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

A Tractor Accident

A story of a tractor accident really touched me this week.  I have included a link to it below. The accident described there (a tractor flipping over backwards) is a common one with older, smaller tractors.  I have personally known it to happen with several people - a man in my community, a cousin on my father's tractor - it can have deadly results if you are not quick to respond.  The man I just mentioned died, my cousin jumped and lived.  The same accident almost happened to me on the same tractor that my cousin flipped.  I still credit God with helping me get my foot on the clutch just in time.

God does work in our problems and pains to reveal himself in this world.  That is a hard truth for us to realize because we so often think - unthinkingly - that God is here to reward us.  Yes, he does reward us, here and in heaven, but often his greatest work is revealing himself.  The man in my community who died in the tractor accident was not being punished.  My cousin was not being rewarded.  I was not "good" enough to be spared from an accident.  God works to reveal himself.

It is the same truth that we will look at Sunday in Jesus coming to the pools of Bethesda and healing a man who had suffered for 38 years.  It was not a reward for his suffering so long.  It was a revelation for all of us who suffer.  He is still the same Jesus capable of changing our lives in an instant.

Let me encourage you to watch the news report from the link below, it will not take long.  I don't know if this family really knows God or not.  But listen for what the older sister says about what she told herself repeatedly as she attempted to lift a 3,000 pound tractor.  Watch carefully, it is just a brief mention, but may point to a more power meaning.  Look at how it seems God revealed himself in this situation.  And then ask yourself, "How is he revealing himself to me?"

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2013/04/10/dnt-or-daughter-lift-tractor-off-dad.kgw

For the journey...

Tim

Lithotripsy

This week, I had lithotripsy on a kidney stone.  Thank the Lord, it has gone very well.  For those of you not familiar with this treatment, it is a procedure where something like sound waves are targeted on your kidney stone to smash it up into small pieces that can then be passed out of the body.  That is just what happened.  It was a pretty remarkable experience - except I slept through it all.

Don't get me wrong, I would not want to be awake through it.  I have something like bruises on my back where these waves entered my body.  I don't think it would be enjoyable to go through awake, but it is still pretty remarkable that something unseen can enter your body and break apart something that is solid and jagged and painful and make it all go away.

As I thought about these sonic waves, I was reminded at how powerful sound can be - particularly the sound of the voice of the Lord in Psalm 29:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. 

The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. 
 The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert; the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare.  And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”    The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.  Psalm 29 (selected verses).

The Psalmist imagined the power of the voice of God before anything was known about sound waves or sonic waves or lithotripsy .  Yet an even more powerful voice was yet to come.

By the power of his voice Jesus calmed a storm.  By the power of his voice he made the demon possessed whole again.  By the power of his voice he called Lazarus back from the dead to life again.  I wonder if you could somehow measure and chart the power of those sound waves of the voice of Jesus, what would they look like?  No instrument in this world can measure that, i know.  Yet, he often speaks to our souls in a "still, small voice."  His voice still has all the power that it ever has and he wants to speak to you and me.  We live in amazing times, but more importantly, we have an amazing God.

When did he last speak to you?

For the journey...

Tim