With a long list of tasks and assignments that I can never seem to conquer, I’ve had to put posting here on hold. I hope to return in the future.
I appreciate so much your interest in my writing, and wish you all of God’s best!
When I was a boy way back in the latter half of the 1960’s, folks got their local news by reading their hometown newspaper. Your favorite AM radio station would keep you informed with major news headlines at the top of the hour, but if you really wanted to know what was going on in the country and around the world, you’d have to catch the nightly ten o’clock news on your black and white TV on ABC, NBC, or CBS. Other than the weekly and monthly magazines you could subscribe to or read at the public library, that was pretty much it.
When I peddled the Holdenville Daily News five days a week through the eight blocks of my hometown’s downtown for twenty cents per copy, half of which I got to keep, I figured there’d always be a need for boys to deliver the news to the inquiring crowds.
Was I ever wrong.
I’ve not seen a vision nor had a dream, and I haven’t heard a voice from heaven giving me special insight into COVID-19 or any other 2020 surprise looming in our future. But I do have a story. My story revolves around a couple of sermons I thought were intended for a few men in Alaska. Later, I realized they were for me and our church. Early this morning, I felt to share them with whomever would stumble across this blog. They are just sermons. No flashy imagery or thundering voices to describe, and the content may or may not seem significant to you. I’ll just share my story.
In September 2019, a good friend, Pastor Lorin Bradbury, invited me to speak at a men’s conference in Alaska. I enjoy these kind of events, so I immediately began thinking and praying and studying about what I’d say in the sessions I’d lead. The conference was schedule for the last week in March 2020, so I had lots of time to prepare.
Toward the end of December, things began to come together. I was drawn to the events surrounding Jesus and His closest disciples just before He was betrayed, tried, and crucified as described in John’s gospel. The verse that first caught my attention was the fourth one in chapter sixteen. Jesus had spent hours explaining things to the Twelve, and in this verse, we get a strong hint that the world as they knew it was about to change. Jesus said, “But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.”
Something in Man’s heart has always pulled him toward God, so it’s not strange that, along with the sacrifices and ordnances God required His people to observe, a man or woman could voluntarily set aside a period of time to consecrate themselves to God in what they called a vow of a Nazarite (Numbers 6). Nobody was required to take such drastic measures, but God knew there would be those whose hearts led them to draw closer, so He included the Nazarite experience in Moses’ Law.
God is always willing for men to come close, but the first thing God does when He invites folks to “separate themselves unto the LORD,” is to demand that the one accepting His invitation “separate himself” from a whole list of things.
Accept His invitation to draw closer and immediately the discussion shifts from the general to the personal. The invitation is to the whole crowd, the themselves, but the demand is hung upon the individual, the himself.
Listening to the talking heads tell us that we should never shake hands again, that the government needs to track those of us who have a fever, that churches should be closed indefinitely, and that the whole world needs to get vaccinated so Bill Gates can move on to his next project is giving me a headache. But their prattling has jarred loose a few thoughts in my frazzled brain. Here’s one of them.
Don’t be stupid with death.
You can’t cheat it by being irresponsible and outrageous.
You can’t avoid it by moving to a log cabin in Montana and ordering your food and toilet paper from Amazon.
For a while, it was the world’s favorite saying. Every time I scrolled through social media, it was plastered on about every third post. Even people that I knew hadn’t seen the inside of a church building in years were sharing it. I know you saw the grand announcement, too. “The Church,” it declared, “has left the building.”
Now, I get the point, but I’m not sure I embrace the unspoken insinuation.
The point is that the COVID-19 pandemic forced Americans into isolation, and we are temporarily unable to attend church. As a result, most churches are streaming their services, flooding social media with an unprecedented number of worship events. That’s the point.
The unspoken insinuation is that before China shipped us this scary sickness, the Church was a self-centered and ineffective civic club, knowing little and caring even less about the world beyond its closed doors.
During this coronavirus pandemic, let’s talk about washing our hands and not touching our faces. Let’s talk about toilet paper and face masks and latex gloves. Let’s talk about who’s essential and who’s not.
Let’s watch experts lecture us about social distancing while they’re packed shoulder to shoulder in front of the tv cameras. Let’s watch endless press conferences where the same experts contradict what they said last month.
Let’s debate infection projections and recovery rates. Let’s debate pharmaceutical effectiveness and ventilator pressure. Let’s debate to-go liquor sales and drive-in churches.
But there are a few things that nobody wants to talk about. Bring up one of those subjects and the room gets awfully quiet, and folks start looking for that carry-out liquor. Since I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, I won’t say anything. But I will take a moment or two and write about a couple of them.
Leadership and personality styles are hot topics these days. Do a web search for either, and you’ll get a zillion sales pages and a dozen free invitations to discover your own style.
Groups and teams are a big deal, too. And they should be. Get a team motivated in the right direction and you can accomplish more than you’d imagined.
But groups and teams can never discover nor cast vision like an inspired individual can.
By nature, groups compromise until they reach a consensus. The group may like two ideas John has, three that Sherry presents, and one that Henry offers. String them all together and you’ve got a nice, warm package. But not a white-hot blaze that ignites anybody’s soul.
God gave Noah the vision for the ark, and Abraham the vision of a city. They both did pretty well. God gave Moses the vision to lead Israel into the Promise Land, and he got the idea to put together a committee of twelve to help him get there. Forty years later, two of the twelve finally made it in. The other ten, and most of their peers, died in the wilderness. The group smothered the vision.
Looking for success? Have dreams you wish would come true? Studies show that only 8% of people who set goals each new year actually reach them. You’ll probably just keep on looking and wishing — unless you identify the three people who can make it happen, and make them get to work.
So, who are these three people? They’re people you already know. You know them quite well, actually. And, believe it or not, you are already their boss. They are always available and always on call, but they do nothing until you insist.
Okay, it’s really not three different people, but it’s three very different forms of one person: YOU! Whether you realize it or not, you do have these three fellows living inside you. How you control and maneuver them will influence your future more than anything else you will ever do.
Few things get folks riled up like the home school – public school – private school debate. Which one is best?
This is one subject about which people don’t just have an opinion, but they’ve wrapped their emotions all around their position and, eyes bulging and veins popping, they’re prepared to fight to the death.
But the truth?
We’ve all been homeschooled.
Yep, even you. Whether you’ve been a lifelong public school student, or you’ve got a diploma from an exclusive boarding school, you were homeschooled.