfect opportunity to thank God for each of them. When you are a child of God, you will fall asleep before you run out of blessings.  

I wrote about Good Friday and the way God’s love shines through our darkest days and longest nights. I think it is so important that we stop to thank God for the bright days and starry nights that we experience to show our appreciation for the blessings we enjoy as Christians. God has blessed me so much throughout my life that it is easy to take all of it for granted.

I remember an old radio show from my youth. They described a stranger staggering into town all bruised and bleeding with his clothing shredded. They asked him what happened to him and he gasped, “I fell off that mountain road. That road is dangerous. They need to put up a warning sign.” They answered, “There was a warning sign there for years, but no one fell off, so we took it down.” When things are going smoothly we sometimes forget the way they used to be and let our guard down. We might even forget the warning signs along our path that lead to our blessings and the bright light that gives us warmth and visibility.

As Christians, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and warn us whether we are traveling a super highway or a narrow, curvy mountain road. But do we always heed His warning when life seems pleasant and easy?  Are we so busy enjoying and living our life that we forget to thank the one who is the source of all good things? One of the best things about being a child of God is that we know who to thank, but do we? We certainly know who to come to and pray to when we are in trouble and need help. Why is it that we often take God’s blessings for granted as if we have somehow earned them?

When you are fortunate to live as long as I have, 79 years and counting, you know how precious every day, every hour, every minute and every second is. You are well aware of the blessing of recovering from a serious illness. You are well aware of the importance of your brothers and sisters in Christ. I thank God every morning for another day to serve Him and a sound mind to share Him with others. Every good thing I encounter during the day, I look up and thank God from whom all blessings flow.

In a speech to a group of young people, I heard Denzel Washington encouraged them to put their shoes way under their bed at night, so they would have to get down on their knees in the morning to retrieve them. Then while down there, thank God for another day and ask for His blessings and guidance. Good advice for all of us.

I’m posting this on Easter Sunday, but the crucifixion on Good Friday afternoon and the resurrection at dawn on Easter Sunday are both parts of the same gift from God so I’ll cover them both in this post. There is a song I love that links those events so well and I want to share those lyrics with you.

 “They all walked away, nothing to say. They’d just lost their dearest friend. All that he said; now he was dead. So this is the way it would end. The dreams that they dreamed were not what they seemed, now that he was dead and gone. The garden; the jail; the hammer; the nail; how could a night be so long? Then came the morning; night turned into day. The stone was rolled away. Hope rose with the dawn. Then came the morning; shadows vanished before the sun. Death had lost and life had won; for morning had come. The angel; the star; the kings from afar; the wedding; the water; the wine; now it was done. They’d taken her son; wasted before his time. She knew it was true. She watched him die too. She heard them call him just a man, but deep in her heart she knew from the start somehow her son would live again. Then came the morning; night turned into day. The stone was rolled away. Hope rose with the dawn. Then came the morning; shadows vanished before the sun. Death had lost and life had won, for morning had come.”

As a young Christian, I couldn’t understand why the day Jesus died on the cross is called Good Friday. It seems such a dark day in human history and it was certainly a sad day for his mother and his disciples. What Jesus went through that day is beyond human comprehension.

The tremendous physical pain would be bad enough, but he bore upon himself the sins of all mankind.. If that wasn’t enough, His heavenly Father had to turn away from Him because of all of that sin. For the first time, He was separated from His Father and that was so painful it made Jesus cry out in anguish. What is good about that day? The answer came when Jesus said, “It is finished,” and an earthquake tore the heavy curtain in the temple from top to bottom that separated us from God’s presence giving us direct access to our heavenly Father in the name of his beloved Son. We can bring our prayers and our praise directly to God and He can walk and commune with us as His sons and daughters. THAT IS THE GOOD IN GOOD FRIDAY. . 

