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.
A Note From Tom: April 15th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having a day that is as beautiful as this spring weather! While I’m thinking about it, I hope your heart is blooming with praise like this dogwood in front of me, hope your joy is budding and blossoming like these tulips I’m looking at, and I hope your spirit is singing like these robins chirping up in the tree beside me (and hopefully sounding better than the frogs croaking in the ditch across the street!)
I didn’t realize it ‘til the other day, but Tuesday was the 150th anniversary of the first shots of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Wow. It kind of snuck up on us! Not on all of us, though.
Some folks have been looking forward to this for a long time.
There are thousands of people who love to dress up like Civil War soldiers from the North or South and spend the weekend pretending they’re fighting the real thing again. “Civil War reenactments” are huge this year! Hundreds are expected at Charleston for this week’s anniversary. George Wunderlich, a re-enactor and executive director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Md said, "Among a lot of re-enactors I'm talking to, this is it! This is the anniversary they have been waiting for!
It ain’t cheap to be a pretend you’re a twenty-three-plus-one-hundred-and-fifty year old Yank or Reb! $1,400 for the basic outfit is about as cheap as it gets. Some of those who tramp around old battlefields making believe it’s the first time all over again, are super serious about being as authentic as possible…down to the underwear of the period. Well, maybe not wearing the actual original under-drawers, but some just like ‘em. After a century and a half, the originals probably wouldn’t do you much good…
The reenactors who really try to be as authentic as possible are called, “progressives”, or “stich-counters”. I get the second name but “progressives” seems like a weird name for someone trying to live their great-great grandpappy. I would have thought progressives were folks who try to live like the Jetsons.
I don’t know how easy it is to be really authentic as a Civil War reenactor. I remember reading that over 60% of the deaths of Civil War soldiers wasn’t from musket balls but diarrhea. I guess the really serious reenactors have to put Milk of Magnesia in the ol’ field canteen before heading out!
I guess it’s a really fun hobby for those who like that stuff. But I bet if the ones who fought the first time, knew it was going on, they would think it was really weird. Or really sad. 6,000,000 Americans died. Misery and grief filled our land. There was almost no home or family untouched by tragedy. For them it would be unthinkable that, once the cannons stopped and peace prevailed, people would want to pretend, if only for the weekend, that Americans were enemies of Americans again.
Sometimes I think that Lent is a wonderful season. It’s a time to reflect and ask myself, “Am I walking this walk?...Am I taking my relationship with You, Lord, as seriously as you take Your relationship with me?...Is there anything You need to tell me…about me?” Any time is good for those questions. Folks just ask them more this time of year. But sometimes at Lent, churches are draped in black. Sometimes God’s people try to relive…reenact…the days and hours of our Lord’s suffering…Lent is a time to walk the “Via Crucis” that He walked with His cross through Jerusalem…a time to try to relive the darkness of the days and hours before our Jesus ended with His pain and blood our enmity with God….a time to remember what it was like before we were reconciled to Him.
Of course, it’s all so that believers in Jesus all over the world can relive…reenact…on Easter Sunday morning, the joy of knowing, believing, and having a risen Savior and a new beginning with Him!
It’s just that…I don’t know…
…I don’t know if we should ever have to pretend things so that we can recapture the feeling of surprising wonder and amazing happiness that Jesus is alive and ours! I think that’s supposed to be, not a yearly feeling, but a daily…an everyday…feeling! He IS alive! I want to celebrate that…and feel the joy of it!...every day of the year!
And I have enough trouble keeping out of the glooms without ever wanting to pretend Jesus hadn’t yet died for me and risen in light, power, and triumph! I don’t really want to ever relive…to reenact…a time when I wasn’t God’s own child, reconciled and in love with Him, my only hope in this difficult world!
Sometimes, on tough days, I have a hard enough time believing deep in my heart it’s all really true…I never want to pretend, even for a second, that it isn’t!
Plus, if I reenacted those sad hippy days when I didn’t know Jesus, the clothes I wore were more ridiculous than a Civil War suit!
