Hey, everyone!
Wow! What an awesome, crisp, fresh morning!! Personally, I’m “on a roll” of ‘em! We went up in the Smokies camping for a coupla days and it’s always crispy up there! I don’t know if y’all know this, but…camping rocks! Including the rocks in your shoes! I just have to admit it…I’d never really been camping til this summer. This time we stayed TWO nights! Cooking outside!…washing dishes outside!…taking your ice cold bath outside!…goin’ to the…well,…outside!...It’s the greatest thing since indoor plumbing!
One thing about camping is that things are a lot simpler than I thought they’d be!
Like, I thought you’d have to start fires by clanging those sparky rocks together. Nope! The folks we went with just pile some wood you get at the office in the cast iron fire place, splash half a bottle of lighter fluid, followed by a lit match…Voila’!
“What if you (we) run out of milk or somethin’?”
I’m thinking you chase a goat and you milk it while I hold it. Soooooo much easier than that!
“We could just get in our cars, go down the road to Gatlinburg and buy some.”
“What?! They have grocery stores up here? There’s one in Gatlinburg?!”
I love it when answers are simpler than I thought.
The other day, I was reading my favorite blog. It’s called
Hmmm & Hum”. You can find it at leeyounger.com (Yes! That one!)
A girl from some other state asked Lee (he gets questions from around our globe!)…
“Is it possible to describe God with human language? Is there some word or variation of multiple words that give him justice? I feel as though human language will always be misleading and once we think we have found an accurate description of God, it’s not God who we are describing because we will never know everything there is to know about Him…What are your thoughts?”
“Yikes! What would I say? That’s a tough one! How could I answer this complicated question in a way that’s not too complicated?”
Lee’s answer?
“Wow. Cool question… and dang, well said. So much of what you’re bringing to the table here about God is so true! We are just little finite people made of dust - how could we ever hope to understand who God is? I mean, He’s eternal and infinite and perfect and possesses limitless power and knowledge that’s boundless! He is all the things we aren’t, so how could we ever really understand Him… much less, describe Him?! …And without perfect understanding, we can’t truly explain or describe who He is. Except for one little word…Jesus.
Jesus is the reason that we can know God. He’s the reason we can know what God is like and can be confident that when we explain God, we’re on the real thing. Jesus came that we might know who God is. Jesus came to show us the heart of the Father. Jesus came to explain what God is like and show us how He loves. In Colossians 1, Paul said that Jesus is “the visible expression of the invisible God.” In other words, when you look at Jesus and you see Him loving the poor, the hurting, the broken and the rejected, you can know that God is like that. When you look at Jesus and you see Him respecting women in a society that oppressed them, you can know that God is like that. When you look at Jesus and you see His power over weather and diseases and demons and human authority, you can know that God’s power is like that. When you see Jesus embracing and exalting children and weeping over the pain of death and loss, you can know that God is just like that. Jesus was and is Almighty God who came down here so that we could understand Him. God didn’t just want us to be able to wrap our minds around Him, He wanted us to wrap our arms around Him… to touch Him and know Him.
I love your question, and I’m glad to tell you that the answer to it is really just one little word: Jesus.”
Ahhhh! Simple!
A Note From Tom: September 9th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having a joy-filled week…even tho’ it’s tougher this time. On Sunday, September 11, everyone will be remembering a Tuesday, September 11.
I remember. We used to have an office in Jackson Square before we had Ogden. I was meeting with someone who was having a time of sadness. This person was living in a crumbling marriage and was choosing to leave it and move away. I was trying to change this person’s mind. Tina called and said, “Something really sad is happening in New York. You better check it out on a TV.” I remember thinking, “I can’t right now. Something really sad is happening in a life right now and I’m trying to stop it.”
Then I went over to the Young Life office. While the towers fell down, so did our tears.
Then the images. The photos of collegues, holding hands and jumping. The phone messages left on answering machines. “If I don’t see you again, just know I love you, babe. I have to go…”
Maybe all of us could say (and some so much more than others) that our lives and hearts would never be the same as before. I heard an interview yesterday with one family who lost a dad and a grand dad that day. They called all their former life up to the eleventh of September, 2001, “the before”.
One of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen was by Ken Burns, who made documentaries about the Civil War, baseball, and Lewis and Clark that last for hours. This one was on the Friday following 9/11. It was about thirty seconds long. It showed the towers, the explosions, the rolling dust clouds, the streets, just like we had seen them endless times that week. But the film and scenes were all run backwards. The film ran in reverse. The clouds rolled back, the towers jumped up, the planes flew backwards and away. It ended after half a minute with the bustling, almost cheerful streets of New York, and a crisp, blue, early fall sky above.
There really was “the before”.
In our world, full of hate and hurt, there is a longing for “the before”. The saddest faces I’ve ever seen were in a war refugee camp. They had been driven from homes that they, and their parents, and grandparents were born in. “The before” for them was only six weeks in the past. But the war that came to them had already taken 250,000 lives. And the hate that caused it was over a thousand years old.
Some have never known “the before” except as in a faint dream in the heart. Today, tomorrow, Sunday, September 11, and every day in our world, five times as many people as died when the towers fell, will die from not having enough to eat. Most of them will not yet have reached their twelve birthday. In one country in Africa, 28% of all will die before they are five.
If we were really hoping to rewind to “the before” all the hurt, hate, sorrow and pain, we’d have to reverse the film of the human drama to the very first days of our world, when two walked with God in the cool of the day and He met all their needs and filled all their longings. The day they chose to not, the time after “the before” began. All the hurt and hate is because humans chose to walk, not with Him, but from Him.
That’s why the most important thing we can do for the healing of the hurts and hearts in our world is to tell folks everywhere about the love of Him Who came to bring us back, Who came to make all things new!
There is coming a day when He will come again for all who know and love Him! He says that on that day, “I make all things new! (Rev 21.5) Every day, experts say, 70,000 people trust in Jesus for the very first time. And every time they do, “old things have passed away; all things become new!”
In The Return of the King”, when Samwise discovered that Gandalf wasn’t dead, Tolkien wrote that …
…Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth… between bewilderment and great joy…At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?” “A great shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music…as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known…
In Pontcharra, an Alpine village in France, Paul and Karen Davis have gone to share the love of Jesus with folks who have never heard the message before. On Sept. 25 they will have their first worship service of Jesus! A few months ago, a new friend there, Mylene, asked Jesus to come into her heart.
For her, all things have become new.
That’s better than ”the before”!
A Note From Tom: September 2nd, 2011
Hey, everyone!!
Hope you’re having a week just filled with praise and thanking God for everything! If not, you have two days left before the week’s over! There’s still time to fill it
It’s gonna be an amazing weekend! The forecast, if you haven’t heard…
Wait a sec.
I wasn’t going to give the weather this week.
I realized that these little Triple C emails are getting longer and longer because I’m talking way too much in them! When we first started these, I’d throw in a few sentences to encourage us a little, and then all the announcements for the week would follow. Last week, my “li’l-thot-fer-the-week” was two Word Document pages! So I decided that today’s would be super short! Sorry if you get rained on, on Booms Day and didn’t expect it ‘cause I skipped the forecast today! (It’s supposed to, by the way…70%)
It’s tough to say something important in just a few words though! Sometimes bumper stickers can be cute and/or clever, but lots of times the truth of the thing is more complicated than the seven or eight word slogan you glue to the back of your car.
Those changeable church marquee signs face the same challenges. Down in Oliver Springs, one solution churches have found for bringing a fuller, more detailed message on those signs is that they start the message on one side and finish it on the back! I’ve never really seen that anywhere else! Next time you travel down Tri-County Blvd, headed for downtown OS or on to Wartburg, check it out. You have to completely turn your head around to read the other side of the sign to get the point! I wonder if they have a higher than the average percent of fender-benders on that stretch…
Anyway…
Here’s an example of how life can be more complex than a bumper will allow. Just the other day, I saw this saying drive by…
“Don't put a question mark where God put a period.”
