First, the local newspaper, The Abilene Reporter News, picked up the story about the “Stethoscope” video hitting the 2 million mark on YouTube — Stephen Corbett and Rob Marcelain had put the video together and acted it out on some original ideas several of us had on illustrating the point, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It made for lively discussion around town today.

Second, most of the day, I was in a meeting with our ministry team on the idea of Groups — something we are launching in a few weeks. We were making sure we were all on the same page before a “townhall meeting” with our congregation on Sunday night. I shared the clever communication video we used for to explain groups this piece earlier in the week. This video was also done by “Corbett and Crew!”

Third, I ran by the hospital to say “Good bye!” to a precious lady named Lamearl Jacobs who is ready to go home and be with the Lord. She is precious and her family — both physical and spiritual — miss her greatly.

Fourth, after finishing more meetings on Groups, met with a friend about some worship matters and noticed a fire on the north horizon. It looked like it was behind my folks place so I called them to make sure they were safe. They were … for now!

Fifth, I took Donna out to dinner and we had a great visit and saw friends from church. Right before we left for dinner, got an email that MSNBC is sending a reported by on Monday to do a national story on the “Stethoscope” video. Unbelievable. Just thankful that it is touching hearts.

Sixth, got a call from a young man who was trying to reach one of our members from church who was out trying to save his cattle from the out of control brush fire I had seen north of town. We both tried to call him for about an hour before he got to a place he could get a phone signal. Looks like the fire stopped short of his ranch, at least for the moment. But then I realized another friend had a ranch in the area. His place was burned to the ground and he waiting to see if the cattle had escaped to the river bed and survived — most ranchers in this area lost everything! I was exhausted after a couple of hours on the phone checking with everyone.

Seventh, watched the news and weather to check on the fire situation and get caught up on what was happening. Got around to finishing up the follow up post on our blog and Heartlight.org community on helping those who are homebound connect to community. Hope you will read the post and keep adding to the blog discussion: great ideas from you guys out in blogdom.

Whew! Ready to crash. I am wiped out and tomorrow looks to be a bit rugged, too. But not nearly so tough for me as for those who have lost everything to the fire and to the families who have lost loved ones recently. What a tough day for a lot of precious people.

Our plane flew over this area of the metroplex as we flew into DFW airport Monday night. The houses were massive, the lawns well manicured and the SUV’s and sedans were expensive. Yet in the fading light, the houses looked remarkably the same from the air.

Oh sure, there were more gables and more square footage on some than others, but they were still shingled covered boxes surrounded by grass. All that money for the prestige of a great location, the best schools, and privilege — but they were still only shingles on boxes surrounded by grass. And inside, well, I know about the inside — broken hearts, worried parents, struggling marriages, tight finances, confused romances, jangled nerves over 401k’s, and secrets rotting the hearts of their holders. And yes, some hearts seeking for answers, and some living out the answer. It’s a whole lot like a few miles away where there are fewer gables, smaller lawns, and fewer shingles. It’s been my theory that for the most part, most of us have the same amount of “disposable income,” we just have different house/rent payments.

Hmm. Makes me wonder what this stuff we work so hard and stretch so much to acquire — and what we so much fear losing when the economy turns down — it makes me wonder what it all looks like from God’s side of the view. This is not to downplay the obvious anguish of those who have lost their houses or retired couples living out of their cars because of retirement woes.

But so much of the driving force of our “modern economy” is built on sand — credit stretched to the limit to give us what we want. Seems like I remember Jesus saying something about a humpy back camel trying to get his big fat nose through the eye of a sower’s needle and exchanging our souls for something that falls short of real life. None of us is immune to the pressure and desires that move us in this wrong direction.

So I guess what it all comes down to is what’s in the hearts of the folks in those boxes covered by shingles and surrounded by grass — small, large, or just in between sized boxes.
Oh Lord, may the thought of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing to you … for You alone are my Rock and Redeemer — especially in times like these.