A Note from Tom: April 7th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Well? What are you gonna say about this day? Is this not AWESOME!! Having just driven home from…and all over…West Texas, I’m tellin’ you…AWESOME! Texas is great and everything…especially if you like…well, Texas. But East Tennessee in the spring…AWESOME!
The dogwoods would win the gold medal this year if there were the Dogwood Olympics! And amazingly we’re not the only ones with beeeaaauuutiful Cornus floridas! In Missouri, the dogwood’s the state tree. In North Carolina, it’s the state flower! In Virginia it’s the state flower AND state tree! They almost voted it the state bird!
Did you know that the dogwood…which comes from the Celtic dagga, which was this kind of tool they made out of dogwood wood…is actually good for your dog? If your dog gets those doggie skin problems, just boil dogwood bark, and wash ol’Fido in the juice!
At Christmas, you put lights and stuff all over your house and yard to make it Christmasy. But in the spring you just sit back and…ahhh! AWESOME! And SPRINGY! Sometimes people shine lights and tie plastic Easter eggs on their dogwoods. But aren’t they beautiful…aren’t they the best… just the way God made them?
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the legend of the dogwood. The story is that once dogwoods were thick and tall, like oaks. The story says that the cross that they made Jesus carry through the streets of Jerusalem was made of this tree…
”When Christ was on earth, the dogwood grew
To a towering size with a lovely hue.
Its branches were strong and interwoven,
And for Christ's cross its timbers were chosen…”
So, God decided that since the dogwood was used for the cross of our Lord, it would never be large and stately again, but gnarly and twisted…
“'The petals shall have bloodstains marked brown,
And in the blossom's center a thorny crown.
All who see it will think of me,
Nailed to a cross from a dogwood tree.'”
Only thing is…that legend isn’t true.
Really, there was no need to make up stuff about the dogwood to make them any more graceful and lovely than they are already. Aren’t they beautiful…aren’t they the best…just the way God made them?
And the story of our Lord Jesus…Creator of heaven and earth…of rain and sunshine…of tulips, daffodils, redbuds, grass and dogwoods…born into a poor, poor family, growing to be, as the Gospel of Luke tells us, “the favorite of God and men”, dying for love of those who despised Him, rising to win their hearts and wills, living to help us walk through this world and to one day bring us home…
…There’s really no need to invent and add legends to this…to this life, this love, this walk, this gift of blood, and this heart for us.
The story of Jesus…isn’t it beautiful…isn’t it best…just the way God told it?
A Note from Tom: March 29th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Wow! It’s dogwood time in Tennessee!! Technically it isn’t “Dogwood Arts Festival” time yet…We’ve got about a week to wait. But the dogwoods blooms didn’t! In Fountain City they tells us theirs have been blooming for a week! UT ag experts say they’re ten days to two weeks early! Seems like it was just Christmas!
Speaking of which…
It really was just a few weeks ago that folks were rushing, shoving, yelling, reaching, grabbing, sometimes boxing, just to get those mitts on the hottest toys of Christmas 2010. Seems kinda crazy now but remember when back in December in some households across the land nothing mattered more than having Squinkies under the tree! It seemed such a tragedy if someone you love had to face the “Day” with out the Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS Blaster, FurReal Friends Furry Frenzies, or little Kung Zhu Pets. One of the most shopped-for toys of this Christmas past was “Stinky the Garbage Truck…he can talk and tell jokes, sing or eat garbage, giving your child a sense of amazement as Stinky realizes whether he’s full or empty. That garbage your child feeds him can consist of anything from other toy cars to several tiny toys your child is sure to have laying around his or her room…”
If you kids can’t find their Kun Zhu pets, don’t forget to look in Stinky! (Wonder why he doesn’t stink just like ”a real garbage truck”?)
