A Walk through West

Last week I got to see firsthand the damage done to the town of West, Texas by a massive explosion at the local fertilizer plant.  I was immediately struck by how tightly compacted the small town of West is and I was also struck by how far reaching the destruction was in that small of a place. 

Some homes and buildings were blown apart and burned.  Some homes, and particularly the local nursing home, looked as though a massive force had just pushed violently against the structures causing walls and roofs to buckle.  Scattered throughout other parts of the town were homes and buildings with a single hole in the wall or roof patched up with plywood or a tarp.  It also hit me that the deaths of 15 people in a town this size meant that almost every family was touched in some way.  That unseen pain in the loss of life is undoubtedly greater and deeper than any of the visual damage.

This week as I thought about what I had seen in West and what I had read in the book of Romans, some things came together.  The power of sin to wreck lives so destructively is clear in both West, Texas and the letter to the Romans.  Someone who was trying to make a living, made some bad choices about how powerful products were handled.  A fire sparked a devastating blow that buckled the lives of many.  Sin destroys our lives the same way.  It starts as small mistakes that we make in the course of everyday life. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23.

Those mistakes may seem harmless for a long time, even years.  Then one day, those mistakes prove to be incredibly costly to us and to those around us.  People who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time are hurt and wounded and death comes.  Death is always the unavoidable consequence of sin, "For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23.

But I also saw firsthand how everywhere in that little town where destruction was present, there were also signs of redemption.  Texas Baptist Men volunteers were clearing the rubble and setting up to start the task of rebuilding.  Volunteers were sacrificing their time to clean up destruction that they had no part in, but they were choosing to have a part in the redemption and the rebuilding.  "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 5:20b-21.

So many were hurt by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  I was blessed to be there at the time I was, to see the right thing happening in God's time.  Though the work of sin is always to bring death, the work of God is always to bring life - eternal life.  Let's take a walk through that this Sunday.

For the journey...

Tim

Vacation Bible School

I ran across this and wanted to let all of you read this so you know we are a part of a larger effort when we do VBS.  This is not the usual time for my blog post but this is very timely for us.  Please check this out and hit "Read More" when you get to that tab to see the best part of this post.

CALL TO PRAYER: Vacation Bible School

I am glad to be a part of something big.  Aren't you?

For the journey...
Tim

If only...

If only...

I have had several friends in ministry that have spoken about how those two words speak with so much regret, so much remorse.  "If only I had not spent so much time at work, maybe my marriage would have worked out."  "If only I had put my daughter in a different school, maybe she wouldn't be in the trouble she is in today."  "If only we had walked closer with the Lord, we would not have made the bad decisions that we made."  "If only we had not gotten in so much debt, may be we could have retired by now."  "If only..."

Those words do echo with sadness.  But Paul had a different direction in his "if only" statement.  It is in Acts 20:24, "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only..."  Sounds pretty bleak doesn't it, but look at what comes next.  "...if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."  Instead of an "if only" that looked back, his looked ahead.  His "if only" was his life focus - his life mission, not his life regret.

I read these words and I decided this week, this is a great focus for me in mid-life.  I need to memorize them and make sure that my "if only" looks ahead, not back.  I need keep my focus on the truth that life has meaning and purpose if only we focus on the task that God has given each of us - "to testify to the gospel of God's grace."

This Sunday we are going to look at what does it mean to be on mission?  Each of us has a story to tell.  Each of us has a task before us.  How will you choose your "if only" for the rest of your life?  Looking back or looking ahead?  With an "if only" from regret in something you did or with an "if only" that leads to renewal in something God is doing?

For the journey...
Tim

Memorial Day

He stood there looking over the more than 6400 flags flying in the fading light of sunset.  There was a flag in that field for every soldier who had died the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There was a flag there for his best friend; there was almost a flag there for him.

I could tell there was something going on deep inside him by the look in his eyes.  He stood there with a camera around his neck but he was not taking any pictures.  There was a big brace on his right knee.  We made eye contact a couple of times before I came over to him and I had the sense that he did not really want to go through what he was experiencing alone.  I walked over and struck up a conversation and his story began to flow out.

He and a friend, had been through multiple deployments in Iraq.  They were in the lead vehicle in a convoy on what should have been a simple mission.  It would be the last mission that he and his friend would go on before they shipped out for home.  Things were going fine, then they were hit by an IED.

What he remembers is sketchy.  But he knew his friend was dead, nearly cut in half.  He knew he was badly hurt himself.  What he didn't remember was his own journey of months in a coma in a military hospital in Germany.  His wife flying there because he wasn't expected to make it.  He did not understand but he was told that he had a traumatic brain injury.  There would be many things that happened after he awakened that he did not remember.  Many of those things - it was good he did not.