I understand the point, I guess. But sometimes some of those closest to Jesus did it, and it was really OK with Him for those He loved to ask their questions.
“Jesus said, ‘You know the way to the place where I am going.’
Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’“ (John 14)
Tom had a question. But our Lord was cool with that. Because He loved that guy!
Sometimes Jesus would add His question marks to their periods.
“Peter said, ‘I will lay down my life for you.’ Then Jesus answered, ‘Will you really lay down your life for me?...’“ (John 13)
One thing to remember tho’ is that when the New Testament was first written, they didn’t even use periods, question marks or any punctuation! They only used capital letters and didn’t even put spaces between the words. So…there you go!
I saw one that said, “Christians aren’t perfect. Just forgiven”
I guess it means that except for forgiveness, Christians are just like everyone else. It fits on a bumper, but..wow! It really isn’t true! Folks who love Jesus are soooo different in so many ways from those who don’t love Him! We’re alive from the dead, we have the power of the Holy Spirit of God inside, we’re destined to be conformed to the image of God’s own Son…Don’t get me started! I’ll never finish this!
Here’s another I saw the other day…
“Going to church does not make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger”
Huh?
Besides not exactly being a heart-warming, arm-opening, lost-sheep-welcoming sentiment to someone who hasn’t been out on Sundays in a while…
I don’t think anyone who goes into a Mickey D’s ever imagines that by walking through those doors, they hope to turn into a burger! I believe they hope to turn the burger into them!
Whoa! I’ve already gone on a LOT longer than I meant to today!! I guess what I was trying to say is that lots of times, deep and personal spiritual encouragements and exhortations take more space and time than a drive-by bumpering can provide.
If you really have something to tell someone who really needs to hear it, it really helps if you take the time to know them. And it super-helps if they know you love them. It’s best if they can read the things written on your heart and not on your car.
I did see one the other day that I liked, though.
“Be kinder than necessary”
‘Nuff said.
A Note From Tom: August 26th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Or as they say at the beach where we were last week,”…
Well, actually, I’m not sure what they say. I think they say the same thing we do.
Anyhooo…
The beach of North Carolina just blew us away ! Not in the way it’s about to do tomorrow morning when hurricane Irene lands (pray for folks along the Eastern seaboard!...that as the winds blow, they can hold on! To Him!) but just with it’s beauty and amazingness! To not do anything but BE! With kids, grandkids, each other, and with Him!
All I can say is,” Duuuuude.”
I did learn some interesting things tho…
In one of the houses we stayed in, there were several copies of “O Magazine”. From the cover photos, and pictures on several of the inside pages, “O” apparently stands for Oprah Winfrey. And it is full of advice about everything! I learned how you can make a blackberry jam and peach jam pie with a lattice crust out of those pie crusts that are in the can you bang on the counter! And they look like you’ve worked for days on it!
There were also articles like…
“Are your eyebrows communicating a false message about you” It seems that one big problem some folks have is that their eye brows may make them seem more upset or tired than they really are! Did you know that? "Even subtle variations in the brows had a significant effect on how the woman's mood was perceived," says John Persing, MD, professor of plastic surgery at Yale University School of Medicine.
Who’da thunk it?
So O “challenged master eyebrow expert Eliza Petrescu to set things right.”
And this article…“Is your handbag killing you?” I’m not sure how it could but apparently they have ways.
And “What do you do if you have to wear a bridesmaid’s dress and that week your chest breaks out in pimples?”
You can’t stop the wedding! What do you do?!
But the major article in this “O” issue was about how to follow your intuition. Check this…
“Learning to trust your instincts, using your intuitive sense of what's best for you. That whispery sensation that pulsates just beneath the surface of your being, is paramount for any lasting success. I've trusted the still, small voice of intuition my entire life. And the only time I've made mistakes is when I didn't listen…the more we can tune in to our intuition, the better off we are.
For all the major moves in my life—to Baltimore, to Chicago, to own my show, and to end it—I've trusted my instincts… Get quiet so you can hear the still, small voice—your inner GPS guiding you to true North.”
One of the examples she gave was the wife of Ulysses S. Grant. She had an intuition that they shouldn’t accept an invitation to go the Ford’s Theater with the Lincolns. Whew! What if they’d gone?
Only problem with all this is that tons of times what I feel inside is right, isn’t what God wants for me. My “inner voice” is lots of times whiny, scared and selfish, when the voice of my Lord calls me to be quiet, brave, and self-giving.
I remember a super popular Christian book that advised guys in particular to follow their hearts. But Jeremiah said about his heart…and ours…that “it is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who could know it?” There probably isn’t anything worse to follow than my heart!
That book also said that you should follow your dreams. Now think about some dreams you’ve had. Follow those? Seriously?
Check Proverbs 14 .12…“There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to death”
Proverbs 3 tells me to do the opposite of listening to my voice inside. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and DON”T lean on your own understanding…and He will direct your paths!”
So many of the things Jesus says to do are counter-intuitive! Just the opposite of what you’d think!
“Give, so you can have!”
“Die, so you can live!”
“Weep, so you can laugh!”
When the Grants turned Abe down, Major Henry Rathbone and his wife went to the play with the Lincoln’s. He had spent most of the war in offices and turned out to be mentally unstable in the end. What if Ulysses had said to the Mrs., “Honey, I know you have that ‘feeling’ you get, but let’s go anyway. Our President needs us!” The General had fought across Tennessee, Mississippi, and Virginia and turned the whole thing around! He might have stopped Booth at the door! If the worst had happened to him in doing it, Jesus said…counter-intuitively… “Greater love has no man this…!”
Instead of following the voice inside of you, it’s always better to follow the often counter-intuitive voice of Him Who told folks to do seemingly illogical things like…
“Give Me those five loaves! Let’s feed all these people!” (“But what are these among so many?”)
…and “Let’s roll that stone from Lazurus’ tomb!” (But, Lord, by now he stinketh!”)
One symbol the very first Christians used for Jesus was the letter “X”. It’s the first letter in the Greek word, Xristos. It means “Christ the King, the Lord”
Instead of following the advice you read in “O”
…instead of following the voice you hear in “U”
…why not listen to the voice of “X”!
It’s only the only way to “C” what He wants you to “B”!
“OK?”
On the other hand, if you want to make a delicious pie really fast, or have problems of pimples on the wedding day, there’s some good stuff in there!
A Note From Tom: August 12th, 2011
Good morning, everyone!
Or as they say in Seoul, “Anyoughi jumusheseyo!”…
Or as they say in Lorrach, Germany, “Guten morgen!”
In Denmark they say the same thing almost. “Godmorgen!”…except by the time they’re saying it in Denmark, it’s lunch time in Germany!
In Lithuania, it’s” abas rytas!”
In Italy, “Buon Giorno!”…in Russia, “Dobroe utro!”…in France, “Bonjour!”…in Israel, “Boker tov!”…in Viet Nam, “Chao buoi sang!”…
However you say it, top o’ the mornin’ to ye, gov’na!
It’s amazing to think that around the globe, people wake up to a whole different world of sounds! Even animals speak foreign languages! In the States, we say roosters crow, “Cock-a-doodle-do!” In Italy they say, “Chi-ca-di-ca-di!” I wonder if they would understand each other if they got together in the same country…They’d probably get in a fight anyway…
What if someone read John chapter 10, verses 27 and 28 to you like this…” Mis ovejas oyen mi voz; yo las conozco y ellas me siguen. Yo les doy vida eterna, y nunca perecerán, ni nadie podrá arrebatármelas de la mano…”
Would you feel a little more encouraged about things? Or would you just be confused?
If you want some encouragement for your day and you’re not having the “gutemn morgen” you hoped you would, you can look it up in your language. John 10.27-28. Check it out and be encouraged!!
But what if you couldn’t?
What if you didn’t know anything about God’s love because you didn’t have the Scriptures in your language?
Yuck!
What if it was super-difficult to have the Scriptures in your language because instead of letters, your language looked like this…^)/<<>^^/_:: <><<++^::…?
