Mere Mortals?

This week, I got to hold and pray over a baby born that day.  As I held him, some of the things I had been reading over for this Sunday's message came to my mind.  This baby, born this morning in March will live forever.  What a wonderful, powerful thing God has given us the privilege to be a part of - bringing life into this world. To know that each person born will live forever in eternity, to know that each person bears the image of God and to know that each person is loved by God enough that He sent His only son does not always hit me daily but it did at that moment.

C. S. Lewis wrote that we have never met a mere mortal.  That when the sun and moon and stars are gone and the mountain and seas have disappeared, you and I will still be alive somewhere in eternity.  I read this week that the sun will burn at least for another 4 billion years.  Two and a half billion years from now the sun will expand so much that it will burn up all of life on earth.  You and I will not be alive on this earth by then, but you don't have to worry.  You have an eternal home made possible through faith in Jesus.

Jesus came to make a way for us to spend eternity with him, but apart from his saving power, we have an eternity before us but not with him.  Eternity apart from Jesus, just the thought of that is hell.  Jesus taught that hell is even more than what we think but so is eternity with him.  “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9 

The church at Corinth had a problem with us being physically raised to live in eternity. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 15 to get their attention.  God got my attention this week when I held a baby.  Let's pray he gets our attention this week as he holds us by his love.

for the journey...

Tim

Beach Reach

There have been a lot of ugly stories about college students recently - the racist frat chant at OU, the nude pictures from Penn State, the problem frat at U of H.  The list could go on, the sad thing is that it will go on.  College students will make some bad decisions. What about some good news about college students on spring break on South Padre Island?  Yes, that is possible.  A student on spring break on the beach can make a good decision - a life changing decision.

My friend, Brenda Sanders, who has continued to work in student work all these years let me know about this story.  I am including a link below and it is well worth the read.  A word of explanation:  Beach Reach is a ministry of Baptist Student Ministries to students on spring break at South Padre. 

Our former and future Student Intern at Northside Dante Williams has been a part of that work. This story comes from that work.  While our mission trip team was experiencing God at work in the colonia at Penitas, a few miles away God was also working on the heart of a college student on the beach.  Read and be reminded of the lengths God will go to reach someone.

http://txb.life/article/beach-reach-god-would-have-to-grant-me-faith


By the way Beach Reach is a three week effort on South Padre.  Here are the results of week 2:
- 56 new believers, 6,444 gospel conversations, 32 recommitted their lives to Christ
- 3,484 Spring Breakers were prayed with and 12,986 Spring Breakers were given safe, free rides
- 12 Students were baptized

That is good news.

for the journey...

Tim

This Home's Story

I love living in a town that has a lot of old restored homes with great stories.  Driving through "old Victoria," seeing some of the painstaking work that has gone on and hearing about some of those stories is a part of life here.  There is something all those home stories have in common - they all go back to the original owner and builder.  Whether that is an interesting person or a largely forgotten person, every home has a builder and every home has a story.

This past week on our mission trip, we started building a home.  It will not qualify for something in "old Victoria."  We did not get as far on it as we would have liked because of the rain but we started a home and we started a story.  I wonder what that story will be fifty years from now?  No doubt the story will go back to builders and the owners.  But what else will it tell?

It is not a fancy home or one that inspires to beauty.  It is a simple home in a poor colonia not far from the border but it has more than pier and beam foundations, it is a home built on love.  The love people have because God has changed their lives and has given them an opportunity to pass that love on in very real ways.

The story of the home on 4 Mile Road in Penitas, Texas is also the story of a home being filled with love.  I did not have to be around the family (Pablo and Lily's) long for me to tell that love was making a difference.  I went from watching their children's behavior at the build site to seeing the behavior of a rowdy bunch of kids at the church at which we worked.  It was a stark contrast.  Pablo and Lily's kids know that they are loved, they are beginning to learn how to show it and share it.  The other kids from the colonia largely showed that the do not know that kind of life changing love.  I hope we were able to give them a taste.  Lily and Pablo's family have a feast by comparison.

In some ways we have established a small beach head for a family to grow in love in a place where is seems to be in short supply.  We can pray that it overflows into their colonia, their neighborhood, because it is a desperate need there.  Thank God that with Him, there is always enough for every home to have a story about His love.

for the journey...

Tim

A Place to Call Home

Right now our church is involved in a mission trip where the main project is to build a home for a family that has qualified through a special program.  The family has met a whole list of criteria for this project and they are also a family that has faced and is facing some special needs.  The mobile home they are living in, is going to be taken back by the owner when he moves back to the Rio Grande Valley from out of state.  The family also has had a child who has survived cancer and they are caring for an elderly father who is ill and blind.

Those are certainly some compelling reasons to help this family but why go all the way to the Rio Grande Valley with all of its troubles and why go to all this expense for one family?  We could stay closer to home and meet many smaller needs and touch more people.

As I have been reading through this year's Bible reading experience (or SOAP challenge) on the key characters of the Bible, I have seen more clearly than ever something of God's plan for addressing the whole world's need.  He started by working with one family - through Abraham.  Then God called him to go to place far away and there God would provide a place, a promised land and, in essence, a home.

With all the vast needs of mankind, God started with one family and in one particular place, a troubled place at that.  From human terms that does not seem very efficient nor would it seem to be very effective.  But fast forward through the centuries and we see what God did through that one family in that one place.  It was not a perfect family.  That home, that promised land, was not in a nice safe, quiet region.  Yet God brought blessing after blessing to that family and through that family in that volatile place.

Eventually he brought his son into the world through that family and in that troubled place.  His son lived his whole life there and there he died - for the whole world.  He was raised from the dead there and the Bible says, when he returns, it will be in a special way to that place.

That family that God started with has a story.  That place where God did such a work of grace in a troubled land has a story too.  In some ways that is what we are also participating in, giving a single family who follows God a place to allow God to work through them in an area that has seen - and will see - many trials.  And in all of that, we are praying that God will continue there in our day and in the days to come the ancient work of redemption he started long ago in one family in one particularly troubled place.

Even in that family and even in that place God created a place he called home.  May he do the same in our day and through our work with one family in one place.

for the journey...

Tim

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