Friendly Light Up Ahead

I usually took a shortcut across an orchard and through a couple of barbed-wire fences. Dodging cow patties was no problem and well worth the effort when the fruit was ripe. "Ripe"was a relative term for me as a kid; by the time the Jonathan apples were about an inch in diameter, I was forever grabbing one off the tree to eat. I actually liked the Yellow Delicious apples better green than ripe. Worth the effort indeed! But, sometimes the shortcut wasn't available. That's when I had to take the long way; the country road next to our house.

My destination was almost always the same. My best friend Mike lived around the corner from us, less than a quarter mile away. Whether we walked across the orchard or on the road, we each burned up the trails between our houses. Day and night, every season of the year, we were almost constantly together. Even today, I can "see" almost every step of the way. I picture walking up the Smith's driveway and around the back patio into the back door. With adult eyes, I imagine looking down upon myself as a kid. I see a carefree boy walking, running, and skipping, picking up a rock to throw at a fence post, pulling the mature head from a blade of grass and chewing on it to taste the sweetness.

Those memories have faded with time, but one night I made a trip to Mike's that I won't ever forget. One of us called the other and we decided that I would go over to his house. I told my parents where I would be and walked out into the night air. As I stepped into the shadow created by our front porch light, I realized how dark it was. Moonless, the night sky was ablaze with stars, but they weren't enough to really light my path. At that time, none of the people in our country neighborhood had streetlights. Without the moon, it was hard to even see the road I was walking on. One or two neighbors, like us, had their porch lights on; otherwise it was pitch black. Only those few familiar points of light helped me know when I got to Mike's.

For you to get the full picture, you need to know that I was a little afraid of the dark. Not terrified, but just a bit fearful of what I couldn't see out there. With heightened senses, I noticed every tiny sound, concerned that the din of my own footsteps would awaken some pouncing horror. Step by tenuous step, I walked along that road. Then I saw Mike's driveway and felt the comforting glow of lights shining inside his house. I walked around the side, into the darkness of the back patio area...

...where Mike jumped screaming out of the shadows and scared the living daylights out of me!

I'll never forget that trip. I thought of it again recently as I pondered some profound verses about light and darkness:

"God is light and in Him is no darkness..." (1 John 1:5)

"People loved the darkness more than the light." (John 3:19)

Truth is, we all enjoy the darkness at times, especially when it hides our own inner darkness. In the end, though, something in us wants to find a familiar driveway and the warmth of friendly light up ahead. Light is one of the great promises at Christmas. We talked about it recently at Stone Ridge Church. Catch the podcast.

 

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The Power of Promises

I have been listening to the audio book of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Robert A. Caro published this Pulitzer Prize winning biography back in 1975. (Before you rush out to get a copy, be aware that it's 1344 pages in length.) Robert Moses had a vision for parks -- places to play and rest -- and became the power behind the development of such parks and the parkways (limited access highways) to get to them.

What began as a desire to beautify and provide something helpful to the millions who moved into New York from around the world, got warped into a way for Mr. Moses to collect and wield personal power. He learned the tricks of patronizing, bullying, and character assassination to literally bend elected politicians to his will. One of his favorite ploys was lying. He would intentionally underestimate the cost of a project so that elected officials would release the money to do it. He knew that, once a project was started, those same officials couldn't afford the political fallout of calling it a failure and stopping it. Instead, they would just release more money to pay the real cost of the project, the cost that Moses knew from the very beginning. He used this deception again and again.

The result of Robert Moses' actions was that millions considered him a genius and a friend of the little guy throughout most of his life. It was only at the end of his career when the judgment of history would tell the true story of his corruption. I thought of him and did a quick comparison to another man who lived during a similar era: my dad.

"My word is my bond," my dad used to say. If he gave his word to someone, it carried the same weight as a stack of notarized documents. As I write this, I can hear the voice of Samwise Gamgee saying, "I made a promise, Mr. Frodo; a promise..." in The Lord of the Rings. Sam wouldn't let Frodo sneak off into Mordor by himself. Why? Because he promised. And Samwise kept his promises. That's the way my dad lived his life. You gave your word and you kept your word; your integrity rested upon it.