What if John 3:16 in your language looked like this…
What if it looked liked that? Like nothing written down because your language has never been written down before. What if your people didn’t even know about writing?
We at “Triple C” have had the honor of helping supporting Tom and Juanita Matthews for years as they work in Africa, helping tribal groups have the Scriptures in their own language! Sometimes it involves helping them learn to write their own language! But after tons of sweat and labor, people who would have never had God’s beautiful, precious promises can hold them and read them in a way they understand!
I am soooo thankful that we can give so much money so that stuff like that can happen! Money you give to what God is doing at CCC goes to things like this! Your money goes to Sam and Joan in Italy, so men and women and kids can know all about Romans 5…” Giustificati dunque per fede abbiamo pace presso Dio per mezzo di Gesú Cristo, nostro Signore…”
…and our C3 bucks go to Paul and Karen, so they can help Alpine villagers in Pontcharra, France know about John 7.37 “Si quelqu'un a soif, qu'il vienne à moi, et que celui qui croit en moi boive!”
…and so a brave woman in Tanzania can help orphans hear with the heart 1 John 3.1…” How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”…They speak English there, but they wouldn’t know this without Melissa and her friends!
…and so Jim and Barb, can help high schoolers in Madrid know that no matter how tough it gets, Romans 8.39 promises that “nada puede separarnos del amor de Dios que esta’ en Cristo Jesus, nuestro Senor!”
…and so Victor in India and the Indian evangelists he trains, who travel on bikes from one village to another can share Jesus with those who have never heard His beautiful name! They face hostility and threats but share His love week by week! Victor has baptized 6000 converts to Jesus himself! The Indian missionaries he oversees have started 350 churches! Wow!
…and so Bill and Maria,, after years of serving Jesus all over, can reach high school kids in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where Bill grew up, and fulfill the words of Jesus…”"Go home and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."
…and so, closer to home (in fact, in some of our homes!) Devon and Erin, Jordan, and Virginia, and Erica can love with Jesus’ love, kids and leaders across our county, so that they can start out on their journeys without the hobbling and limping so many of us walk with, from the wounds and hurts we caused ourselves when we didn’t know Him…
…and so Glen and Jane, Jed and Halley, along with Ben, Kristin,, and Peter and Tasha …and coming soon, our very own MATT!...can tell ex-cons, ex-offenders, ex-thugs from the worst streets of Chicago the ex-cellent good news of Romans 8.35 in their own language…”Yo! Yo! Yo! God loves yous and you won’t eva lose dat!”
I’m so thankful for what we can do with the money you give to the work God is doing through CCC…
With all our heart we say…
Gracias!
Merci’!
Danke!
Grazie!
Thank you…
…so much!.
…for giving!!
A Note From Tom: August 4th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Wow! Isn’t this weather awesome!? It’s perfect outside! Just the way God planned it! The temp’s just right and the humidity couldn’t be better! Your forecast for tomorrow? Exactly the weather that our Lord has ordained for us to enjoy on this beautiful August day!
I know. It’s also hot, muggy, sticky, buggy, and sweaty, but I’m just trying to follow the awesome advise and insight of our Lord when He told His guys that it isn’t what goes into your mouth that messes your day up, but what comes out of it! Check it.
“Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not pollute them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what pollutes them.’ ” (Matt 15.10-11)
Amazing! It isn’t what you eat but what you say…it isn’t what goes in your mouth but what comes out of it…that spoils everything! I think that includes weather-complaining! Who’da thunk it?
Todd, our weather dude, always talks about the temperature and the “heat index”. The temperature is how hot it is and the heat index is how hot it “feels”. “It’s 93 but feels like 101!” I’m just not sure what factors they calculate to get that number. Humidity, f’r sure…Probably the wind speed, too…Do they factor if you’ve had a crummy day at work and your boss has driven you crazy the whole time? That’d make you sweat it up! How ‘bout if your underwear is 100% cotton or a 60/40 blend?
One thing that I know will make the day seem hotter and stickier is complaining about it!
“Hot enough for you?”
“Gross! Can you believe how hot it is?”
“I can’t wait ‘til it’s not this hot!”
“It’s so hot our chickens lay fried eggs!”
“Our cows are giving evaporated milk!”
“It’s so hot the robins use pot holders to pull worms out of the ground!”
“The weather’s perfect for grampa! He’s also 98 and hazy!”
I remember a girl finding a journal that belonged to her mother, a missionary in Africa. Her mom had gone on to Heaven but when she was in that blisteringly hot country, she had never had AC the whole time. They didn’t even have electricity! Yet, amazingly, she was always so cheerful and thankful! On the front page of the journal, these wise words were written. They were her “rules of the heart” Her mom lived by these. Listen…
“1) Never complain about ANYTHING…ever! Including the weather!
2 ) Never compare your lot (ie, circumstances of life) with that of anyone else.
3) Never wish that things could have been anything other then what they actually were and are.”
Explains a ton!
Jesus said that the stuff that comes out of your mouth makes things worse when it’s just grumbling and grumping about the inevitable and unchangeable. If you complain about the temps, it cranks the heat index up for you!
Yuk!
Praise instead! Thank God for the weather He brings!
Complaining words come from deep inside you. And inside you, the temperature is 98.6 degrees! And it’s plenty humid down there, too! Letting those complains out into the environment is heating your whole house up!
So stop complaining about the weather! You’ll save $ on your AC bill!
That’s the weather!
A Note From Tom: July 28th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome day!
Well, I do know of one person who is having a day that must be less awesome than it could’ve been.
I don’t actually KNOW this person. But I know something about this person, I think.
Y’see, the other day I was walking into Panera and I saw this photocopied sign (in color!) tacked up on the bulletin board. There was a picture of a parakeet. The sign said that this bird was lost in the Woodland area. It’s name is “Axel”. It’s mostly gray with a yellow crest. It answers to “Axel”. Then there was a number to call, written out about thirty times on the little tabs the person had cut at the bottom of the page, so you could just tear the tab off, slip it in your pocket, and call the minute you see a bird that has a yellow head and answers to “Axel”.
The sign had been up there a while ‘cause I had glanced at it a few days before. I noticed that no one had ripped a tab off.
Several thoughts run through my thinking…
No tabs gone…hmmm…
…Maybe not that many people care about birds the way this person does. Maybe it’s a child’s bird and a parent is trying to tell this little heart, “See? I’m doing all I can to find Axel! He’s on the Panera board! If it doesn’t work, we’ll look into renting one of the big billboards along Solway!”
…Or maybe no one had taken a tab because not that many people really have much hope that this person and this bird will ever renew their relationship. A parakeet that flew away. What really are the chances that you’d ever see it again? Best case scenario…it’s gone home to Argentina. Worst case…it was lunch time for kitty. As tough as it is to accept, there is the ol’ “Circle of Life”. And cats have to eat. Cats are people, too.
As I looked at the sign and meditated on it…there in front of the bathroom door…I wondered about this broken-hearted one. I know some might wonder how a person could care about a little bird so much. Some might think parakeets are small, useless, and at times, annoying. On the other hand, I’ve often wondered why God would care for me so much. In His universe, I’m so small…kinda useless…often annoying.
But He DOES care for me! In fact, He even cares for Axel! Jesus said He at least cares for all sparrows. There are 7000 varieties of sparrows in the world. He knows and cares for each one! Matthew 10 says that they’re so common, you could get two for a penny! Luke 12 says you could get five for two pennies! Buy four and we’ll throw one in for free!
But…amazingly…not one falls to the earth without the Father knowing and caring for it!
I remember the Wednesday after Sept 11, 2001. I was brokenhearted and confused, walking on the sidewalk at Jackson Square. There on the sidewalk was a sparrow. It was dead. “The Father knows,” I thought.
He knows, loves, and cares for you! ‘Cause you’re worth tons more than a bird to Him! You’re His precious child! (Luke 12.7)
A Note From Tom: July 21st, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome day!
I think.
