fifty shades of ???

Go to a hotel and you find the little bars of soap in the bathroom and a Gideon Bible in the drawer of the bedside table.  The Gideons are a faithful group of men who believe that the Bible is a powerful book.  If you put it where people in need can find it, lives will be changed.     

(Here is one story of that happening.) 

Obviously, some people, some hotel owners among them, don't see the value of the Word of God.  Who & where isn't important, but I just heard of one hotel owner who decided to replace the Bibles with a book that people "would be interested in reading," so in his hotel you find a copy of Fifty Shades of Gray.

OK, this is where I, a good, Bible-believing preacher, should show some outrage, right?  I kind of find it hard to work much up.  It's not that I don't believe in the life-changing power of the Bible.  I fervently do, and have spent my life trying to help others get into, understand, and apply the teachings of the Bible.  Why, though, should my outrage be directed at a business man who doesn't share my faith in the Book and the God of the Book?  I find myself far more upset at myself, and others like me, who claim to believe that the God of the Universe has communicated with people in the pages of that Book, and yet so often fail to make the message known.  

Personally, I think the hotel manager made a bad decision, but I ought to be much more concerned about what I do with the opportunities God gives me today.

It's STTA

  

http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html   

Sad News -- Good News:

SOMETHING  TO THINK ABOUT

Last night, while most of us were sleeping, a gunman stood up in a crowded movie theater in Colorado, set off a tear gas cannister and began shooting people.  The last I heard fifteen were dead and fifty injured.   Why? Well other than the broadest answers--that we live in a fallen world, where some people are deeply disturbed--we don't know, yet. Tragic!? Yes.  People, mostly teens and young adults, showed up for some mindless diversion, which no doubt involved vicarious violence and were subjected to real, life-and-death mayhem.  One of the victims is an infant.  Each of the dead and hurting is someone's sister, brother, child, or friend. What are we going to do about it? I heard some variety of this question several times on the news show I was watching.  It was encouraging to hear President Obama's statement indicating aare committed to "bringing whoever was responsible to justice."  Some speculated that in the future movie-goers might be prevented from wearing costumes to big events, like this premier of the Batman movie.  I won't be surprised to hear calls for metal detectors or searches.  Could we have an MSA (Movie Security Agency) in the future.  One FBI agent, I heard interviewed, wisely said, "We can't lock down the nation." A few hours before the tragedy near Denver, here in Covington VA, 1,500 hundred miles away some folk were doing something about it--even though we didn't, and still don't know the specifics of "it."  TEENWEEK finished up last night.  Sunday through Thursday speaker Glenn Kuhar and the rest of the TEENWEEK staff sought to give kids a reason for hope, and purpose for life in this sin-cursed, fear inducing world.   Share the Good News about Jesus!  It's what we can do. It's STTA   http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html

Gravity and Other Grave Realities:

Gravity exerts an uninterupted force to flatten everything.  

I was very aware of that concept this morning.  I ride a bike for exercise.  My wife is a walker.  This morning her walking buddies weren't available, so, being the good husband that I am, I went out walking with her.  Her route includes a couple of pretty good humps to get over.  As I used a different set of muscles to fight the force of the earth to flatten my quite un-incredible hulk to sea level, I was reminded of the importance of living life based on reality.

To continue using gravity as a metaphor for other realities, I too often live as if I have some magical control over gravity.  I don't.  Only on Star Trek do "anti-grav" devices exist.  In the real world it always exerts its inevitable downward pull.  It takes effort to fight it.  Here are some other realities that I ignore at my own risk.

• The wages of sin is death.  Though sin gives temporary pleasure, it has always had the ultimate consequence of death.
• The spiritual is real.  We are more than a collection of atoms.  Trying to meet spiritual needs with stuff is like trying to overcome gravity with wax and feathers.
• None of us live in a vacuum.  There is an ecology of relationships.  Chief in the the relationships that matter is our relationship with God.

Do you feel the pressure on the bottom of your feet or the place where you sit down.  It is evidence of a reality you dare not ignore.  Don't ignore it or the others either.

