Finishing Well
I stayed up until almost midnight last night, something I don’t do very often anymore. But the Braves were playing the Dodgers in game one of the National League Championship Series. I couldn’t miss a pitch. And so I stayed up until Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies hit homeruns, and Mark Melancon got the final out.
I lived in Detroit for seven plus years, and one night the Detroit Red Wings beat the Anaheim Ducks in a double overtime playoff game played in California. The Red Wings scored the winning goal just after 2 a.m. Rumor was that up to forty percent of the workforce in metro Detroit called in sick the next day.
Isn’t it funny? When I was in college you might find me at “Dunkin Donuts” eating soup at 2 a.m. Or I might be typing away at a term paper. Seldom did I go to bed before midnight during those days. I can remember staying up all night while camping and fishing. Sure, I would nap a bit the next day, but it was no big deal.
But things are different today. I’m older, and my body won’t take that kind of abuse. I recently read about the best formula for falling asleep while sitting in a chair. “Be old. Sit down in a chair.”
Why do I bring this up? Two reasons. First, I must remember that this world is not my final home. There is more to life than what we see and experience. This is an essential tenet of the Christian faith. But my second reason is this. I have been praying for several years now that the Lord would allow me to, “finish well.”
That’s what Paul meant as he wrote his second letter to Timothy. “I have fought the fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Oh how I long to be able to say that at the end of my days
My body is not stronger today than it was 40 years ago, and it is not close. But I can be stronger in my faith, and I can be stronger in my walk with the Lord than I was back then. I pray that for me. I pray that for you. Let us be faithful until the day the Lord calls us home.
Change in Life
Ten months ago I began my ministry at Shellman Bluff Baptist Church. The first few months were rather chaotic. My wife was still teaching at Bryan County Elementary School, and living in our home there. I had a condo here where she joined me on Sundays. I usually went up there on Fridays and Saturdays.
We made life more complicated by buying a plot of land, and speaking to a builder. At this point we were taking care of two homes, owned another piece of property, and I was actually a member at two different golf clubs for one month.
We looked forward to Tina’s retirement, the sell of our home, and then settling into life in Shellman Bluff where we would live happily ever after.
And then everything changed in a moment. The house did sell. Tina did retire, but not as she had planned. There was no final concert (she was a music teacher). There was no retirement party to which we could invite family and friends.
I guess what I’m saying is this. When the pandemic hit, life did not go as we had planned.
You would think we would be accustomed to that by now. Very little has gone as we had planned. We never gave birth to a baby, but we adopted two sons we call our own. We spent fourteen years in the cold and the snow of the upper Midwest, something I would never have expected. I could go on.
Here’s the thing. God often calls us and leads us to unexpected places and experiences. He does not often give us long notice about such things. He simply guides us one day at a time, and expects us to follow. It’s not easy. It is often messy. And yet…it is in obedience and faithfulness that we find our best life.
I’ve heard someone say, “The center of God’s will is the safest place you can be.” I’m not sure I agree with that. God’s will can take you into danger. But I do believe this. “The center of God’s will is the best place you can be.” Have you found His will for your life? Where God guides, He always provides. Follow Him wherever He leads. You will not regret it.
Murphy
He was the first dog my wife and I had together. Murphy lived to be fourteen years old. He moved with us from Louisiana to Georgia, and then on to Indiana. He was there to greet our two sons when we brought them home. He was truly part of the family.
Murphy was a peculiar dog. A Black Labrador Retriever, he would lay under my bird feeder and watch the birds and the squirrels eating, never bothering either one. When I would throw a ball for him to fetch he would stare at me as if I had lost my mind. And when we would go on vacation he would refuse to eat.
No matter who we had come over and feed him he would ignore them. We were sometimes gone for a week or better, and he might eat one day’s worth of food. When I got home he would scarf down all that I would feed him, all the time glaring at me for having the nerve to abandon him.
I grew up with a dog. Murphy was the first dog my wife ever had. He seemed to sense her hesitation at first, and loved her unconditionally.
Unconditional love. Dogs always seem to give that. Even dogs that are abused have a special affection for their owners. Since Murphy we have had several dogs. Barney, Mollie, Bandit, Blaze, and now Belle and Cookie. In every case they depend on us to feed and care for them, and they trust us no matter what.
The analogy is not perfect, but consider this. God is the perfect Master and friend to you and me. He never leaves us to go on vacation. He always loves. And He wants us to trust Him, just as my dogs have trusted me.
Do you find it hard to trust the Lord? There are times for all of us that this is true. It seems as if he is not listening to our prayers. He has not stepped in and taken away our pain. But keep trusting. He is there. As Paul wrote to the Thessalonian church, “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.”
Lessons from the Newspaper
I started reading the newspaper when I was seven years old. The comics and sports pages were my favorites. I would study and analyze the box scores of every major league baseball game. There was a time when I could quote you the regular starting line-up for every National League team, and I knew the entire roster of my beloved Braves.