The latter more reflects the reality. When there is more challenge, more ministry, more need, and just plain ol’ more of more, in a collection of seven days, I am much more reminded of my weakness more than I think of it being just another week. Yet somehow, grace sustains me, God uses me, and people are blessed by my feeble efforts.

I fully admit, this does not make sense. Stellar accomplishments, a great week of work, clicking off the to do list items, making a great presentation, and other things I might “pull off” well could lead me to celebrate my sufficiency. But, it has not been that kind of week. Instead, it has been full of hurt, crisis, frustration, risk, conversation, failure, flawed efforts, grief, battling for life, unexpected awful surprises, wrestling with memories, and a deepening sense of insufficiency. So, at what point does it become perfectly clear that the challenge is beyond my ability to pull off?

The apostle Paul puts it this way:

But he [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me (2 Corinthians 12:9 tniv).

In our “Time in the Word” at Southern Hills, our focus is Colossians. So I came in after a day of ministry — with all its opportunities and reminders of insufficiency — and began to read Colossians … again … looking for some clear word of God to refresh me and help satisfy my spirit. Do you know what struck me?

In this vital letter to help this church stay on track, Paul repeatedly — even nonchalantly — speaks about God being the one who does the “heavy lifting” in the life of His people. Look at some of these key thoughts:

God called Paul to be an apostle: it was His will and commission of Paul (1:1, 25).

God can fill them with the knowledge and wisdom they need to be fruitful and live out His will (1:9-10).

God can strengthen them with endurance and patience (1:11).

God has qualified, redeem, and forgiven His people through Jesus (1:12-14).

God, in Jesus, created everything — seen and unseen — and reconciled them back to Himself (1:15-20.

God empowers Paul to proclaim Jesus and help bring people to maturity in Christ (1:28-29).

There are definite moments when I wonder, “God, who is sufficient for this? How can my feeble words be a blessing? How can my weak efforts make a difference in the face of so much hurt?”

And in those moments, God reminds me that no one is sufficient, but the Father has chosen to work with broken, simple, earthen vessels so that the power and the blessing are clearly not my own, but come from Him (2 Corinthians 4:5-10).

Our family, however, is going through a major change of seasons right now. Megan is begins Physical Therapy school. Donna has headed back to teaching for the year. I am geared up for the school year and it’s opportunities at Southern Hills — at church, we describe three seasons of the year (or ministry): Fall Semester, Spring Semester, and Summer Vacation.

But yesterday marked a huge change of seasons for us. Tiny, our miniature dachshund for 12 1/2 years had his back go out this weekend. Megan and I knew before we took him to the vet yesterday what the outcome would be, we just couldn’t talk about it. Tiny has been there for the kids journeys through high school, barking at everything that moved and never slowing down. Until the last two months, he would literally drag us on a two mile walk. It was a hard hour at the vet’s: they were kind, but we still came home without him. Lexi — our little black shy dachshund — looks lost without her guardian and keeper. With a bunch of other pressure, Donna’s start to school and continuing battle with IC, deep concern for a friend who is in the hospital ICU, the AC man stepping through the ceiling in the attic, and now Tiny’s goodbye, it’s been a rugged couple of weeks.

Changes in season are like that sometimes. We often romanticize how the summer slips into Indian summer, and then autumn gently falls upon us. But that’s seldom the way it is. Summer’s green gives way to winter’s chill with withering heat, then thunder, lightning, wind, flash-floods, and cold. We marvel at the flash, we are often humbled by the thunder, and we are rightfully fearful when the showers become torrents. Yet through the pandemonium of it all, we know we will emerge out of it into a new season of shorter days, cooler weather, and the richness of Thanksgiving and the joys of Christmas. So we, those of us in the Warehouse, wait for the flash, rumble, and torrents to pass and trust that somewhere beyond this time lies a great feast and the joy of Jesus.

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly (Psalm 5:3 tniv).

In the morning, Lord!

Rather than concentrating and doing the hard work of study, prayer, and thinking, I’m having to fight to keep myself on track today. I want to run and do a frenzy of little, time consuming jobs that will give me a feeling of accomplishment, but leave the important work of submitting and listening for God’s message, a message I’m suppose to share with His people.