It's STTA

  

Click here to hear some thought from a couple of old preachers about finishing well.  It's harder than you may think.

http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html   

Life's hard x2

Something To Think About

"I'm trying to do the right thing, and it's hard."  The young man who shared those words with me is totally sincere.  I've watched him for a while now and I'm convinced that he is trying to do what's right.  When he says "it's hard" he's not speaking of it being difficult, as in, "I know clearly what I need to do, but it is not easy to do that."  What he is doing is difficult, but he's the kind of guy who can man up (forgive me ladies) and do what he needs to do.  What he means is, "It's complicated.  Figuring out what is the right thing to do is difficult." Life is   not a TV show. Things aren't neatly worked out in 30 minutes.  The star does not necessarily survive.  There are many reasons why my friend's situation is complicated.  Part of it has to do with past choices.  Many of the choices we make leave a wake of consequences.  Very high on that list of high impact decisions are the choices we make about relationships.  Our friendships, associations, and especially our marriages, if entered into foolishly or rebelliously, will leave us with fewer good/easy choices, and a lot more really hard ones.   Another big portion of my friend's complications come from the sinful actions of others.  When I do wrong, my actions generally send out ripples that rock the boats of others.  Sometimes my actions are so egregious that they capsize other craft--especially those that may be sitting low in the water, weighed down with problems.  None of us live in a vacuum. The good news is that the Bible is not a guide for living in an ideal, air-brushed, sun-always-shining world.  The pages of scripture are inhabited by the likes of David, Moses, Esther, and Paul.  Talk about people with a past, and/or who are negatively affected by outside forces.   I am confident that my friend will do the right thing, even though it is hard--in both senses of the word--not because he is smart and strong--he is--but because it is people like my friend, in situations like he finds himself, that the Lord promises to lead. When life is hard: Search the scriptures.  Enlist others through counsel, books, etc. to help you. Search your heart.  Often we aren't really willing to do what is right.  That's the other kind of hard.   Are you willing to do what you should. Make sure you and God are on good terms.  We should always walk with the Lord, but when the road is rough it is especially important. Trust the Lord.  Living right is not the result of me figuring it out.  It has to do with me following Him. It is always right to do right.  Don't give up. It's STTA   Click here to hear some thought from a couple of old preachers about finishing well.  It's harder than you may think. http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html

The Preacher's Wearing an Earring!

"The Preacher is wearing an earring."  Not that there would be anything wrong if I did, but be assured unless I get a serious bump on the head I won't be sporting one any time soon.

So how would someone sitting in the congregation get the idea that this very un-bling-ish pastor was wearing earlobe decor?  A couple of months ago our tech crew got one of those nearly invisible mics that hook over your ear, kind of like a pair of eye-glasses.  It turns out that the microphone was invisible, but the little plug where the wire attaches to the unit, right below my earlobe, wasn't.  From halfwayback in the Worship-Center it looked like one of those little pieces of jewelry that some well-dressed gentlemen are sporting these days.
I'm kind of flattered.  :)

It is an example of the power of perception.  When I see and hear others, am I getting it right?  I may think you are upset with me, when the reality is you are just having a bad day.  There are times when I have felt slighted.  The fact was the card was lost, the email got put in the spam folder, someone deleted the message on the answering machine and forgot to tell me, or my inept cellphone operation buried the kind message in an unknown cyber-grave.

There is a big responsibility on both ends.  Knowing the power of perception, since I represent the King, I need to put forth the best image possible.  Knowing that I often mistake microphones for earrings, or tiredness resulting from a cold, as anger directed at me, etc., etc., I need to be careful how far I let my perceptions run before I check things out.

My friend in the congregation knew I really am not cool enough to sport an earring, so as soon as possible the perception was subjected to greater scrutiny.  Sure enough, it was just a boring piece of audio-gear.  

(Here is a piece I wrote, a while back, about misperceptions that almost led to a war among brothers.)

It's STTA

  

http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html   

It's not about the dressing room.

Maybe some of my college friends can help me with some more detail, but I remember one line from a radio preacher back when I was a student at Appalachian Bible Institute.  It went something like, "This ol' world is just a dressin' room, and I'm gettin' ready to go on stage."  As I remember the speaker was a woman who spoke in a rather melodramatic style.  Nothing else she said has survived more than four decades of mental erosion (and I suspect that is good), but that one line surfaces in my psyche from time to time.

I don't know whether the radio-preacher based her line on a scripture text or not, but it very well could have come from 2 Corinthians 4:17.  "For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,"

It is a passage that puts things in perspective.

The annoyances and difficulties that inhabit my life are tiny compared to those the Apostle Paul faced, or indeed what some of you must endure.  That makes the Apostle's words all the more poignant to me.  

Howard, don't get all hung up about the dressing room.  Focus on the stage.

It's STTA

  

http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html   

The Blessing of Having It Settled:

A ministry colleague of mine was badly and cruelly hurt some years ago.  Recently the tables were turned, so to speak, and circumstances very similar to those that had brought such pain to my friend came to bear in the lives of some who caused my colleague pain.

In a conversation I pointed out my admiration for the lack of any revenge, or "get even" mentality.