I’m not so sure if we’re really using the word “awesome” the way people have always understood it. I looked it up and…
“Awesome” as we know it, first showed up in the Queen’s English in 1598 and really means “dread mixed with veneration”. It comes from “awe” which people starting saying around 1200 ad. “Awe” comes from the Old Norse word “agi” and the Old English word “ege”, which mean “fright and fear”. These come from an older word, “agh”, which means, “to be depressed or afraid”. So far, awesome’s not sounding super-awesome…
The meaning we know of ”awesome”… “something that’s exceptionally cool”… as in “Totally awesome, dude!”…wasn’t around until 1980!
So for 780 years, “awesome” meant somethin’ like “very scary, intimidating, depressing, or freaky” and only for the last 29 years has it meant, well…”awesome!”
But y’all know what I mean when, as I was saying, I “hope you’re having an awesome day!”
Lately I’ve been reading one of my favorite books of all time, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, written by John Bunyan in 1678. It’s the most amazing book ever!! The brother never went to school but wrote 88 books! This one has been translated into 200 languages! It’s even been translated from English into… well, English…as in, from the one they used in the 1600’s to the one we use today.
But that’s a little sad. I know they’re just trying to make it so people today can understand it. But he used some of the coolest words! Words that aren’t in the updated Pilgrim’s Progress. Words we don’t use any more…but we should!
When the hero of the book (the “pilgrim” whose progress we’re following) starts out on his journey, he’s sad because he has this humongous backpack on. He could barely stumble forward because it was so heavy. It’s kinda like all his past sins he’s carrying. But when he finally understands how to be forgiven and freed of the burden on his back, and it falls off and into an underground cave and…well, check it out for your self…
“Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty,
because of the load on his back.
He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood across, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more…
He said with a merry heart, ‘He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.’ Then he stood still a while, to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked, therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks.”
Totally awesome (in today’s meaning!)!
And then it says that “Christian’ (that’s his name) felt “glad and lightsome”!
“Lightsome”! That’s a word we shouda hung on to! It would be awesome if we could get that word back! I’m not sure exactly what it means but it must be somethin’ like “nothing weighing on your heart”, “burden-free and joy-filled”, “unworried”…or it may mean “a heart free of darkness”, “a heart full of sunshine”! In either case, with his burden gone, his record clean, and his joy returned, he was a lot more “lightsome” dude then he was when he woke up that day!
You’re one of God’s very own kids! He’s listening to your heart all day! He’s working stuff out for you constantly! In ways you don’t even know! He’s got you covered no matter what! You’re forgiven!
Why not be “lightsome” today?
Why not be lightsome” ALL day!?
We could all use more “lightsomeness”! Ask around…I bet the folks in your life would love you to be more and more “lightsome”! It’d make their day and heart more “lightsome”, too!
So…as I was saying…
Hey everyone! Hope you’re having an aweso…uh…a lightsome day!
A Note From Tom: July 15th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having a blessed, joy-filled day! That’s what Freddy Smith always wishes us at the end of his shift of bluegrass music from six to nine in the morning on 89.9 WDVX…He plays about three Gospel songs (“…to kindly tune up your heartstrings”) but right before, he always signs off with, “Have a blessed day!”
I’d bet it’s safe to say that pretty much everyday is more blessed (or is it “blessed-ier”?) than we realize! And our days are full of moments that matter more than we ever knew.
Once a mom packed a lunch for her little boy ‘cause he was going on an outing with some friends and would be gone for the day in the country. “As fast as he’s growing, he’ll be starving by eleven!” she thought. She probably didn’t think about it again. But a dude named Andrew somehow got the kid to give up his lunch to Jesus (maybe he promised him that Jesus would autograph his brown paper lunch bag!) and Jesus blessed the few fish and pitas, and miraculously, exponentially, multiplied them, and more than 5000 folks were invited to an unexpected picnic!
Like moms across the globe, a mom packed her boy some sandwiches. Happened to be fish sandwiches. It was thoughtful. And she probably never thought about it again. We’ve been reading about that lunch for twenty centuries!
You never know how many unforgettably meaningful “meaningless moments” are packed into to your ordinary day!
Here’s one…one morning, Lee, Pottsie, Bill Reazer and I were sitting down at Panera bread, talking about the Book of Romans and other intense stuff. Next to us, this older dude in an open-buttoned shirt (Tom Jones-style) and a big gold chain was chowing down and reading, totally ignoring us. Then, seemingly done, he got up…and left. Not only that but, he left…a big, untouched hunk of that awesome French bread they sell done there.
“Seems a shame to leave that,” Bill said. He looked at me (always hungry). “If I snag it off his plate, will you eat it?”
WITHOUT HESITATION, I answered, “You know it!”
Bill looked this way…then that way…and sloooooowwwwwly leeeaaaned over and just as he reached out to grab that bread with my name all over it….
“Wow! You get up for a second and folks are stealing your food!”
It was him!
“Opps!” said Bill.
“Opps!” said I.
“Ha!” said Pottsie
“Uh…we…uh…thought that you were…um…maybe…uh…gone…”
“Well, my son’s a manager here! I’m calling him over!”
I immediately realized that I didn’t know anything about how that whole posting bail thing worked. Just then, his son came over.
“These boys are so hungry, they’re having to steal food. Could you bring them a whole loaf of that French bread?”
“Sure, dad. No problem.”
As the son threw it down before our unbelieving eyes, the dad looked at us and said, as he was leaving, “All you have to do is ask.”
Y’know I was thinking about that story this week because Bill, now Young Life area director for Cape Girardeau, Missouri and one of the amazing missionaries we support, is giving the “talks” for the first time at a Young Life camp in Minnesota. He is boldly sharing the message of Jesus with hundreds of high schoolers from all over the nation, who have never heard it before. And when he gets to the part about all that Jesus did to make us His own…and what anyone who wants it, has to do to get the Gift…he tells the Panera story.
And he says, “All you have to do is ask.”
Your days are full of moments that mean more than you know.
A Note From Tom: July 8th, 2011
HE!
That’s my new texting abbreviation for my usual Friday greeting... a hearty “Hey, everyone!” You know how everyone’s using abbreviations while they text…BFF…@TEOTD (“at the end of the day”)…IM (“instant messaging”)…IKR (I know, right?”)…BS (“Big smile”)…LOL (“Lots of love”…is that right?)…
So I thought I’d use my own…”HE!”
LOL
Wow! We’ve been learning tooooons about the new tech world we live in the last two Wednesdays! Bem explained so much to us about how medical advances are opening whole new doors to beautiful and also dark possibilities! It was a mind-blowing presentation! And Lee and Matt shared how they are touching lives around the world through their blogs and podcasts! Over 5000 folks read their stuff each month! Join the wave! Check it out!
leeyounger.tumblr.com…and mattkinger.tumblr.com…
DBLB! (“Don’t be left behind!”)
It’s all so new to me! Lee said last night that this Fri CCC email is a blog. I actually had never really realized that I have a blog. I didn’t know what one was for a long time. I thought a “blog” was slang for “sinus infection”. But I blog, email, and text (no TWD!). Not bad for an old dude!
We’re not the first to have our world rocked by TLF (“technological leaps forward”) in our communication capacities. President Lincoln was the first in the White House to use the telegram. He could essentially IM folks. And it helps historians get a feel for what he was really like. Along with speeches he’d sweat over for days, we have those things he just put in a telegram right off the TOHH (“top of his head”…or “hat”). One time, “the Mrs.” was on a trip to NYC (“New York City”) with Tad, their 11-year old and sent him a telegram…
“Arrived here safely; hope you are well. Please send a draft today for $50.Tad asks, are the goats well?” (The Lincolns had goats as pets…Imagine that.)
Abe answered…
“The check is in the mail. Tell Tad the goats and father are very well…especially the goats.”
For older folks like us, it takes a while to learn how to tweet and text. One text a grandpa sent to his grandson said…
“Do you know what fluttering is”
“?”
“What is a flutter?”