My favorite time for reading the newspaper was from the Spring of 1975 until the Spring of 1977. The Gwinnet Daily News (no longer in existence) covered sports for all ten high schools in our county. I played basketball and baseball for the Dacula Falcons. In the Winter of 1977 our basketball team busted into polls, reaching the number 1 spot for two weeks before losing our first game of the season. We won the region title and made it to the quarterfinals of the state tournament, losing to eventual champion, Greater Atlanta Christian.
It was heady stuff to see your name and picture on the front pages of the sports section. I read every article (several times no doubt), and then waited for Dad to come home. After he had read it I would carefully cut them out and put them in my scrapbook, still one of my most precious possessions to this day.
As I think about newspapers and my old scrapbooks, I learn valuable lessons. The most important is that I can’t live in the past. Paul said it this way, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” That applies to me in two ways.
First, I have to adjust to the changes I see, holding fast to the truths of the Gospel. The message is the same. Methods may change. Second, I can’t rest on my laurels. There is still much to do. As God said to Joshua, “There remains much land left to conquer.” There is still work to do. Let’s be faithful to very end.
Fighting the Good Fight
While in seminary one professor shared something that surprised me. He indicated, that if statistics held true, less than half of us in that classroom would serve in the ministry until retirement. He was right. Fewer than half of my seminary classmates remain active in their calling today.
Here’s the deal. I understand why it happens. Many of you do as well. Serving in the church, whether as pastor, deacon, Sunday school teacher, or any other capacity, can be downright difficult. The work is hard, and often people are not grateful for the efforts you make. Sometimes they ignore the advice offered. Sometimes being in ministry hurts.
I’m not throwing a pity party. I’m just stating the facts. There is that ever-present temptation to do what we think will bring peace. Just quit.
Can I encourage you to keep going? My professor used a phrase that I have remembered ever since to describe his desire for his life. He would simply say, “I want to finish well.” I was 22-years old at the time, just getting started, excited about the journey, and had no idea what that meant. Almost 40 years later I get it.
The fact is that I probably have fewer than ten years left in active service as a pastor. God has blessed in so many ways in my ministry. There have been buildings built and programs started. But the greatest part of ministry has been to see lives changed and challenged along the way.
Still, there have been days when I wanted to quit. There has been one too many critic, one too long committee meeting, one too many deaths. The temptation to quit always lingers. Still this thought remains in my mind. “I want to finish well.”
The apostle Paul put it this way in the last letter he wrote to Timothy. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” He went on to say that a reward was awaiting him.
That same reward awaits you and me. Keep going. Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Fight the fight, finish the race, and keep the faith. God is with you. Whatever you are doing, He will keep you. Count on it.
Trusting and Building
My wife and I are building a house. This is actually the second time we have done so. In 2006 we built our home in Ellabell, thinking it would be the place we would retire. But God had other plans, and so here we are in Shellman Bluff.
We looked at several existing homes, but none were exactly what we wanted. And so we made the decision to build. We wondered if that was the best thing for us. Building a house is a challenge. It can put a strain on you in many ways.
At the same time, it is also very exciting. Today they are putting the roof rafters up. The hope is to have roof decking in place by the end of the week. And doors and windows will soon be in place. In other words, it’s looking more and more like a house. We still don’t know when we will be living there, but we are closer than we were last month.
Anxiety. Anticipation. Words that are poles apart, and yet they both describe what we are feeling. We anticipate living in a beautiful place that we helped to design. My wife will have her own piano room. I will have a sunroom. But we are anxious about things that we have to do in the meantime. Pick out lights and fans and flooring options and cabinets, and the list goes on, seemingly forever. And of course, someone has to pay for the place.
The Bible says, “Be anxious about nothing…” Can I be blunt? That is a difficult task. Nothing? But there are so many reasons to be anxious. Can we realistically be anxious about nothing?
That is where the rest of the verse applies. “Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” The secret is not to bear down harder, or to be stronger or wiser. The answer is to talk to God, and then trust in Him. Even while building a house in the midst of a pandemic. Trust in the Lord. He is always trustworthy. He will not fail you.
Who’s in Charge
In 2019 I was supposed to go to Haiti on a mission trip, first in January, and then again in April. In January the U.S. state department issued a travel ban due to political unrest in Port au Prince. And later there was a shortage of diesel in Haiti, making both travel and staying at the mission house problematic.
There were ten of us going. We all had a sense of disappointment. When we started to plan the trip there was great excitement, and it had continued to build. I was to teach a group of pastors, and there were to be medical clinics in several nearby villages. Such a trip is truly a life-changing event.
But for reasons we could not fully understand, we had to wait. We had prayed for weeks that the travel ban would be lifted. We had the best of intentions all along. And yet, in the end, we are not able to go. Why? Why would God not open the door for us to serve others in His name?
I admit that I don’t have all of the answers. I do know this. God’s timing is different from ours, and it is always perfect. We trust Him. We believe He sometimes opens, and at other times closes doors. There may be times He tests us to see if we trust Him as we should. At other times He may be protecting us from dangers about which we know nothing.