The response was marvelously challenging and encouraging.

"We dealt with that a number of years ago . . ."

And because of that not only did my friend find great joy, but, vicariously, so did I.

It's STTA

Normal?

I've heard lots of comments over the past few days about things getting back to normal.  As I drive around I have to wait for traffic signals.  Most folk in my little orb have electricity and water again.  We have gotten notices about various services that are functioning once again.  Buying gas doesn't take a major plan, and I need to put my generator away.

I'm hoping, though, that we can avoid getting back to normal.  

Right before the power came back on at her house, one lady commented about the rare interaction that was taking place among her kids and grandkids--all of whom were at her house.  They talked.  The youngsters used imagination to find things to do--I don't want to use technology to bash technology, but--she pointed out the absence of cellphones, computers, TV, and video-games.  People were engaged with people.

A helpful spirit dominated the community.  Watching people watch out for other people at signal-less intersections was encouraging.  The church of which I am a part was illustrative of many other churches and organizations.  Folk within the church community shared resources and helped, not only with one another, but those outside, as well.  Generators were swapped around, freezer space was shared, and in some cases food that "needed to be used up" was used to feed others.

Let's see if we can avoid getting back to normal."

It had some to do with the fact that I have been preaching about pride and humility, but I heard lots of comments about "God showing us Who we really are, that we're not nearly as powerful as we like to thing we are, and that our "control" of our environment is really an illusion. Our "normal" pride was replaced by a refreshing awareness of who we really are. 

Let's not get back to normal.  Let's do better than that.

It's STTA

  

http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html   

Lessons from a Three Hour Cruise:

Lately, I find myself identifying with Gilligan. 

If you remember, he, the Skipper, and the passengers leftfor a "Three hour tour."  That's about how long my wife, some friends, and I were out on the water last Friday.  Near our home is a lovely little lake; we enjoy taking guests out and showing them around--people are always impressed with this jewel--and then sharing a picnic out on the water.  It was a lovely blue-sky and calm-water evening. 

But as you know from the song, "The weather started getting rough.  The tiny ship was tossed."  After just drifting, eating, and talking for well over an hour, we headed back toward the dock and ramp, where we would put Visitationback on her trailer.  I was having such a good time that I decided to linger for a few minutes, a few hundred yards out in the lake.  Kathy noticed the sky darkening.  By the time we got to the no wake zone, we were, indeed, being tossed.  There was no "fearless crew."  We were scared.

People have asked if I had ever seen anything like the storm that came straight out of the West.  The is answer is, "No! I have never seen anything that even approached what took place.  We were able to get three of us out of the boat.  My friend was in the boat holding a rope and I was on the dock trying to hold it and keep it from beating itself to pieces on the steel and concrete.  That soon proved futile, and in a matter of seconds the boat looked like countless pictures I had seen of the aftermath of hurricanes.  It was sideways on the shore, sitting at an angle that made it look sure that it was going to sink.  My friend and I acted kind of like shock absorbers keeping the waves--which also looked like they belonged on a ocean--from rocking it as violently as they would otherwise. 

The ladies found themselves sitting on the dock.  This one is kind of like a floating sidewalk.  soon it began to look like that bridge that collapsed a couple of decades ago, out west, or erhaps like the floor of the Tilt-a-whirl at the fair.  My friend saw that the structure was going to break in two so he went to help the ladies make it to shore.  They made it by crab-walking, a  picnic cooler in each hand.  All of this was accompanied by a drenching rain that was like standing in front of a fire hose. 

We found out later that we had been struck by a storm five-hundred miles wide, which advanced from around Chicago to the East Coast at seventy-miles an hour, the derechoaccelerated as it crossed the mountains.  As it blew across Lake Moomaw it had its pedal to the metal.  (See maphere.)

The storm calmed enough that we were able to get Visitation on the trailer.  We helped another family trailer their boat as well, and provided shelter in one of our vehicles for another couple of guys who found themselves with a boat one place and truck and trailer another.  For a while it looked like we would be, once more, like Gilligan--stranded.  Fallen trees blocked the road out, so we were stuck in a dark parking lot.  The bath house at the nearby beach had been locked-up earlier in the evening.

One more Gilligan comparison:  Skipper called him "Little Buddy."  I certainly felt little that evening.  I imagine our emotions were similar to those of the disciples in a boat, about the size of mine.  No wonder they thought they would perish (Mark 4:35-44).  I know I was reminded of my littleness. 

Stay tuned.  With cable out, it's the only channel many of us have.

It's STTA

  

http://covingtonbiblechurch.com/lifesmostimportant.html