“Grampa, I think you mean twitter and tweeting”
“No. Im pretty sure its called fluttering”
A tweet can have only 140 characters in it. You say it and done! The closest you get to tweeting in the New Testament was a letter written by an old guy (surprisingly!) 90-year old John wrote a couple of letters that are one chapter each and just like a tweeting epistle, he gets to the point, says it, and signs off. In fact, 2 John could be called a “twistle”.
“It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love!”
His commands us to love. When you love, you obey Him. When you obey, you love! Love…Johns asks for it…Jesus orders it! More than anything else, love is what He wants from us!
WENTBS (“What else needs to be said?”)
A tweet has only 140 characters. I’m gonna try one. Ready?
The other day, I was jogging down the road by my house thinking about stuff. My best thoughts come to me while jogging. This thought was my best yet!! Ready? I thought to mys
A Note From Tom: June 30th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having a beautiful day today! I know I will! My girl’s comin’ home! She’s been gone a week to Texas to her mom’s family reunion in Lubbock (didn’t they just have that a year ago?) and then she drove down the flat, straight, hot highway to see Charlie, Sarah, and the kids in Midland. Then…today…HOME! Wow! I just miss her when she’s gone! Not that I can’t cook for myself, or anything like that. I really kinda do pretty good.! I’m just still crazy about that li’l farmer and all her farmer ways!
Speaking of farmer love…
Tina had to teach me how to do all her barnyard chores for this week while she was gone. She explained it, and showed me, and typed it up and printed it out. “Feed the chicken these things…the goats get that stuff…and hay…gather the eggs…water for all…oh, yeah. Don’t forget the dog. And the cats”. Even tho’ I’m not all that farm-y, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her! By Tuesday, I could do it all blind-folded!...with one arm behind my back! Who needs the print-out? I felt like I was rockin’ the FFA!
‘Til yesterday afternoon…(!)
I was about done…Just needed to put the scoop back in the goat’s garbage can full of grain and alfalfa pellets (did you know they need those?) and gather up the eggs from the coop…I lifted the lid of the goat bin and all curled up in there…a humongous snake! Yikes! I whacked at it with a hoe and it slid down to the bottom of the bin. Rats! Now I gotta get it out ‘cause I didn’t want Tina to have to look into that scaly, slimy face! So I dumped over the whole thing and it slid out on a wave of goat feed. Whoa! It was huge! It was like seven feet long! And fat! And it was acting all strike-y and bite-y! My heart was pounding and I think I screamed at it! I’ve never faced down a snake before! I whacked it with that hoe I had! “It’s you or me, baby!” Turns out I probably shouldn’t have tried to hoe it to death. It was most likely one of those good kind of snakes who munch on mice. But I didn’t know! I’m new at this! You know, nice birds and yucky birds are easy to tell apart (think about bluebirds and buzzards). It’d be good if nice snakes and the other kind didn’t look so much alike.!
When it was all over at the OK Corral, I realized that, if I had to, I’d even face down a snake for that girl in my life. I had visions of St. George and the dragon. But if I had known on Wednesday that I would have to confront a snake on Thursday afternoon (albeit a friendly, helpful, nice snake!) I probably wouldn’t have slept well Wednesday night!
As I tried to calm down and quit sweatin’ and shakin’, I thought about a Scripture from the Book of Revelation, chapter 12. It says that Jesus hurls down “that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray…” By giving His life and blood for us, our Lord doomed that snake… “He shared in our humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death…” (Hebrews 2. 14-15)
He knew that if He was going to rescue those He loved, He would have to face…and defeat…”the snake”. And He DID love us so much that He did not hesitate for a moment!
He came to our world.
In Bethlehem’s barn, He would “sleep in heavenly peace” even tho’ in that tiny, infinite baby heart, He knew already what He had come to do and whom He had come to confront.
And when the time came, He bravely faced that horrible serpent down.
On more than one occasion.
And in the end…in our world’s darkest moment…
Jesus won!
“Oh, how He loved you and me!
Oh, how He loved you and me!
He gave His life.
What more could He give?
Oh, how He loves you!
Oh, how He loves me!
Oh, how He loved you and me!”
By the way, I was shaking so much I broke two of the eggs on my way in the house!
A Note From Tom: June 23rd, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Well, it’s the third full day of summer and so, of course, folks are already talking about it! It’s coming up! Well…not until November…November, 2012! Y’all know what I’m talking about! Election Day!
Wow! It’s gonna be a long campaign! Hope it doesn’t get ugly! Hope they don’t call each other names! Like “the horrid looking wretch…nutmeg dealing (?), hatchet-faced ape”. That’s what one side called the other candidate in one of our election campaigns! It was the 1860 Presidential campaign! They were talking about Lincoln! (He won, by the way.)
His people called him “Ol’ Abe…the Ol’ Rail Splitter!” He never liked to be called those things. He was always a little embarrassed by his “country bumpkin” days.
In his race against Stephen Douglas, both sides “let it fly” against the other. Lincoln’s people said that Douglas, drank too much (he did!) and was “about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way.”
The Douglas campaign shot back, “Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.”
Y’know, I guess good advise for voting is always…
1) Vote for the one who you think we need for this moment.
2) And vote for the one who you think could do what no one else could do for us.
Those are the same two reasons you should be in what we call “community groups” on Sunday mornings.
Community groups…and there is one for college folks, one for those just out of college, and two for those who are well on their way “up the hill”, and maybe some even a little “over the hill”…are times (every Sunday, 9:30 to 10:30) just for getting to know each other, share our lives, pray together and learn and talk about the Scriptures together.
And going to a community group is just like voting!
When you go to one regularly, you encourage everybody else in there just by showing up! You’re saying, “Sometimes I need your encouragement. But even if I don’t right now, encouraging you is important to me! I’m here because YOU’RE here. I’m here because I believe God has unique gifts and a plan for you, that no one could do but you. And I want to encourage you as you find all of that. And I’m here because (as St. Paul says) we’re like a human body and each of the parts of it is super important to all the other body parts! “
In other words…
“I’m here because…
1) I believe you are the one we need for this moment.
2) And I’m here because I believe you are the one who can do what no one else can do but you!”
“I’m here because…I vote for you!”
If you’re already in one…Thanks! Thanks for encouraging everyone else in there!
If you’re not in one, why not join one! Just by coming, you cast your ballot for all those “running the race set before them (Hebrews 12.1)
Come to a community group!
Or as Mayor Daley of Chicago said, “Vote early! And vote often!”
A Note From Tom: June 17th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope your heart is as warm and sunny as today is going to be! Here’s your local forecast! If your heart matches this weather, you’re gonna have a good day! Check it…
Tonight: Mostly clear & pleasant… Friday: Warm once again…”
If you start out your day praising Jesus and your heart is clear, pleasant, and warm, how could it not be a good day? (I remember once on the morning news, the weather guy said, “Today’s gonna be hot and unstable…” and the traffic guy piped in, “That sounds like my first wife!”
Just a reminder…remember when the temperatures rise, you need to drink lots of water. For optimal health, you should drink eight full glasses of water a day…
Wait a second…hold on…
This news flash just in... Now they’re saying you actually DON’T have to drink eight glasses of water every day!
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a kidney specialist at the Univ. of Penn. says in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. that there is no health benefit from drinking eight daily glasses of water! No more clug-a-lugging and sloshing around all day!
Dr. Goldfarb also says that drinking excessive water doesn’t help your kidneys filter out toxins from your system. “In fact, drinking large amounts of water surprisingly tends to reduce the kidney's ability to function as a filter. It's a subtle decline, but definite."
It doesn’t help your skin either, he says. Apparently, “the human body is already 60 percent water. So, if you take a 200-pound man, he's 120 pounds of water. Adding a few extra glasses of water each day “is such a tiny part of what's in the body, it's very unlikely that one's getting any benefit.’ "
Wow! Where’d all that antiquated aqua-advice come from if “it ain’t necessarily so”?
"Nobody really knows," says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb…
How much other stuff’s out there that I’ve been believing all my life? Maybe it’s not true that your eyes will stay that way if you cross ‘em too much! …That cracking your knuckles DOESN’T cause arthritis? …What if you don’t lose 80% of your body heat through your head?