I guess I was thinking about last Christmas craziness because we got a letter from our Compassion child, Doreen, yesterday. Like so many of y’all, on our fridge there’s a picture of a child. Our Doreen is a five year old who lives in Uganda. We sponsor her for a few dollars a month so that the work of those who love Jesus in her district can provide her, along with dozens of other kids like her in her village, with daily food, clothing, medical care, school, and times each day to learn about, and sing to, Jesus, (as Paul says) “her Lord and ours”. Many of you have kids like this that you sponsor through Compassion. Your kids may live in Guatamala, India, Africa, Philippines, or another of the 27 countries where Compassion works.
Listen to the goal of Compassion…
“…In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists as an advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.”
Wow! That’s a lot for a few bucks!
Doreen was writing to thank us for the few extra dollars we included at Christmastime. She’s only five and her teacher helped her write it. “Doreen thanks you so much for her gifts she was able to buy with her Christmas money. She bought a new Christmas dress and shoes. She also bought socks, rice and one kilo of meat for her family. You enabled her to celebrate Christmas in a jolly mood…”
Wow! A jolly Christmas because they enjoyed extra rice and some meat!
Some kids in our country are playing with toy garbage trucks while other kids around the world would happily eat what the garbage man throws in our real ones!
When you support a Compassion child, and when we support our missionaries whose pictures are on the wall at Triple C, God is using you so that men and women, boys and girls, and babies, around the world, can enjoy what others may never think twice about. Things like rice, socks, Christmas meat, a new dress (for 15,000 Ungandan shellings) and the message of the love of Jesus.
Dogwoods are blooming in the woods and yards of East Tennessee. The love of Jesus is blooming in hearts around the world because you give.
That should put us all “in a jolly mood!”
A Note from Tom: March 23th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome, praise-filled, joyous, heart-full-of-thanks day! And if you’re not, maybe I can help! Just by reminding you that you are a child of the living God, the King of kings! And that He is working out a beautiful plan for you because He loves you so much! You’re His because He wanted you before the world was ever made! And what Jesus came to do was to buy you (that’s what “redeem” means) so you could be His! He really and specifically wanted you!
Feel better?
You’re welcome!
Seriously, don’t you just need from time to time for someone who loves you to remind you of how Jesus sees you?
You had a hard day at work and maybe got someone upset without meaning to…you remember something you shouldn’ta done but you done did…something you should’ve said but didn’t…maybe there’s an old memory rattlin’ around in yer noggin of something that somebody said about you that you can’t seem to shake…and we have an invisible enemy who doesn’t help at all, always trying to remind us of famous failures and flops of the past…
It helps when someone simply tells you how the One Who matters most sees you!
Y’all know Joni Earickson Tada, right? She became a quadriplegic at seventeen and has had a world-wide ministry to the disabled (and the rest of us!) for forty years. She is th’ bomb! Insightful…encouraging…She’s what the last book of the Bible calls, an “overcomer”!
One of the million ways God has used her is to distribute wheelchairs around the world in countries that are so poor, paraplegics and others who need them don’t normally have them. Once Joni and her amazing team were doing a wheelchair distribution in a tiny village in Uganda called Nyarushanje. A Ugandan woman explained that her husband, Sema, had fallen from a tree and broken his right leg and hip. He had also suffered a severe brain injury in the fall. While she told his story, he just sat there with his face pointed down, his chin sunken into his chest…silent. He was almost in a catatonic state, Joni observed…non communicative, ”shrunken and frozen”.
He hadn’t spoken…or been spoken to…in years. His wife didn’t even try anymore. She cared for him but didn’t converse with him.
“What’s the use? He isn’t talking back.”
One the team, a guy named Dana, shared with them that those with brain injuries really need what they seem to care least about. They need someone to talk to. Or at least, someone who will talk to them.
Dana, the Joni and Friends volunteer, lifted Sema’s face and began to speak to him. He told him things everyone who loves Jesus needs to hear…
…that he was a man like anyone else…
…that he was an equal and a brother…
…that God loved him and that Jesus died for him…
…that he wasn’t disabled because God was angry or punishing him, but that God valued him deeply…
People thought Dana was nuts. Until…
Sema woke up! He began to move his hands, look around and smile at everyone! He even laughed! And he spoke! He broke his silence and spoke for the first time in years! The two guys were hugging and the tears were flowing!