I'm reflecting as I write this, thinking about the many people I know whose dads (and/or moms) made promises that they didn't keep. They may have been as intentionally corrupt as Robert Moses, or they could have simply developed weak character, not learning to follow through on their words. Either way, those unkept promises left a mark. For many, those empty pledges have become like an emotional leprosy, constantly eating away at things like joy and hope. Dwelling in those shadows can cause a person to believe that ALL promises are made to be broken.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, we kick off our Christmas study in God's Word. It is fitting that we begin with a simple, profound reminder: God keeps His promises! This message could be the best gift you receive in all the Christmases of your life. Bring a friend and join us at Stone Ridge! Can't be there? Catch the podcast!

 

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Communications Conundrum

I punched in the number and pressed "Send." My heartbeat jumped a couple of notches as I waited for the call to go through. Trying to keep my focus on the road in front of me and the vehicles around me, I thrilled to the response on the other end of the line. A familiar voice. In another state. Far away. I don't think I will every forget that call.

Who did I call? I don't really remember. Why was I so excited? Oh, that was the real issue, you see. I was excited because I was talking on a cell phone to someone in another state as I drove down the road in my car. And this didn't happen last week or last month; it happened about twenty years ago. What an advance in technology! What a leap in communications possibilities! I had no idea where this was heading. Most likely, neither did you.

It was only a year or two later when I discovered that one of my friends, a businessman who worked extensively in both Phoenix and Yuma, did non-stop business deals on his phone as he commuted along Interstate 8. He called me one day and we talked for at least a half-hour. His signal dropped for a couple of minutes, then he called right back. I remember dreaming at the time of the possibilities.

We still didn't understand where it was going.

A couple years after that, mobile phone companies came up with plans that didn't charge you for minutes in which you called another of their mobile phones. Suddenly we saw an exponential increase in the number of people who had a "cell phone." Then, shortly, mobile phones moved from "toys" to necessities.

I am writing these words on an iPad, using an App that will allow me to send it or post it in more directions than you can shake a stick at. By the time it goes online, some of you will read it in an email, but far more will read it directly from my blog. The largest number of readers will come from Twitter and Facebook, with some linking in from...you guessed it...LinkedIn. While all these different ways of communicating still amaze me, one of the biggest changes in my life is not that I can send these words out through so many various channels, but that you can communicate back to me through just as many media (probably more).

Suddenly...SUDDENLY we can see where this was going!!

We can Skype or Facetime with someone across town or on the other side of the planet, often for "free." We can hold meetings in which we all sit in our own homes and offices, seeing and hearing each other. We can send and receive messages, carrying on running conversations with each other. WE. CAN. COMMUNICATE! But many of us have all but forgotten how to shut it off.

And it's sucking the life out of us.

That's why I'm going to talk about it this weekend at Stone Ridge Church. Can't be there? Catch the podcast!

 

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Tears Can Bring Hope

Before that day, tears had been hard to produce. Up until then I wanted to cry, but couldn't seem to squeeze the liquid out of my eyes. I knew enough by then to understand that tears can be a sign of emotional health; but, for me, they had always...always (as an adult) been hard. When the dam broke, I found myself standing in a hospital hallway wracked with sobs. I didn't care who saw or heard the awful picture of my grief.

I was 25 years old at the time. My 20 year old sister, Carol Beth, had just been removed from a ventilator. Within a few moments, her heart stopped, her lungs exhaled their last breath and she was pronounced dead. Frail since childhood, her heart had been ravaged by an infection that couldn't be eradicated. Her cardiologist, a Christ-follower, said to my parents: "Her heart is beating as long as we keep pumping air into her lungs. However, her brain activity makes me think that she...your cherished daughter...is already with the Lord."

How does a person walk through such a dark valley? How does one endure the loss, the loneliness, the "Why?" that seems to scream from every fiber of being? The answer to those questions is what I began to understand that day as I stood in a hospital hallway sobbing. The Bible puts it this way, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." (Romans 8:28 New Living Translation) As my tears flowed, I knew from somewhere deep inside...

"...God causes..." God wasn't asleep at the switch and He wasn't passively sitting by while we suffered. The very chapter where this verse is located has some of the greatest love promises in the world located there. I knew that God wanted to cause something to happen through this tragedy. I knew that the "something" He wanted to cause would result in "good."

