Get Well Cards

Kindergartener get well cards are the best.  I got several hand drawn cards from our Kindergarteners several weeks ago and I have held on to them because they are so cute.  Let me give you some samples:

• "I hope you feel beter pastertim." - with lots of hand drawn heart (it was close to Valentine's Day so I am sure they were killing two birds with one stone)
• "Your going to get better!!!  I love you Pastor Tim!  - more hearts  - this kid is going to be a motivational speaker or a coach.  I cannot do their exclamation points justice but this guy really likes exclamation points.
• "I hope yous get well soon."  Maybe this kid is from New York or Australia - Do they still use the term "yous guys"
• "I LOVE YOU !  Im'e sorry that you brook yorr leag."  This one came with the picture of a bandaged foot and big heart.  Don't ever let spelling get in the way of expressing your feelings.
• "hope your foot gets better." - the front cover had a big heart drawn on it with a wheel chair and a walking boot in the heart.
• One card simply had a the word "Love" on the cover and picture of a horse with a bandaged back leg inside.
• Another card was from a kid who had to have been there when I told the story of breaking my foot on the San Antonio River Walk.  He had drawn a picture of the Alamo, then something that looks like a long walkway and then me on a crutch.  That was the outside cover.  The inside and back however will filled with pictures of, as he called it "Minecraft."  I give him credit for paying attention in church even if his attention quickly turned to a video game for the bulk of the card.

It takes a level of maturity to send a get well card, these kids are too young to have broken a foot or leg (I like the spelling "leag' better actually).  They have never been on crutches but they understood I was hurt and needed encouragement.  They gave it in their own unique way. And somehow they have begun to grasp that there is something else at work in life than just the things they have experienced.  They are becoming aware of what is going on in other people's lives.  To be able to see a bigger picture and be moved to action - that is always a mark of maturity.

How mature are you willing to become?  We are about to embark on a mission trip to help people who live in a somewhat different culture than us, even though they live in the same state.  Most of us have never faced life as they have to live it.  The mark we leave on their hearts will be a sign of our maturity in caring and in loving.

We don't have to do it perfectly, but we must do it lovingly.

for the journey...

Tim

It was a mark of maturity when young Joseph, alone and recently sold into slavery by his own brothers, knew it was not right to give in to Mrs. Potiphar's persistent requests.  He knew that this was not right in the eyes of God.  He expressed what he knew was right even under pressure to give it up. 

Praying through Pain

Chuck was a hard working, self-made man in the oil business.  He was not much in church because of his work. He had had a praying mother and had a praying wife.  When I really got to know him, he did not have much else.  Chuck's company, that he had built from the ground up, had been "taken over" by some men who had been investors.

I would go visit Chuck, a World War II veteran, in his declining health.  Someone had briefed me on the loss of his company and what a shame it was.  I did not have to ask him about it, he told me.  As I was about to leave after one of my first visits with him in his home, I asked him about prayer, "How can I pray for you?" was my question.  His answer floored me.

"You can pray with me about the guys who stole my company," he said.  I settled in to hear the story and mentally shifted from 'I am about to leave' to 'I'm going to be here a while.'  I asked, "So how do you pray for them?"  Chuck replied, "Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me."  That was not the response I was expecting. 

He went on to tell the story, but mainly how he had found comfort in daily praying the Lord's Prayer and that one line about asking for and giving forgiveness how that phrase had changed his life.  "I have to pray to forgive them every day," he said, "because I think about it everyday.  And every day God takes the hurt away."

After I prayed with Chuck and was driving back to my church, I hit me that Chuck probably did not know a lot about the Bible but he knew that prayer. He probably has gotten more mileage and more good out of those simple words than anyone I have met.  He found a way to pray though the pain.  God was healing him emotionally and spiritually even as he struggled physically.

God's power to use our prayer in dealing with our pain is amazingly simple, if we are simple enough to keep praying through it.  Chuck taught me a lesson about prayer and pain that I am still trying to learn.  Maybe you are too.  This Sunday, let's come work on it together as we look at David's prayer in his pain in Psalm 55.  Let's keep praying and keep on overcoming the pain.

for the journey...

Tim

Lonesome Songs

"Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me."  Psalm 142:4

This weekend we are going to be looking at a lonely song from the Bible, David's Psalm 142.  It got me to thinking about the sad, lonesome songs played on the radios, 8 track players, cassette tape players, Walkman's  and other musical devices in my life time.

There's old rock songs, "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Only the Lonely."  There's old country songs from my childhood, "I'm So Lonesome I could Cry" and a bit more cheery "Oh, Lonesome Me."  There's the sad pop songs of my high school years, "One is the Loneliest Number," along with the so sad its suicidal, "Alone Again, Naturally" and then there's "All by Myself."  Hopefully, I am not causing any of these to get stuck playing in your head on Valentine's Day.  As it used to be said, "Bummer, man."

I must admit I am pretty out of touch with today's music but I am familiar enough to know they are still writing sad, lonely songs.  The question came to me, "Is there such a thing as a lonely rap song?"  A quick Google search led me to the "Songfacts.com" site and yes, Drake has done a sad, lonesome rap song.

I suppose sad, lonesome songs are universal to every language and musical genre because loneliness is universal to all men and women, in all times, in all cultures.  David even wrote one in ancient Hebrew in a cave.  I am not sure what kind of instrument he used.  Do you play lonesome songs on a zither or a "ten stringed instrument?"  We probably will never know and don't need to know.

Lonesomeness is something we have all felt - painfully at times, some people more than others but all of us have been alone when we did not want to be and something in us cried out for something more.  Just as David did in Psalm 142.

From what David wrote in that Psalm, there seems to be a loneliness that no other human can fill - a loneliness for God.  When we cry out as David did, we can find God's answer - as David did.  Unfortunately a lot of people's loneliness will be exacerbated by the commercial and social pressure of Valentine's Day.  God has an answer for that as well.  Wherever you are on this loneliness spectrum, let's get together and talk to Him this weekend.  More importantly, let's hear what He has already said.  He has a song that answers our loneliness.

for the journey...

Tim

Baby Laughter

Did you know that God has laughter in your future?  Do you ever  get so focused on the problems and trials you are going through in following Christ that you forget there are some really fun times to come?  Do you think that Jesus and his disciples had a good hard laugh together?  Do you ever wonder if God has a sense of humor?

I have read this week about Isaac, whose very name means laughter -"he laughs" in Hebrew.  Abraham laughed before God when the Lord told him he would have a son in his old age.  In Genesis 17:21 God even told them to give him the name Isaac. Sarah laughed to herself in Genesis 18:12 where her strange heavenly guests told Abraham she would have a baby by this time next year.  They gave the baby a name that brings back the memory.  They also gave him the name that would point to what people would do when they heard that people as old as Sarah and Abraham had a child.  They laughed.  They would snicker.  They would say, "No way" (in Hebrew of course).

I think it also points to an experience that Abraham and Sarah would have in the future as this child of promise, this miracle baby, came into their lives.  There would be a lot more laughter in their tent and their lives.  God planned that for them and he plans that for you.

This Sunday we will talk about a "Path through Trials."  But maybe today we just need a moment to reflect on the laughter God brings into our lives, often through children.  Take a minute to watch this video and think about Abraham, Sarah and Isaac laughing.  God has some good laughs in our future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxUulGkLu4I

(Disclaimer:  As you go to this video, I have no control over what ad if any may show before you see it but it is just over a minute long and you will not be able to keep from laughing).

for the journey...

Tim