As Sema began to try out wheelchairs, he reached over once more for a hug. He pulled Dana close and whispered in his ear in perfect English…
“You are my brother and my friend, and God loves me!”
Wow!
You know, Joni figured that initially, Dana spoke encouragement to silent Sema for two minutes before the miracle happened. I was having a crummy day yesterday for a little while. Then on the phone somebody spoke encouragement to me and told me God loved me and that I was precious to Him.
Probably lasted two minutes. Best two minutes of the day! Which got decidedly better after that!
It made me want to tell him, “You’re my friend and my brother…”
“And God loves me!”
A Note from Tom: March 16th, 2011
Hope you’re having an awesome week!
It’s harder to do this week.
How do we go through this week and not be so saddened by the suffering of so many thousands in Japan. So much misery. So much pain and grief. So much loss. So much gone. So many gone. We are so far away. It’s impossible to imagine what so many are suffering. We have brothers and sisters in Christ who are there and helping. Some feel this is a moment like no other to show the love of Jesus in the darkest hours. Can we help them?
What is helping me is the promise that our God is King of Heaven and earth. He sees from His throne. And He knows what He is doing. Psalm 33 tells us that “…the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations…. From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth—he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.
He sees what is happening.
He knows what He’s doing.
He knows why this has happened.
And He cares about their suffering.
Even though nothing in all the universe happens unless the King of all allows it…and only He could ever understand why things must be as they are…I know His heart is broken for the pain of the suffering, even though it is a suffering He has allowed. For He loves them. He IS love. He gave our Lord Jesus to this world because He loved it. Not the world of trees, rivers, clouds, and grass. He loves the world of men and women, boys and girls, Chinese, Romanians, Norwegians…and Japanese. So many of them are lost. Japan has always had few…maybe 1%... who love and trust in Jesus. But He loves them. John says that “God so loved the world” that He sent Jesus so the world could be saved, not judged. Not talking about trees. It’s for people that He came. So that whoever believes could have new, ever-lasting, never-ending life. (John 3.16-17)
Jeremiah once wrote that even though God allowed so much suffering to come on some people…the people of Moab…for reasons He alone knows, He still was broken hearted for them.
Because He loved them.
“The valley will be ruined and the plateau destroyed…The fall of Moab is at hand; her calamity will come quickly…”
“Therefore I wail over Moab, for all Moab I cry out, I moan for the people of Kir Hareseth. I weep for you, as Jazer weeps, you vines of Sibmah…So my heart laments for Moab like the music of a pipe; it laments like a pipe for the people of Kir Hareseth.” (Jer. 48.8, 16, 31,36)
He sees.
He alone knows why.
He weeps.
He loves.
You know, this has been a difficult week for another reason. An influential minister with a church of 10,000 has written a book in which he wants Christians everywhere to understand that in the end, no one will be lost forever. Apparently he believes that even in hell, “no one can resist God’s pursuit forever because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest hearts” and everyone will one day or other, make it to God.
They are talking about this book everywhere. In the New York Times. In USA Today. And thankfully, pastors and theologians who love the Scriptures are rightly and faithfully refuting this new book. They are defending the Word and explaining that the Scriptures truly, clearly, repeatedly tells us- warn us- that “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.” (2 Thes 1)
Faithful pastors are preaching, writing, and blogging that people everywhere have to hear and believe in our Lord Jesus or they will be lost forever.
Only thing is…
I’m afraid this is going to be a fight. I’m afraid that before a lost and dying world which has never so desperately needed to hear the Message of His love, this is going to get loud. I hope it doesn’t become an ugly argument on the news shows. In fact, it already has. It’s already become sometimes ungracious and unkind.
As people talk about this in the days ahead, I hope there is one thing added to all the arguing, debating, and reasoning.
I hope there is weeping.
For the ones who are lost. For those who will be lost forever unless in love someone tells them about Him.
More than anyone, our Lord Jesus spoke of the place where lost people go. He called it the place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. He once told people to their face, ““You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
Then four verses later, He wept. For them.