Then the light of God’s love penetrated the darkness on the morning of the third day – Easter Sunday. Jesus had paid the price for our sins on the cross and then proved His gift of eternal life by leaving the tomb and appearing to His followers. Of all of the sights I saw on my Holy Land trip in 1964, the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem is my most beloved memory. I have never felt closer to Jesus than I did kneeling in prayer at the entrance of that empty tomb. I could almost hear the angel say, “He is not here. He has risen.”

Do you feel like you are going through a very dark time? Don’t give up in despair. That darkness will soon be penetrated by the light of God’s love, just put your faith In Him and not only will things get brighter, He might even show you something good that has come from this dark time. The enemy might mean it for evil, but God can and will use it for good. God is with us even in our darkest hours.     

We are now in the middle of Holy Week when we remember and celebrate the week that begins with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and ends with His triumphant exit from the tomb.

Once Jesus was inside Jerusalem, He dismounted from the colt and had the disciples return the donkey and colt to their owner. Then He headed to the temple. On entering the temple, He drove the money changers and merchants selling doves for sacrifice out of the temple along with their customers; knocking over their tables and releasing their birds. Once the temple court was cleared, He began to teach and heal the people to the consternation of the Pharisees. They demanded to know under whose authority he was doing all of these things? They knew. They just wanted a reason to arrest Him for blasphemy. Jesus asked them to first tell Him by what authority John preached and baptized? If they said by God’s authority they would be asked why they didn’t follow him, but they knew the people believed John was a prophet of God, so they couldn’t say by man‘s authority, so they said, “We don’t know.” Then Jesus refused to tell them His Authority.

Jesus continued to teach and heal each day until it was time to prepare their Passover supper. They gathered in an upper room for that sacred annual meal commemorating the angel of death passing over the homes of the Israelites sparing the life of their first born son because the blood of a sacrificial lamb was painted on their door post. It is traditionally a big feast with meat, vegetables and dessert. Interestingly, only the unleavened bread, wine and a bowl of broth or gravy to dip the bread in are mentioned in scripture. (We do know that the disciples had plenty to eat and drink because they couldn’t stay awake while Jesus prayed in the garden afterward.)

What is important is that Jesus was about to become the sacrificial Lamb whose blood will protect everyone who has painted it on their heart’s door post by accepting His sacrifice for their sins. The familiar words of Jesus as He broke the bread and blessed the cup are repeated every time we take communion to remind us His body was broken and His blood was shed for us.

I know all of this is very familiar to Christians, but we need to revisit those New Testament verses each year as we prepare our hearts to worship and celebrate Easter Sunday. Forgive an old man for not writing Resurrection Sunday. I refuse to turn Christmas and Easter over to those who want to try to hijack them. Are we going to start calling December 25^th Holy Birthday? Not me! I will always be a Christian who praises God on Christmas and Easter. There is nothing evil about giving and receiving Christmas presents or hunting and eating Easter eggs. Those things are only distractions if we allow them to be. I’m tired of retreating and ceding territory to the world that belongs to God. Let the world change their terminology if they choose.   

This blog will be posted on my website Palm Sunday. As I celebrate the first Holy Week after my full recovery from the Covid virus, I feel so blessed by God to be able to commemorate with you the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, His death and His resurrection. It is the most important week in human history. Without the events of that week, we would be unable to approach our heavenly Father in direct prayer and worship; we would still be sacrificing innocent animals to atone for our sinful nature and our inability to live by God’s laws because we would not have the Holy Spirit to give us the strength needed. There would be no Christian life for me to write about without the events of that week. I cannot thank God enough for sparing my life once more, so you and I can praise Him together for the love, grace and mercy He made available to us that week so long ago.  

John 12:12-19 and Matthew 21:1-11 describe Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem that day as their Messiah and their King. We call it Palm Sunday because the crowd laid clothing and palm branches along his path as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt that had never been ridden by a human before. John writes that the reason so many people turned out was because word had spread about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The size of the crowd welcoming Jesus had the religious leaders helpless to stop him.