What if you don’t have to have a “quiet time” in the morning?
Since I accepted Jesus, I’ve always heard that one! You’re supposed to get up earlier than anyone, open the Bible, and have time with Jesus. What if they just made that one up too? Can I really just get up at the last minute, eat my Golden Grahams, and watch Sports Center, and hit the door? “Have you got a verse for that quiet time thing?”
Maybe there’s not one specific one that says it like that, but I do have some! Check this…
“In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly…” –Psalm 5.2
“But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love…” –Psalm 59.16
“The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy!” –Pslam 65.8
“I cry to you for help, LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you..” –Psalm 88.13
“I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning…” –Psalm 130.6
There are bunches more, but here’s the clincher…
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” –Mark 1.35
Proverbs 4 says to “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it are the springs of life!” There’s nothing more important than taking care of your heart and falling in love with Jesus every day! As George Muller said, “My most important duty before God is to get my heart in a happy state before Him!” And he had a LOT of duties!
So go ahead! Get up! Open the Scriptures! Look for reasons to praise Jesus in what you read! Ask Him to show you ways He loves you! Praise Him and tell Him you love Him! Don’t stop ‘til you ARE in love with Him and your heart IS in a happy state!
I also drink coffee during this time.
It’s how I get my eight glasses of water for the day.
A Note From Tom: June 10th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Wow! What a day! When you start your day with worshiping our Lord, even if you’re “at your wit’s end”, in a “twinkling of an eye”, all your problems just seem like a “drop in the bucket” when you just focus on His lovingkindness and tender mercies! Just knowing that you’re the “apple of His eye”!
Y’know, there was a time when I really couldn’t talk like this.
Neither could you!
500 hundred years ago, I couldn’t have said any of the things that I just wrote!
Because most of those words and phrases in that paragraph weren’t in our language yet! They hadn’t been invented!
Most of those phases came from the version of the Bible that was ordered by King James 1 of England (or King James VI of Scotland…same dude). Everyone used the Geneva Bible back then, and the king didn’t think it emphasized enough the verses that talked about kings and how important they are! He wanted a royal Bible! (The Scottish king of England had some insecurity issuses…)
The KJV has a birthday this year! 400th! And it’s amazing how much we still talk in the King’s English (and in King James English!) without even knowing it!
TONS of words really came into the English language through the King James Version! Words that weren’t really used before until they showed up there. Tons of words and phrases were invented by the brave brother who translated most of the Bible into English for the first time. William Tyndale wound up losing his life for having the courage to get the Scriptures into a language normal folks could understand. But almost all of his work was adopted fifty years later directly into the King James Version. In fact, the King James Version is mostly not a “version” (translation) but a revision of the work of Tyndale.
Speaking of “adopted”…that’s a word that was invented by William Tyndale and the KJV scholars! So was “mortgage”, “glory”, “worship”, “beautiful”, “mystery”, “horror”, “fishermen”, “feel”, “advertise”, and “suburb”…
All those phrases I put in that first paragraph…
at your wit’s end (Ps 107.27)…
like a drop in the bucket (Is 40.15) …
lovingkindness…
tender mercies…
the apple of His eye(Deut 32.10)……
in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor 15..52)…
You guessed it! They all come from the original 1611 KJV and it’s “uncle”, William Tyndale!
Most English speakers who read the Scriptures everyday usually read a more modern translation that is easier to understand, like the NIV or the English Standard Version. But lots of folks still really love the antique sound of the words of the old King James Bible., even if it is a little old-ish to modern ears. (“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth…” John 3).
Some are really glad we don’t have use the “Thee” and “Thou” anymore when we talk to God! It seems so formal, distant, and cold!
But actually…
Our English language used to have two kinds of the word, “you”. “You” was originally the plural form. It’s like our “y’all”. Or as some say, “y’uns”. The singular form of “you” was “thee”. But to show respect and honor to important or powerful people, you were only supposed to use the plural (“you”) when talking to those with a greater social status than yours. You could use the singular, more familiar form (“thee” or “thou”) with your family, friends, or your dog. But you could never use “thee” or “thou” with people more important than you! The Quakers were always in trouble for insisting on using the “thee” form of “you” with everyone. They believed that no one was better or more important than anyone else, so “thee” was good for me and thee!
So when the guys who translated the version the king wanted done…a version that was ordered to bring more respect and honor to kings and those destined for the throne…it’s amazing that when verses talked directly to God Almighty, King of kings, they used…not “You”…but ”Thee”! And “Thou”! It was their way of saying, “Lord, You are mighty and holy…but Thou art our friend! Thou lovest us! We’re in Thy family! We are Thy kids! Thou art our Dad! Praise Thee!”
Psalm 23 says He isn’t ruling far away in a distant place we could never enter. He’s our shepherd and friend who will never leave you alone! You can even say to Him, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me…!”
You didn’t have to call Him the more formal “You”!
You could call Him…”Thou!”
Wow!
A Note From Tom: June 3rd, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome, praise-filled Friday! TGIF! But you know, when you love Jesus, you just thank God for every day of the week! May as well say it tomorrow! “TGIS!” Then the next day, you can say, “TGIS!”…then,TGIM!...TGIT!…TGIW!...then…
I guess, when you get down to it, folks who love Jesus are supposed to pretty much praise Him no matter what! There’s a ton of Scripture for that one!
“My brothers and sisters, you will face all kinds of trouble. When you do, think of it as pure joy!” (James 1)
“Give thanks no matter what happens. God wants you to thank him because you believe in Christ Jesus!” (1 Thessalonians 5)
Even when the unexpected comes yer way!
Like Karen Butler in Portland, Oregon. Seems she went to the dentist. She had to get a tooth pulled. When she was done, she’d lost more than her tooth. She lost her American accent! She speaks with a British one instead! She started speaking like a Brit as soon as the Novacane wore off! Never been there in her life!
It’s called FAS, foreign accent syndrome, and there have only been 100 cases documented. It usually comes from a brain injury…but Karen got it at the jolly ol’ dentist!
Blimey!
A Norweigian woman was hit by schrapnel in WWII and spoke with a German accent after that. Bummer! Wasn’t a good time for that one!
A British woman got a migraine and speaks with a Chinese accent now! It’d be cool if you could actually speak Chinese after a headache! Or could play the piano!
Another lady had a stroke and now has a French accent!
Sacre bleu!
It must be weird to have everyone stop after you meet them or speak to them and ask you, “”Scuse me but...where you from?”
Getting’ back to what we were talking about at the start… when you have a tough thing happen and instead of saying the stuff you normally hear, you really, truly stop and praise God…and thank Him for His promises…and how much He cares for you, no matter what…and how you know He has a solution and the strength you need for whatever is happening….well,that’s an accent that folks aren’t used to hearing from a normal looking person like you!
Praise…it’s almost a foreign language!
In the amazing, awesome book, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, when the two traveling heroes, Christian and Faithful, arrived at the awful, Vegas-y town of Vanity Fair…(”It bears the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 'tis kept is lighter than vanity… “) they began to be stalked, mocked, and persecuted. One of the reasons is that the people who lived in that town wondered “likewise at their speech; for few could understand what they said. They naturally spoke the language of Zion; but they that kept the fair were the men of this world: so that from one end of the fair to the other, the two seemed barbarians…”
When you have a new heart and a passport from Heaven, it changes your words and the way you say them.
“Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect!” (Ephesians 5)
What if you talked in such a way…thankful among the grumpy…praising among the gripy…singing among the grumbling…that folks stopped, looked at you, and asked, “’Scuse me but…where you from?”
A Dieu soit la glorie!
A Note From Tom: May 27th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Wow! What a week! Hope your week has been completely awesome and blessed (like mine was)! To have a week like mine you would have had to spend it on the Costa Brava in Spain (like I did!) with folks who are serving Jesus with all their heart in foreign countries (like I did!), sharing your heart and struggles, laughing and crying together about all that God allows you to go through, (like I did)!