"...everything..." The sinner wants to take credit for the good in this world and blame God for the evil. The saint wants to do the opposite; credit God with the good and blame humans for the evil. Both can lose sight that God is in the business of taking even the darkest of this world's events and turn them into something right and good and redemptive. It was the darkness of the concentration camps that gave us Jews like Elie Wiesel and Christians like Corrie Ten Boom. God is in the business of turning tragedy into triumph.

"...to work together..." No, everything is NOT good. My sister's early death was NOT good! But God had good that He wanted to bring from it, and He did! That day in the hospital hallway, I heard Him whisper to my heart: "I am teaching you about grief. I am shaping you to help people who are hurting." Not long after that, I began talking with families in times of great loss. I stood with parents who lost their children and children who lost their parents. I couldn't begin to imagine the depth of their individual pain. But I could understand something about grief and what it does. I also had learned first-hand how God pours out His grace to people when they are in one of the dark valleys of their lives.

Whatever your challenge, regardless of the intensity of the pain, God wants to use your broken times to prepare you for a future you can't imagine. It's a future in which He will take the very hurts that attempted to destroy you and use them to shape you into a conduit of His love and hope for the world. Trusting Him for that future is critical for you to get out of your rut. It's what we will talk about this weekend at Stone Ridge Church. Can't join us? Catch our podcast here.

 

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Getting Out of Your Rut

The real question that day was which one I would listen to: my adventurous, risk-taking brother-in-law or my conservative, safe father-in-law. We sat, facing the road ahead with a decision: do we take the short route or opt for the longer one?

We had started out that day to visit home-building sites in the Yuma area. My brother-in-law is a contractor in another part of the country and he has constant curiosity about what other builders are doing. My father-in-law built a few homes when he was younger, including the one which Cathy grew up in. That beautiful place has been their home for well over 50 years and still amazes me with its tight doors and windows. Together we went from site to site, walking through houses in various stages of construction. The two of them saw things I didn't and showed me how some builders cut corners while others were building houses to last. It was fascinating, to say the least.

We had ended our tour of new construction near the college and were headed east into the foothills when we literally ran out of road. We could see more new homes about a quarter mile away, a strip of Arizona desert directly in front of us. Tire tracks indicated that someone was driving across that desert, but we couldn't tell if my Honda Accord would make it.

"Maybe we should go around," I said, realizing that we might have to drive two or three miles out of the way to get to the construction zone in front of us. "I think you might be right," my father-in-law quickly agreed. "No use driving out in the middle of that and getting stuck."

"Go for it!" my brother-in-law said with enthusiasm. Those three words have probably been his life's motto; most of the time he has been right. So...

...I went for it. At first, it seemed like the right choice. But, somewhere, right out in the middle of that stretch of desert, the gravel content in the soil gave way to pure sand.

We were stuck almost up to our axles.

 

Being stuck in a rut is no fun when you're driving somewhere. It's even less fun when you're traveling through life. I find it interesting that God allows ruts to develop in this world...but he never intended for us to stay stuck in one. But how do we get out of our rut? That's the topic this November at Stone Ridge Church. Can't join us? Catch the podcasts here.

 

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A Time of Favor

College freshmen are known for many things, but good sense isn't usually one of them. I was a typical college freshman when God started stirring something in my heart. It was life-changing season for me and a group of friends. Though we were learning much about what it means to be a Christian at that time, we wouldn't have received a good sense medal. We tended to pray when we should have studied, play when we should have worked, and generally react toward authority the way a young stallion responds to the approach of it's first rider.

Even with all the senseless things going on in our lives, my friends and I thought nothing of taking audacious risks as we tried to understand what it means to follow Jesus. One such risk landed us in chairs across the desk from the Governor of Arizona. It's a story of great favor which we in no way deserved.

It was the Spring of 1970. The turbulent sixties were still being lived out with millions from our generation choosing to "Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out." Stephen Stills and Buffalo Springfield had inadvertently painted a word picture of our generation:

"There's battle lines being drawn

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

Young people speakin' their minds

A gettin' so much resistance from behind."