It only took five days for those religious leaders to have that crowd that shouted “Hosanna” as Jesus entered Jerusalem shouting “Crucify him” to Pilate, My Christian brother or sister  don’t think for a moment that you or I would have been any better than those people. The Holy Spirit has spoiled us, but without His guidance and strength we would have given in to the pressures of those religious leaders. There are some religious leaders today who place too much emphasis on Jesus’ humanity, but that week speaks to me about Jesus’ deity. If I heard the same voices that praised me five days ago calling for my death, my human response would be, “I’m not dying on a cross for them! I don’t even like them, much less love them!” But Jesus had the love of God in His heart for the entire world even those who choose not to accept His sacrifice for their sins and the gift of eternal life through God’s love, mercy and grace toward them.

I pray that we never take the events of that Holy Week for granted and never think we are any better or stronger than any other sinner like we were before we gave our hearts to Jesus Christ and were reborn spiritually into God’s family. It is God’s love and strength that make us His son or daughter, all we did is accept that gift and share His love with others.    

This morning I had an appointment with a VA doctor to see about getting hearing aids. She tested my hearing and was surprised by the amount of hearing I have lost. She said she is usually pretty good at spotting people with hearing loss that requires hearing aids. Then she told me I do a very good job of hiding it. I wonder if that is a compliment or an accusation.               My wife used to accuse me of having “selective hearing”; only hearing what I wanted to hear. My hearing aids will be ready in a month or two.

This experience reminded me of the spiritual selective hearing Paul wrote to Timothy about. “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear.” (2^nd Timothy 4:3)

At least seven times Jesus is quoted in the Gospels, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” Then eight times in Revelation John quotes Jesus saying from heaven, “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.” Jesus obviously put emphasis on carefully listening to God’s message to us. I have mentioned before that I often read scripture aloud so I can hear it as well as read it. That helps to imprint God’s word in my mind and my heart.

Ironically, as my physical loss of hearing has made it more difficult to hear the people around me, I have learned to pay closer attention to the prompting and teaching of God’s Holy Spirit within me and understand perfectly what he wants me to say, write or do. As Elijah, I have learned that a message from God does not come from a wind storm or earthquake. It comes in the form of a still small voice (a whisper). That’s because you must lean closer and concentrate completely to listen to and understand a whisper and God wants our complete attention when he communicates with us.

Sadly, there are some people who have turned a deaf ear to God’s message to them. Like I did with my physical loss of hearing, they have often become very good at hiding it. I pray that you and I always approach God with open ears and an open heart. May our ears be filled with God’s truth and our hearts filled with His love.     .           

As I grow old and look back on my life, I realize it hasn’t been the major accomplishments or heroic deeds of mine or of the people God has placed in my life that bring fond memories and that have had the biggest impact on my life. No, it’s the little things that seemed so trivial at the time that mean the most to me now.

There is an old song that describes some of the highlights of my more than fifty year relationship with my wife. “Blow me a kiss from across the room. Say I look nice when I’m not. Touch my hair as you pass my chair. Little thing mean a lot. Give me your arm as we cross the street. Call me at six on the dot. A line a day while you’re far away.. Little things mean a lot. Give me your hand when I’ve lost my way. Give me your shoulder to cry on. Whether the day is cloudy or gray, give me your heart to rely on. Send me the warmth of a secret smile to show me you haven’t forgot. Now and forever, that’s always and ever, little things mean a lot.”

My brothers in Christ picked me up early Saturday morning for our weekly fellowship and breakfast. When I got back home one of my sisters in Christ called to check on me and we shared what is going on in our lives and had more than a few good laughs. Those events might seem mundane to some people but they had a tremendous impact on my spirits and my mood.

Sometimes God gives Christians challenging missions to accomplish for Him, but most times it is the little acts of kindness we do without much thought that have the greatest impact on others and are the most pleasing to God. Jesus described this exchange with His followers at judgement. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom created for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you invited me into your home. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you cared for me. I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And then the King will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of these least of my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’” (Matthew 25:34-40)

Even a smile or sincere compliment can have a lasting effect on someone’s life. I do my best to make everyone I encounter feel better when we part, even if the encounter only lasted a minute or two. I challenge you to make every little thing you do count.