It was sooooo amazing to be with Young Life people from all over Western Europe! Some have been serving our Lord there for over 25 years! Some are brand-new to the adventure. But they’re all giving it all they’ve got! It was an honor to be with them!
My trip didn’t start out so well.
Tina and I have this thing we do when I have to go on a trip by myself without her. We smooch good-bye as I’m about to go through the security check. Then, when I’m all checked out and before I put my shoes back on, I look and see her way back there among the non-departing, unsecurity-checked. And we wave one last time. Then I put my shoes on. And I look for her again. And she’s still there! So we wave like I’m being deployed for the next year. We do it every time. Except this time.
“We’re going to have to ask you to step aside,” the security lady said.
Somehow I set off the security alert. She rubbed a piece of paper on my hands. “We’ve found something on your hands that is causing our sensors to go off. Would you mind stepping into our secured room, please?”
“But I’ve got some waving to do”, I thought…but didn’t say.
I could tell they weren’t kidding at this point.. Two dudes were waiting on me in there. One of them was telling me all the things he was going to do to me and all the checking me out that he was about to do, so that I would be too surprised about how well we were about to get to know each other. Meanwhile, the other guy was going through all my stuff and turning my bags inside out. After about ten minutes they said I was OK and I could go ahead to my gate. Before I thanked them for keeping our nation safe, I asked them what it was that they thought they might have found on my hands that set the thing off. “We can’t tell you that,” they said. “Wow!” I thought. “You now know what size my underwear is, but you still can’t tell me anything about you!”
I was rocking in those rockers they have at McGhee Tyson, talking to my daughter, Val on the phone about my little adventure, and she said, “Dad, did you handle any fertilizer this morning?”
Well, I guess I did! We had about a half a bag of cow manure we got from Home Depot. It’s called “Moopoo”. I just decided to put it on our baby tomato plants while I was waiting to go to the airport. I washed my hands a lot after though. Val said that’s what they found. Apparently, terrorists make weapons out of fertilizer. I don’t know how you’d make anything other than a stink bomb out of Moopoo, but I’m not a security expert.
I was trying to think of all the spiritual lessons I could learn from that episode.
Was the lesson…
“When you get into something spiritually stinky, it lingers even if you think it’s gone?”
Or maybe…
“Even if you think you’re clean, you’re sins will find you out!”
I don’t think it was either of those! I wasn’t doing anything wrong! I was just taking care of my ‘maters! Even if gardening makes someone suspect that you might be an international criminal! The whole time they were checking me over, I had total peace. I knew I hadn’t done anything or hidden anything that they had reason to suspect me for.
In fact, the lesson stirring in my heart as I was getting myself together and saying goodbye to my security guard buddies, was…
“When voices halfway imply that I might possibly be guilty…or unacceptable…I can know in my heart that no matter what they might be thinking, in God’s mind, I’m clean!
“Being justified by faith, we have peace with God!” Paul tells us.
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children”
Been feeling criticized? Feel like you’re always failing somebody’s tests that you didn’t even know you were taking? Feel like somebody’s always pointing out stinky things about that you thought were long ago washed away?
It’s not your Lord saying or thinking those things! In His heart, you are “His chosen people, holy, and dearly loved! (Col 3.12) He rejoices over you with singing! (Zeph. 3.17)
And that’s the opinion that matters!
We put in twenty eight tomato plants! I think we’ll have more tomatoes than we’ll need! When they start to come in, I might take a few Brandywines or Better Boys out to my two new friends at airport security in Alcoa!
A Note From Tom: May 19th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome day, filled with warm and sunny joy and thanks even though there might be some showers on this chilly spring day! Here’s your forecast…
“Cool weather continues with high temps in the low 60s. Light showers are expected at times…”
You wouldn’t exactly expect that for mid May!
I’ve got a day that might have some unexpected moments…Flying to Atlanta and then on to Barcelona for the Western Europe Young Life conference (Pray for me!)…
Weather in Atlanta?…Not sure.
Forecast for Barcelona?…Don’t know that either.
Will my luggage make it? Who knows?
Three weeks ago when we flew to Italy, our bag went to France. I usually borrow a bright yellow bag from Andy and Amy that we call “Big Bird” (because it looks like him!). Not exactly sure how they could lose it. When they told me it would be delivered to where we were staying, I told them at the desk, “You can’t miss it. It looks like the sun coming up!”
Planes and trains to towns I’ve never been to…to speak to folks I mostly don’t know…Lots of things I’m not sure about! But one thing we always know…rain or shine…warm or chilly…jet lagged or not…English or Spanish…God is watching over us, loving us, caring for us, always making everything work out for the best and coolest plan!
In uncertainty, it is awesome to have some things we can always count on!
The other day I was reading that Queen Victoria of England asked her pastor at St. Paul’s after his message, "Can one be absolutely sure in this life of eternal safety?"
"No, there is no way that anyone can be absolutely sure."
Yikes! And yuck! It would be awful not to be sure! And we can be!
Somehow this post-sermon conversation got published in the Court News and a friend of George Muller read it. He took a deep breath, said a prayer, and wrote to the Queen(!)…
”To Her Gracious Majesty, our beloved Queen Victoria, from one of your most humble subjects: With trembling hands, but heart-filled love, and because I know that we can be absolutely sure now for our eternal life in the home that Jesus went to prepare, may I ask Your Most Gracious Majesty to read the following passages of Scripture: John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10. I sign myself, your servant for Jesus' sake, John Townsend.”
He was shocked to find in the mail an envelope with the royal seal, and inside this letter…
“To John Townsend: I have carefully and prayerfully read the portions of Scripture referred to. I now believe in the finished work of Christ for me, and trust by God's grace, to meet you one day in that place He has prepared for us in heaven. Victoria Guelph”
It’s so awesome to know some things for sure! Or as John T said, to be “…absolutely sure for our eternal life…!”
Sometimes there are stories like this that get passed around over and over (in fact, I just did it!)…Nobody knows where they started. Sometimes no one can be sure whether they really happened. I’ve heard messages where they talked about “Spurgeon walking down the street and a drunk came up to him…” And other times it was Moody walking down the street. Or Billy Graham…
Who knows if anyone was walking down the street…or if letters were exchanged between a paster and a queen. Who knows if it’ll rain today…or if I’ll get on the right train… But “with trembling hands, but heart-filled love, …I know that we can be absolutely sure now for our eternal life”
And that our God will watch us and love all this chilly day!
A Note From Tom: May 12th, 2011
Hey, Everyone!
Well, I’m still not over Friday night! When you get to see one of your biggest heroes of all time!...
When we were in Florence, Italy last week, we saw some famous folks, I guess. Especially if you count statues as people. We walked past the David of Michelangelo (“Scuse me, but didn’t you forget something?”)…We passed the statue of Dante Aleghieri in the Piazza of Santa Croce (Wow. What a grumpy looking dude!) . One time I saw someone I thought I recognized in Florence, but I couldn’t remember his name. I thought it might have been someone we knew from a Sunday School class at Cedar Springs Presbyterian in K-town. “When he sees me, maybe he’ll remind me what his name is,” I thought. Then I recognized him. It was the dentist from the old Bob Newhart show. And he didn’t recognize me one bit!
Last week on the plane I talked to some folks who had been in Rome to see the Pope and attend the ceremonies for the beatification of Pope John Paul II. A beatification is when someone is officially declared a saint. What a party! St. Peter’s was slammed! Only thing…Paul says…or rather, Saint Paul says… that whenever anyone accepts Jesus as his or her Savior, that person becomes a saint in that very instant and forever! I’ve been a saint since 1974! And I didn’t get a party like that! Maybe ours is comin’…”at the last trump…in the twinkling of an eye…”
Anyway…as I was saying (before I distracted myself)…I did get to be in the same room with one of my heroes the other night at the Knoxville Convention Center! She wasn’t sitting on a throne in the Vatican or standing on a pedestal like those Renaissance statues do.
She was in a wheel chair.