There are times when God’s answer is “no.” Paul asked for a thorn in the flesh to be removed from his life, but God’s answer was, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Paul was satisfied with that answer. I pray that I will be as well.
You may be facing some disappointment. You wanted something, but it has been delayed, or even not available. Will you trust God to answer in His time and in the right way? He does what is best for us. He is faithful. We can trust Him.
Just FYI, we were finally able to make the trip in September. It was a marvelous experience. The fact is that God knows what He is doing, and again, it is our lot to trust and follow Him. He will not fail you.
“It Ought Not Be So”
I am preaching through the book of James on Sundays, and recently dealt with chapter 2:1-12 where James speaks of the power and the danger of the tongue. He reminds us that the tongue, though small, has the power, both to help and to hurt. He even goes so far as to say, “If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man…” James declares here, that if you do not sin with your mouth, you can be considered perfect.
But in the previous phrase he had said, “For we all stumble in many ways.” So we see that such perfection is not possible in this world. The truth is that no one controls the tongue perfectly.
In verse 9, James shares a haunting truth about the tongue. “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” What a tragedy!
James says that we go to worship and sing songs of praise, and later that day we speak in a nasty way to, or about, another person. It could be that we go to church in the morning and are deeply moved by the worship. And yet, at lunch in the restaurant, we snap at our server, giving her a piece of our mind. Never mind that most of us do not have enough mind to give away a piece.
In verse 10 we read, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” Can you hear the sigh of frustration in James’ voice? These two things, blessing and cursing, are contradictory. They should not come from the same mouth.
More than one Christian has harmed his or her reputation by one foolish sentence or exclamation. More than one nonbeliever has given up on Christianity because of something said to them. Should we not be more careful with our words?
Momma said, “Think before you speak.” She also said, “If you don’t have something nice to say, then say nothing.” Momma was right.
I pray that I will be more careful with the things that I say. I pray the same thing for you. Let us take care to use our words for good. Let us point others to the Lord with the things that we say.
Frustrations
When I was ordained as a pastor, I invited my good friend, Floyd, to preach that night. He began his sermon by reading from Ecclesiastes 10:1, “Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweigh wisdom and honor.”
May I admit to you that I wondered where he was going with that? Who starts a sermon talking about dead flies? But then Floyd began to make his point. It’s the little things in life that can cause trouble for us all. And sometimes we allow those little things to hurt us more than they should.
A few months back, while printing a document I had typed, I inadvertently hit the wrong button on my printer. Since that time, every document I have printed has been front and back, and I have not been able to change the settings. If I want to print only on one side of the page, I have to print each page individually. This takes extra time, and I have to admit that it frustrates me.
I am more than sure I could find a twelve-year-old who could fix the situation for me, but to date I have just lived with it. But again, I have to admit this. It drives me crazy that I haven’t been able to fix it. I’ve tried to follow the instructions on the screen to the best of my ability. But still every document prints on two sides.
The truth is that this is not a big deal. It’s a small matter. And yet it is exactly the kind of thing that causes frustration. It gets under your skin. And if you are not careful you will say or do something that you will regret as you think about it.
Floyd was right. Or better, Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, was right. Dead flies stink. Little things cause us trouble. And we have to work at it to be wise and to make good decisions.
Are there dead flies in your life? Clean them up. Sweep them out. Don’t let the little things destroy your witness. Be careful. Trust the Lord. He will help you as you do.
Trust Always
As I write these words we are waiting on a hurricane. It’s not supposed to hit us hard. Still, there is always that chance that it could change its course, gain strength, and then we would be scrambling in more ways than one.
I used to wonder why in the world anyone would live in a place susceptible to hurricanes… or earthquakes… or tsunamis. Why would you put yourself in a position that you could lose everything in an instant, or where you might have to evacuate and leave everything you own, not certain if it would still be there when you returned? Why indeed?
And then I finally realized this. No matter where we are, and no matter what we do, life is a risk. Nothing that we own is permanent. Not one of us has the promise, even of tomorrow. We are living by faith. Or, in some cases, by fear.
In his short letter, James, the half brother of Jesus, wrote these words, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring…Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’”
In that brief thought James if reminding us of this truth. We are not in control. As much as we wish we were, we simply are not in control. All of life is dependent. We depend on family and friends. But mostly, we are dependent upon the Lord.
So here is the $100,000 question. Do we trust in, and submit to, the One who is in control? I don’t know about you, but there are many times in life that I would prefer to be in charge. I find it difficult to trust and follow the Lord, because I would like to know where I am going, and what I am doing.
But the truth is that we are living moment by moment, and we do not know what the future holds. But you can know the One who holds the future. When a hurricane is coming, trust in the Lord. When a pandemic is present, trust in the Lord. When a crisis hits close to home, trust in the Lord. No matter what you might face, my advice is the same. Trust in the Lord.