In 1970, the early signs of a coming spiritual tsunami called the "Jesus Movement" were just beginning to be noticed. Viet Nam was under full assault, by our troops in Southeast Asia and by the protesters here at home. With large universities among his constituency, Arizona Governor Jack Williams had his hands full. Students were screaming for change, law enforcement was being pushed to the limits and the possibility of riots lingered in the desert heat.

So here we were, four goofy guys from a small Christian college, who got the audacious idea that we should ask for an appointment to go and pray for the governor. Looking back, I can think of a pile of reasons why almost anyone else should have done this task. We were full of spiritual fervor, but our maturity was in the tank. Still, one of us called and asked for an appointment. I don't think we were surprised that we received one.

Late one afternoon a couple weeks later we arrived at the State Capitol. We made our way to the elevator and up to the Governor's office on the top floor. The Governor's secretary graciously received us and a few minutes later we were ushered in. Governor Jack Williams greeted us with a handshake. He then asked a little about each of us. Quickly, one of the guys got to the purpose of the visit. "Governor," he said, "We have seen the news and know that you aren't very popular with many college students. We wanted you to know that we are concerned and would like it if you would let us pray for you."

It was a moment of great favor. We sat in a place we didn't deserve to be and spoke with a man who didn't have to see us. To top it all off, he very humbly and gratefully wanted our prayers. We prayed and left.

Favor is getting things you don't deserve to get, going places you don't deserve to go and meeting with people you don't deserve to meet. Jesus said, "The time of God's favor has come." (Luke 4:19) We will talk about it this weekend at Stone Ridge. Can't be there? Catch the podcast here.

 

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Overcoming Vicious Dogs

Some time back, Cathy and I were serving in a local church that set aside one night a week to visit people in their homes. We would take the addresses of recent visitors at our church and knock on their doors hoping for spiritual conversations. At a certain time on those evenings we would gather back at a church building to report on our visits. Needless to say, I was intrigued when one of our visiting teams returned to tell how they were prohibited from getting to the door of a house by a huge, angry dog standing just inside the front gate. My intrigue turned into something deeper than curiosity when a different team tried to visit that house the next week and met the same large, vicious canine.

Side note: I grew up with dogs...big dogs. In fact, most of the people who lived in the farming area where I was raised had big dogs. I am used to dogs barking and acting mean, only to have them start wagging their tail when they no longer feel threatened. My background made me consider the challenge of this particular feral beast as something of a personal problem that I needed to conquer. It felt as if I was being told, "I double-dog dare you," if you get my drift.

The next week on visitation night, I intentionally took the address of the "dog house." I couldn't wait to come back in a couple hours and report to the other teams how Cathy and I were able to make friends with the wicked animal, meet its owners and have a great talk with them about God.

We parked our car at the curb next to the aforementioned house, said a quick prayer and stepped into the early evening air. We were barely a step or two onto the sidewalk when a huge and vicious dog came running to the fence to see what we were about. His barks carried an ominous note, but I had heard many other dogs do the same and I wasn't really intimidated. We got to the front gate and the the animal increased his furious warnings. I stopped, spoke gently to him and slowly reached my hand over the fence for him to sniff. It took a moment for him to stop barking long enough and warily take in the scent of the back of my hand. Bit by bit, he saw that I wasn't threatening and he relaxed noticibly. Sensing that we were now on safe ground, I gingerly reached over to unlatch the front gate and the dog went into orbit. The pitch of his voice and the fire in his eyes told me that he would have none of it. I tried unsuccessfully to settle him again and let him sniff me; we were through. Cathy and I went back to the church and reported that this dog was the best gatekeeper we had ever seen.

Some dogs just can't be messed with. You can't trick them or coax them or lure them away from their vicious nature. This becomes ever so personal when you realize that some of those vicious beasts aren't just animals that run around on four legs; some take up residence inside human hearts. Did you ever feel like something dark and grisly was happening inside you and you couldn't seem to escape it? You may have tried every conceivable way of coping, but you still find yourself chained by a force you can't seem to break.

Jesus Christ spent a huge chunk of his ministry breaking the chains that bound the people around him. It's a ministry that still exists today among his followers. Come this weekend to Stone Ridge Church and find out how the "dogs" that keep hounding you can be neutralized so you can be set free. Can't be there. Catch the podcast here.

 

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