Having ideas and a focus in Scripture isn’t the problem for either message. No, the problem is that I have too many shallow ideas and too many possibilities of messages. Which of these is really from God for my people, this week? Which ones are only titillating distractions that further inoculate God’s people from hearing His clear call to the Cross and to follow Christ?

I guess I need to listen this time, the voice that “keeps ringing in my head” and learn to be still.

What do you do and where do you go to quiet your spirit and learn to be still and hear the voice of our Abba Father?

As I worked on images and meandered around some Bible verses for my own quiet time this morning, the Lord led me to this verse from Psalm 143:8. It seemed appropriate and it fit an image I was working with for Heartlight graphics:

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

The image below is much small version of the image I posted to Heartlight’s PowerPoint background Scripture graphics (you can use the search feature to look through thousands of images that can be used in worship or as your computer wallpaper.) This small image gives you the idea, but I hope you can make the prayer your own whether the image interests you or not. Blessings for the weekend and for seeing the way the Lord wants you to go!

You can find three versions of this image, Title (picture above), Text (with the Scripture), and Plain (only the image).

This is what I mean on the health care issue. My mom had knee replacement surgery on Tuesday … but hold on, that’s just the beginning! While I was waiting with Grady (mom’s husband) at the hospital for mom to come out of recovery, Donna (my wife) was with Megan (our daughter) at the doctor having an MRI read on the ankle she broke five years ago playing softball in high school — a plate and 7 screws was required then to patch it up. Megan did not receive a great report, so she is now referred on to an orthopedist — the same one who did mom’s knee surgery. Megan has been limping around and hurting pretty badly at the end of each day working as a tech at a physical therapy center. Meanwhile, I start my “day before colonoscopy” liquid diet today to get ready for my appointment tomorrow with the dreaded “long black snake” — be warned, I get a little cranky on water and Jello diets in anticipation of drinking concentrated saline so they can look at me where the sun doesn’t shine. While I am having my “procedure” tomorrow, Donna goes for blood work. Ah, can you say “insurance deductible” four times very quickly?

Of course it’s been a crazy and nutty work week for Donna at school and church is its normal insanity for me. Hopefully we all — mom, Megan, Donna, and myself — go home at the same time, in good health,. Of course I can’t be the one driving! They promise that they will dismiss me before I’m fully returned from “lala” land. But that’s what they said last time when I woke up during the beloved “procedure” — but that is a story for another day and time.

So if you ask me how the week has been, I would say, “We’ve paid our insurance deductible and are still standing.” But then, I haven’t survived the long black snake.

Nobody told me when I was 20 that falling apart when you are over 50 is “so much fun”!? Who needs TV when you can watch pictures of … well, let’s not go there.

As I have searched for spiritual application for my “procedure,” phrases from Genesis 3 keep popping into my mind:

“I was naked and hid myself.” (Yeah, that’s what I will want to do in the morning when they take my clothes, put me in that “gown” with no back door. I will want to hide.)
To the snake God said, “Because you have done this, curse are you among all the animals … upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” (Yeah, we all pretty much want to put a curse on the snake in moments like this.)
“I will put enmity between you and the offspring of the woman .” (Yeah, I’m going to hate this whole deal!)
“By the sweat of your brow …” (Yeah, I’m going to be doing this!)

On closer inspection, the only Scripture that seems to righteously apply right now is this:

[Jesus asked] “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” … And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles” (Matthew 7:19-20 NRS).

Which is, I guess, the Lord’s way of reminding me to not sweat the deductible, but work on the heart of the deductee — a heart that needs to be more patient, kind, gentle, appreciative, thankful, forgiving, empathetic, holy, and joyful. Amid all the whining, I’ve got a place to sleep, a family who loves me, food to eat, a church family to support me, friends to hold me accountable, resources to help provide health care for my family, and a million other blessings I don’t have time to name … and, by the Lord’s grace, I can pay my deductible.

