Strength in Weakness:

My wife's Aunt Shirley just went home to be with her Lord.  We had gotten word a couple of days ago that she had pneumonia and wasn't expected to live.  She died last night.  

Over the last years of her life Aunt Shirley progressively became a prisoner in a body that no longer functioned.  Often we see seniors with healthy bodies but minds that leave those houses of flesh essentially homeless. 

Shirley O'Donnel was the opposite.  Her spirit continued to burn bright in an earthly house that if it had been a house of brick and wood would have been condemned long ago.  Scripture speaks of this condition.  It afflicts us all. 

  

   "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8:22-23, NASB95)  

   "for we walk by faith, not by sight- we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:7-8, NASB95)

 

Aunt Shirley left this world of waiting and suffering and entered that realm of fulfillment.  I don't want you to think that Aunt Shirley just sat and waited.  Not at all, she encouraged, and prayed, and helped little kids learn God's word.  

 

 

 

Thanks for pointing the way, Aunt Shirley.

It's STTA 

Honor

I am who I am, at least in part, because of those who have gone before me.  Thus I find myelf making a journey that my uncle and many others like him, made about seventy years ago.  I am flying across the Atlantic.  He went in a troop ship.  Like him, I'll travel by train and then cross the Channel on water. There will be no guns awaiting me.

Uncle Hugh Allen didn't come back.  It's late, but that's why I'm going.

It's STTA 

A Modest Proposal to Solve Our Terrorist Problem:

As I watch the news it appears that two brothers, young men, are the perpetrators ofthe bombing in Boston.  One is dead, the other armed and on the run.  Terrorism, of the  religious extremist variety, seems to be the motive. 

No doubt there will be lobbying for greater scrutiny on immigrants, tighter gun-laws, and better controls on explosives and components that can be used in a bomb.  Some of these proposals may have merit, but I have a better idea.  

What we really need is better parenting.

These guys likely grew up in a home, a home where parents grew up in homes.  As I type a commentator is using the word "indoctrinated."  The values that lead to thinking that planting bombs along the route of a major race is a good idea came from those homes--or at least was not kept out by those families.  As I watch, thousand of police are amassing in Boston.  One cop has already been killed, many others are in harms way.  Most of those officers grew up in homes.  Apparently moms and dads and others taught them virtues like sacrifice and devotion to duty.

Do we want a more secure future?

Raise better children.

Do we want better children?

Raise them in better homes.

Parents are the key!

That brings me to Sunday,8:30 & 10:55.  Pastor Doug Williams is speaking on parenting.  I suppose we could call it a seminar on international security.

I hope you'll come, or listen online, after we post it.

It's STTA 

The Face of Evil

SOMETHING  TO THINK ABOUT What does the face of evil look like? We see it all around us, but most often we see it in silhouette, if you will.  In fact, often as we sort through the aftermath of grotesque wickedness, like the law-enforcement investigators in Boston, we see the horrendous aftermath, but we don't see the face that perpetrated the crime.    The fact is, evil wears different masks:  They are found all across the spectrum from the distortion of extreme righteousness, so called, as was the case with evil on that first Good Friday, all the way to the just out-and-out, unadulterated badness, that too often stalks our streets.     The Bible is clear that evil is here.  The Devil is not merely a personification; he is a real, spiritual person, Satan, Lucifer, the Dragon, and he gets around, and gets a lot done.  In the book of Job, he describes the territory he has marked with his foul scent:  "I've been 'roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.'"   (Job 1:7)  In the New Testament he is described as the "Prince of the Power of the Air."  (Ephesians 2:2)--no more localized than the air we breath.  He is not the evil opposite of God.  He lacks, for instance, the omni attributes: omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. He does get around, though, he is cunning and powerful, and he does have help.  His network is so widespread and effective that John says "The whole world lies in the power of the wicked one."  (1 John 5:19)    Not only are these spiritual entities busily spreading evil, you and I, the Bible makes clear, have evil in our core, and in the same way that the physical ecosystems of our world are degraded, the moral spiritual realm is polluted.  (Read Romans 8, and Ephesians 2:1-10 for both description and hope.  An evil tempter, tempting people with a propensity to sin, in a world that is skewed in an evil direction--there is a recipe for a mess.   Carnage, like that in Boston, gets our attention and causes us to cry out for answers:   "Who?" "Why?" "Where is God?" As to the last question, I assert that God is both here, with you, and in Boston.  The Bible teaches that He doesn't take coffee-breaks.  Look here, here, and especially here to see some things I have written after past tragedies. The face of evil is sometimes sanctimonious, at other times on fire with raw hatred.  It often is heavily colored with selfishness.  If you look around the eyes you can detect deception.  Ironically, and in a way that troubles me the mouth on the face of evil is often seen to be grinning.   I guess what troubles me most about thinking of the face of evil is I sometimes see it looking back at me from the mirror.   It's STTA.

What Do I Want?

Money, fame, and position provide no protection against life's difficulties.
I know it is easy for those of us who have less to look with envy at those whose pictures are recognized everywhere, and whose every word seems to be greeted with "Oohs" and "Aahs."   The tragic death of Matthew Warren, son of well-known pastor Rick, and the long unpleasant death of former Prime Minister of England, Margaret Thatcher, kind of puts it in perspective.  As my Father-in-law used to say about famous people, "When they get up in the morning they put their pants on the same way I do--one leg at a time."

The Bible--in particular books like Ecclesiastes, or the Lord Jesus's penetrating questions, like,

"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? "For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36-37, NASB95) 

I'm not in any way saying that the Warrens, Thatchers, or other powerful, famous, or rich folk are less Godly than we little people.  What I am saying is, when we long for riches, power, and fame, we crave that which can't satisfy.

It's STTA.

Taking a chance and making it less risky for others to do so:

SOMETHING  TO THINK ABOUT

". . . lending to people who work hard and can be trusted to repay their debt."  These words jumped out of an article in our regional Newspaper.  It reminded me of a report I heard on NPR a while back about a banker who specialized in making loans to Amish families.  None of the credit-score type criteria worked with these folk.  They didn't even have driver's licenses, and lacked an electronic trail.  The banker said he would go to see the people, meet their parents and their in-laws.  At a time of record foreclosures these Amish borrowers kept up with their obligations and paid on time.  Interestingly, though the folk in the car loan program, described in the article, could be considered high-risk, their default rate is low. What a refreshing concept.  People who keep their word, and meet their obligations.  I just read about the righteous person in Psalm 15.  Such people "keep their promises even when it hurts."    In Washington DC, state-houses, and countless county and city boardrooms officials are trying to solve financial crises.  Here is something all of us can do.  Be responsible.  What a novel idea. It's STTA. Click here for a PowerPoint presentation that has some of Solomon's ideas about solving our economic crisis.

Leaving something . . .

A friend of mine--more old buzzard than spring chicken--once said, as he was building a house, "At my age you don't need to put "Thirty-year" shingles on your house." So, he put the less expensive roofing on the house, and sure enough it lasted longer than he did.

His heirs, though, inherited a house with a roof badly in need of repair.  I guess you can go either way on that one.  For now, I'm leaning toward being a blessing even after I'm gone.  

Lord help me to leave something worth while.

It's STTA.