His heart cried “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt 23)
He saw.
He alone knew why they would be lost forever.
He wept.
Because He loved them.
He sees.
He alone knows why
Yet He weeps.
Because He loves.
A Note from Tom: March 9th, 2011
Hey, everyone!
Hope y’all are pumped and ready for this amazing and important Sunday coming up! It’s going to be so important! Not only is this the second Sunday of the month when we all bring delicious stuff from home and eat together after church (if I was in the “Sound of Music”, C3 fellowship meal would be one of my favorite things! “Whiskers on kittens”? Really?!) but also this Sunday is...
“Change-Your-Clock-And-Spring-Forward! Sunday”!
That’s right!
This Sunday at 2:00 am, we jump ahead into the future by one hour! It’s like “Back To the Future”! (I’m not sure how ‘cause I never saw it...) Many people just set the clock ahead before going to bed because you already lose an hour of sleep, so it makes it worse to have to wake up at two and turn your clock to three. But wouldn’t it be cooler to have the full experience and wake up at five to two!, get up! and turn your clocks forward in on the minute! Just once!
There must be a very important reason for doing it, even though in Algeria, Singapore, South Korea, Swaziland, Venezuela, Burundi, the state of Indiana, and loads of other places, they just leave the clocks alone all year and snooze on. (Did you know China has only one time zone?)
Y’ know, it isn’t really called “daylight savings time”. It’s “daylight saving time”. And it doesn’t really save any daylight. You get the same amount. I know springing forward and falling back time-wise, must be important...but I’m not really sure why.
This is an important week also because today is the beginning of Lent. Today is Ash Wednesday, when believers around the world begin to prepare their heart for Easter. For lots of folks, today is the beginning of a period of deprivation, when many choose to deny themselves pleasurable things for the next 40 days. I know it must be important, but...to be completely open about it...I don’t really get it (Wow! Did I really say that?) I mean, I’ve read tons about it. I’m just not sure if I understand why someone wouldn’t eat any chocolate until Easter. Chocolate is good for you. Dark chocolate has antioxidants, it can lower blood pressure and LDL cholesterol, and elevate mood. If you don’t eat a ton, and it’s a blessing, why not?
Paul wrote this to Timothy...”For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer...” (1 Timothy 4)
In Acts 14, Paul said that God has given a testimony of His existence, goodness, and love by “showing kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy!”
If it’s a good blessing from God, I’m not sure what the value is from not enjoying it on purpose just to put myself through it.
On the other hand, if there IS something that is in my life that isn’t good...that our Lord doesn’t want there... a habit...an attitude toward someone...an ugly way of talking...a bitterness and/or resentment you feel every time a certain face pops into your thoughts...a rut you’re in...a stubborn refusal to give a true, full-hearted forgiveness to someone who hurt you...This would be an awesome time to say, “That’s enough!” This would be an awesome season to get rid of it! To stop! And not for 40 days, but for good! What if not drinking Cokes or giving up playing “Angry Birds” on your iPhone for 40 days is a way to avoid facing something that is serious and something I need to admit and evict from my life forever?
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, yelling and name-calling, along with every form of hurtfulness and meanness.” (Eph 4)
“...Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles...” (Heb 12)
“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind...” (1 Pet 2)
If something is a blessing, praise God. Enjoy! But if there’s something that you know needs to go, what better time than THIS day to say, “Ok. It’s time. I’m done with that for good!”
You would “spring forward” into spring with a heart that is light and free!
I know Lent is all about getting ready for Easter...but, Hey! Our Lord Jesus IS risen! He’s alive today! He lives! In you! You have all the power you need in Him to say “No!” to things that need to go!
What better day than today?
What better week to start over than this one?
Sure it might be a tough week to face serious things ‘cause you get an hour less to sleep, but as we’ll celebrate in 40 days, Jesus is alive! And He’s in you! What better day to begin again!
Don’t wait ‘til Saturday night! Spring forward today!
A Note from Tom: March 4th, 2011
Hey everyone!