So Lord, I ask that you take the whiny voice out of my heart and replace it with the heart of grace that Jesus had when he compassionately touched the lives of others. And LORD God, please be with all those we know who are truly wrestling with life and death health issues today, and help them to feel your presence and know that they are not alone in their struggles. Bless, especially O LORD, those who do not have access to health care or cannot afford it, and help us find ways to change that situation in our country and in our world, to Your honor and glory. Because of Jesus’ love for us, and in the name of the Great Physician, I pray. Amen.

I admitted that is where I was at the moment — well, where I was most of the afternoon.

Preaching post-mortems are always pretty rough for me; I am nearly always too hard on myself and how the morning went. I am just frustrated that we seem to have the same technical problems over and over and in the process, my heart-felt response in worship has become dampened. Part of it is that I have been a bit depressed, off and on, since returning from Africa. So much of what we focus on — what I focus on — when discussing church seems so shallow and selfish. Yet it still matters to me as a matter of excellence and offering my best and our best to the Lord. When I lose my passion in worship, I’m a whole lot like a sailboat without a keel and rudder: I’m left to blow in whatever ill wind catches me.

Thinking through my message convicted me that I am guilty of not hearing my own message about staying on the journey — my Heartlight article today covers some of the same emphasis. I want to see movement and passion. I want to see message move us to mission. I don’t want to feel like I’m dosing out spoonfuls of water to sponges and then watching the water evaporate over the course of a week only to see the same dry sponges return the next week without any observable movement or change, they’re just back for their weekly dose of water.

Is it the process of preaching?

Is it the way we do church?

Is it me?

I know late Sunday nights are not the best time to look at such things. I may feel totally different by tomorrow morning — or at least a little different.Thankfully for me, friends from our care group came over and I was profoundly blessed by their friendship and conversation. Donna was precious as she showered tender attention on me after our friends left. During the process, through friends and family, I was gently nudged to hear the words the Spirit game me to share … words I needed to hear.

Remember your destination: becoming like Jesus — be like Him until you go home to be with Him.

Remember the journey can be long: stay committed.Remember what maturity is: realizing you haven’t arrived until you’re at home with Jesus.

So I’m just before sleeping myself into the beginning of another week with many of the same challenges of the previous week … and the one before that and the one before that … But I’m trying to trust the words I shared with others are words I must hear and apply to my own heart.

But it’s hard staying on the journey when the landscape doesn’t change very quickly and the problems seem to be the same from week to week. And it’s hard to stay on the journey when you’ve come to the conviction that we’ve got to change some significant, meaningful, organizational things about how we do church and refuse to be misled by cosmetic and faddish things.

Let’s help each other hang in and stay on the journey!

If you got some suggestions for me and others who are reading the blog, then please suggest to me resources that have blessed you on your journey. What words of encouragement you would offer to someone who, like me, gets a little bogged down and distracted on the journey? How do you find strength to stay on the journey?

Ultimately, if I’m going to really love God, I’ve got to love my fellow humans. This is not easy when some of them are bad, mean, or hurtful to us … to me personally. How do I respond? Especially in light of the fact that God doesn’t allow me to compartmentalize my life and treat some folks one way when it’s easy, and treat others folks a different way because they are mean or I’m in a different setting. So I’d like for us to chew on a couple of questions:

What makes it so hard for us to forgive when we’ve been forgiven so much?

What helps you to forgive others when you’ve been wronged or hurt severely?

Finally, in one of those interesting acts of Providence, the daily Psalm in my other blog, A Psalm for Each Day, is focused on Psalm 38, a psalm begging for God’s forgiveness. It offers the perspective on sin and forgiveness from “the other side of the coin” and would be good to factor into our thoughts today.

Any insight you give will be a blessing to me and to others.

Thanks!

In the face of temptation, what does it mean to “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind”?

How are you doing in your battle with temptation and sin?

What are some of your strategies to facing down the evil one and winning the war with the sin that is “crouching at the door”?

So let me hear from you! What’s your take?