Joni Eareckson Tada has always been a sister in Christ who has helped me so much! She has been a quadriplegic since a diving accident in the Chesapeake Bay when she was seventeen in 1967. Since then, she has written 48 books, is heard by a million a week on the radio, has served in countless ways disabled folks in 45 countries, has been on the National Council on Disability and the Disability Advisory Committee to the U.S. State Department…in short, she’s amazing! She sings beautifully, she’s a theological genius, and oil paints with her mouth! There’s almost nothing she can’t do…except walk and brush her own teeth. I’ve got almost every book she’s written and love them! She has helped me so much!
I guess it’s mostly because the stuff she says is the truth she breathes. She shares insights from the Word that are the things she needs to know and believe to make it!
I heard her lecturing at Dallas Seminary once when she had to stop and ask for the prayers of the class because she couldn’t get enough breath into her lungs. Talk about anxiety! From her chair, her lungs deliver only 40% of normal, and she knows the future promises a diminishing respiratory capacity. Besides all that, she’s spent the last year battling breast cancer (Doing well now!) But when she begins to feel worry creeping, she says she thinks of sparrows. Here’s what Joni wrote about those little birds…
“Jesus said that house sparrows are barely worth a penny. Yet of all the world’s more than 9,000 species of birds, Jesus singled out the house sparrow to make a point. In Matthew chapter 10 he said that if one of those sparrows falls to the ground, the Father notices. God cares. Our Lord tells us that not one of those sparrows will fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father. And if God takes time to keep tabs on a house sparrow – who it is, where it’s going, where it lives, whether or not its needs are being met – if God cares about this least-noticed and insignificant of all birds, then surely He keeps tabs on you -- intimately and personally and with every detail in mind…
The Bible may point to eagles to underscore courage or power, and the Bible may talk about doves as symbols of peace and contentment, but the Bible reserves sparrows to teach a lesson about trust. Just as the Lord tenderly cares for a tiny bird, even making note when it is harmed, or when it falls to the ground, God gently reminds you that He is worthy of your deepest confidence and your trust…”
Reminds me of a poem folks say used to hang on walls of homes “back in the day” It’s kinda corny but I like it! …Ready?
Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend I think that it must be,
That they have no Heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”
Chirp.
A Note From Tom: May 6th, 2011
Ciao a tutti!
E’ stata una settimana bellissima ma siamo contenti di essere finalmente…
Opps. Sorry, everybody. I’m a little confused and jet-lagged after a week in Italy…Let’s see…Today is…uuhh…Friday and so, we’re in…America! So….
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome, praise-filled, restful, unjet-lagged day, full of …full of…fu…zzzzzzz…….zzzzzz….
Huh?
Oh. Sorry again everyone. I’ll get it together here in a day or two…
Anywhooo…We had an awesome week in Italy with the Young Life and MCYMers (Ministry to Children and Youth of Military) in Pisa! We got to give it our best shot at encouraging a bunch of amazing men and women of God with Young Life and Youth For Christ together, who are giving their life and their all to reach kids of US and NATO soldiers and officers on our US military bases across Europe from Great Britain to Turkey. They are unbelievable! It was such a humongous honor to hang out with such devoted and gifted folks! Kids who have an unusually difficult and complicated life most of the time…because of the sacrifices that their parents are called to make… will never be the same forever because of hearts that care for them and because of so many who give so much to reach and encourage them!
We were soooo thankful to be there with them…and on time! Somehow we were rushing, hurrying, sweating and running through airports all the way to get to them! If you have a little delay at this airport and a half hour on the runway at that one , before you know it, you’re running like a nut to not miss the last one! And your legs are so cramped from the last flight, it’s tough to really hit your stride! Airplanes were made for Ken and Barbie…with little Ken and Barbie food…Ken and Barbie bathrooms…and if Ken and Barbie were as cramped as you feel in the Ken and Barbie seats, they could just take their legs off and hold them if they wanted to!
Anyway, there were moments when we were haulin’ it through the Paris airport when we were wondering if we’d really make it to Italy. We did! Our bag didn’t however. Had to wait to the next day for our underwear to catch up with us!
Did you know that if Delta loses your luggage, they give you a little bag with a “survival kit”? It has a Ken and Barbie toothbrush with K ’n B toothpaste and a K ’n B comb. No t-shirts, boxers, or socks included in the kit, however. Ken’s wouldn’t fit anyway.
But I think…in fact I know…that the reason we made it on time is that we have a Great Shepherd Who makes sure we’re where we need to be, just when we need to be there! If we had missed our flights, we would have known that He had a reason for us to be in an unexpected place. If we find ourselves in a tough spot we would have preferred to avoid, He knows why! And He never leaves us there alone! Psalm 121 says He “will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
So even if you don’t realize it, you’re just where you need to be…right on time! Even if you’re baggage isn’t. Sometimes that’s what it’s all about anyway…getting rid of some of that!
And one day soon, He is going to come…with the shout of the archangel and the trump of God! And right on time!…without delay!...without the little speech about cabin decompression (because we’ll be breathless in the beauty of Him!)…we are going to take off and fly away home!
And we won’t give a thought to all that baggage at the baggage claim!
We’re just gonna leave it all behind!
A Note From Tom: April 20th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome week! Or better...hope you’re having a holy week! Hope you’re having an awesome holy week! Christians around the world call this week “Holy Week”...or they call it “la Semana Santa”, or le Semaine Sainte, or la Settimana Santa, or Karwoche... It all depends in what language or country you worship our Lord during these days.
On Friday at 7:00, we’ll have our Good Friday service. Then we’ll hav...
What? “Why do they call it Good Friday? “
Great question!
I don’t think anyone really knows why they call it Good Friday. Sometimes, churches have services on Maudy Thursday to remember the night our Lord Jesus ate the Passsover with His closest followers and washed their feet. “Maundy” is an Old English form of the Latin word, “mandatum” which means “commandment”. It comes from the Latin version of the words Jesus said on that holy Thursday...”A new commandment I give you that you love one another...” John 13.34 ("Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos.”…I’m not good at writing Latin but I’m getting better at Googling stuff)
Some people think “Good Friday” comes from “God’s Friday”. Like “good-bye” comes from “God be with ye”.
Other people believe that we call it Good Friday because of all the good that came on that day.
“What was good about that day?”, some wonder. It was the saddest day in the history of the earth. The sun hid its face so it didn’t have to watch.
It was a day of all things sad and painful...
Jesus stumbling...
hammers ringing…
thieves swearing...
soldiers betting…
Jesus bleeding...
soldiers mocking…
women weeping...
friends hiding...
Jesus dying...
friends grieving...
stones rolling…
sun setting…
darkness reigning…
In the first moments of His nailing, our Savior asked the Father to forgive those who so horribly abused Him. Then He assured a criminal of a place in Heaven with Him that very day. Then it became dark. For three hours, there was darkness in the whole world.
And it became quiet. Our Lord suffered silently.
As an old spiritual says, “They crucified my Lord and He never said a mumblin’ word…not a word…not a word.” The cruelest, coldest hearts on the planet, employed to nail humans down and hoist them up, and do it without a qualm or shiver, watched the Son of God suffer in silence, as blood and love flowed.
And then He spoke. And one thing He said just before He breathed the last time was, “I’m thirsty.” Why would He say this? Say that to the most unconcerned, uncaring assembly of human beings of all time? Did He hope that from those emotionless, cold, dead hearts, someone would care that He was thirsty? That hands that had hammered Him would now help Him?
And yet…And yet…
“And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.” (Matthew 27.48)
Could it be that one of them, having heard words of forgiveness and of a home in heaven…royal words spoken from a cross where a King ruled through love…had opened his heart to Him? And out of that new and reborn heart that moments before had been only dark and cold…out of that unlikely place…some pity…some caring…some good had come?
In almost the next verse after this, our Lord was dead. But just before that darkest of moments, on that darkest of Fridays…on the worst Friday ever… someone with love for Jesus, did something good.
And this goodness grew.
Today it circles the earth.
See you on Good Friday.