He had come to this field to remember his friend and to take a picture. "I can't take a picture of this, it doesn't feel right to do that.  It would not capture what I feel here," he said.  "There is something of my friend here.  Almost something sacred," and then he stood in silence for a moment.

He looked to the large white cross in the middle of the field and said, "It is right that the cross is there in the middle of all this.  It is the only thing that helps it all make any sense."  He told me about his faith in Christ, how he had strayed away from the faith after his first deployment, "I had killed people, some were just kids, I did not feel right. I walked away from God."  Now he confessed, he could not walk through life without Him. 

It struck me as he said that, that there is whole new meaning to the "power of the cross" that I had not thought of before.  It was a memorial marker for a sacrifice and a death, like all the flags, but that one death had the power to change all these other deaths and sacrifices.

He told me more about his friend, how his friend's father had been in the military and had been killed in the first Gulf War and now his friend was dead and had no family left behind.  He cried.  I tried to pray for him and cried too.

We both somehow got through the moment.  He got on his bus and rode back to where he was staying.  As I walked away, I knew this Memorial Day would be different.  He had given me something to remember...a lot to remember.

For the journey...

Tim

No Mistakes

Have you ever wondered if God had not somehow made a mistake?  Have you ever been in a place where you did not understand what God was doing?  It is comforting to me to see that even in the New Testament, the church and the apostles did not always understand what was going on but they faithfully followed.  We will look at a story on Sunday from Acts 12 that surely had the church baffled but in the end, they saw the power of God revealed.

In my wife's family history, there is a time that Judith's grandfather, Rev. A. M. Overton, faced a challenging place in his life and faith, he penned this poem.

   He Maketh No Mistake

My Father's way may twist and turn,
   My heart may throb and ache,
But in my soul I'm glad I know,
   He maketh no mistake.

My cherished plans may go astray,
   My hopes may fade away,
But still I'll trust my Lord to lead,
   For He doth know the way.

Tho' night be dark and it may seem
   That day will never break;
I'll pin my faith, my all in Him,
   He maketh no mistake.

There's so much now I cannot see,
   My eyesight's far too dim;
But come what may, I'll simply trust
   And leave it all to Him.

For by and by the mist will lift
   And plain it all He'll make.
Through all the way, tho' dark to me,
   He made not one mistake.

This Sunday, I will share the story behind this statement of faith and how we too can trust God beyond the place where we understand his will.

For the journey...

Tim

The Barabas Experience

As I read through the New Testament, I had the amazing experience of reading John 18 on the day that I experienced many of the places mentioned in that chapter while on my trip to Israel.  In that chapter of John's account of a day, Jesus crosses the Kidron Valley - I crossed it that day.  He climbed the Mount of Olives, I climbed it that day.  He was arrested, beaten and taken before Pilate.  I stood on first century stones near where Jesus could have stood when he went before Pilate.

In all of it, it hit me anew, that he took my place.  I also stood where Barabas stood, as the guilty one who was let go for Jesus to pay the price and take my place.  I cannot express in words the experience of that day or the new way the truth of his substitutionary death came to me.  I went from knowing about it to knowing it.

That evening, our group went into a stone church built by the crusaders - St. Ann's Church in Jerusalem.  We sang together and one of the hymn's words rang out, "Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my heart, my all."

Amen, and amen.

For the journey...

Tim

Pat Summerall's Best Call

In all the tumult this week of the Boston Marathon Bombing and the manhunt for the suspects, in all the chaos and loss surrounding the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion perhaps it was easy to miss that sports broadcasting lost a giant.  Pat Summerall, who called 16 Super Bowls, died this week at age 82.  His broadcast career began in 1962 and lasted until 2002.  He worked 21 years beside John Madden.

Pat Summerall made his biggest call though when he admitted that he was an alcoholic. Throwing up blood at 4:00 am while he was covering the 1994 Masters Golf Tournament coupled with the intervention of friends helped him to decide he did not want to live that way anymore.  He said that the five weeks he spent at the Betty Ford Clinic saved his life.  But he was still searching for more.  A conversation with coach Tom Landry led him to Dallas Cowboys chaplain John Weber who in turn led Pat to Jesus Christ.  At 69, Pat Summerall called on Christ to truly change him - that was his best call.  After his baptism, he said he felt like a 40 pound weight had been lifted off his back.

Can it be possible for people to really change after a life time of developing dark habits?  Summerall would say so.  This Sunday we will look at how Jesus can bring us light at dark moments.  We all have had to face some darkness this week.  Let's spend some time looking into the light.

For the journey...

Tim