Hope you’re having an awesome day! Hope it’s one of those days where your heart is gently opening up to whatever God has for you, just like the daffodils outside our door are gently opening up to the spring sun one day (yesterday) and spring rain the next (today and tomorrow...a lot!). Hope your heart is full of hope and promise...just like the Wildcat baseball team, which started scrimmages this week with hope of the season ahead! So far...no L’s! ...Or W’s! Just hope and promise!
I kinda have baseball on the brain because Tina and I have been watching this documentary on PBS about the history of baseball in America. It’s about a kabillion hours long (OR baseball coach and math teacher, Tom Froning tells me “kabillion” is not an actual number...maybe I should’ve said “kazillion”) but we’re learning tons about baseball!
Did you know that Connie Mack, who was a catcher with the Pittsburg Pirates before he was a manager (longest managing career in history), could make a noise with his thumb and finger that sounded just like a ball lightly tipping a bat. When a batter was going to bunt, but saw that the pitch was outside the batter’s box and let it go by, Mack would make that sound when the ball crossed the plate and the ump would call it a tipped foul for a strike!
There was a player in the African American league named Josh Gibson who, during the ‘30’s and 40’s, hit almost 800 homers in 17 years! His lifetime average was over .350! Many called him “the black Babe Ruth”, although in the African American league, they called Babe Ruth, “the white Josh Gibson”! Once he hit a homer in Yankee Stadium that reached the wall above the center field bleachers...580 feet! They said another time, that he hit a homer in Baltimore that flew out of sight and never came down. The next night, he was playing in Washington, and a ball flew out of the sky into center field in the middle of the game. The fielder happened to see it and caught it. Gibson was called out...from the night before!
This documentary talked a lot about the single most controversial moment in the history of baseball...Babe’s “called shot” for a home run in the fifth inning of the third game of the ‘32 World Series with the Cubs at Wrigley Field.
‘Course, Babe wasn’t a stranger to controversies. In 1930, as the Depression gripped the nation, he signed a contract that paid him more than any player ever. And more than President Hoover made! Someone asked him, “Aren’t you uneasy about making more than the President?” “Nope.” the Bambino replied. “I had a better year than him.”
Anyway, with the Yanks up two games in the Series, and the game tied 4-4 in the fifth, Ruth was up with the count two balls, two strikes That’s when he yelled something at the pitcher and made a pointing gesture. Some say he pointed at the Chicago dugout. Some say it was toward pitcher’s mound. Most say it was toward the center field wall...as in, “There’s where this next pitch is going!” And it did! 480 feet over the flagpole! Across the nation, folks heard Tom Manning yell, "The ball is going, going, going, high into the center field stands...and it is a home run!"
An unknown film of the 1932 “at bat” surfaced in the ‘80’s, but still it’s hard to tell if Babe was just pointing or predicting the impending home run. One reporter said that if all the people who said they were there and saw Babe call the shot, were put in one stadium, it’d have to hold 500,000 fans! Charlie Root, the one who threw the pitch, denied for the rest of his life that Babe pointed to center field. “If he’d pointed to center field like that, I woulda beaned him with that pitch in the ear!”
It would have been (or maybe it WAS) pretty outrageous for someone to be so confident in his abilities that he could predict what would happen to the next ball across the plate! But I read something yesterday that was a million times...even a kabillion times!...more certain! Check it...
“I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus...He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 1.4, 8)
Wow! Paul’s saying, “I KNOW you’re gonna make it to the end! I know God will hit a homer with you!”
Y’gotta remember that these believers were having problems! Couldn’t get along...some drinking too much...yucky sex messes going on...It wasn’t looking too promising!
But the apostle knew his Lord and King! He is able to change us! He is able to bring us back! He is able to make us grow! He is able to keep us strong and His! He is able and He is going to bring all those who love Jesus...home!
“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy...” (Jude 24)
“...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus...” (Phil 1.6)
“...You who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time...” (1 Peter 1. 5)
Before you ever were ever pitched His way, He knew He had a homer with you! He called that shot!
No Question!
“ ...going, going, going, higher, higher...and it is a home run!"