Sunday is Coming!

I have spent a little more time than usual at the computer today.  I accepted an invitation to preach this upcoming Sunday and the sermon which has been stirring in my head needs to find a place on some white paper.  It has been a long day.  If it was one of those days from long ago, I would have a trash basket full of wadded up paper pulled from the old manual Royal typewriter.  What I am saying is that the process of taking the mulled over stuff in my head to the pulpit has become a slower process than I anticipated.   To be honest, I am a bit surprised.  I have been praying, thinking, and writing the sermon in my head for some time.  The problem today has been getting it on the screen in front of me.   

Perhaps, the difficulty speaks of the rust which has accumulated since I preached my last sermon on Christmas Eve.  It may also be that I have some hesitation about preaching what I am feeling impressed upon me to preach.  While I know it is where I am going to end up, sometimes the journey to surrendering to the leading of the Spirit is not a straight and easy road. I also know my energy level is still not up to where I hope it will soon be, but I keep reminding myself of that verse which speaks of "God's power being made perfect in weakness."  (II Corinthians 12:9).

Regardless of all these things, it is as is often said, "Sunday is coming!"  It is a word which is always before every preacher who is preaching every week and it remains true for those of us who preach with less frequency. Sermons often come with a struggle.  Even though I preached for over 40 years, every sermon brings its own challenges.  I hate old sermons.  They are boring to preach and smell like three day old fish.  One thing is certain.  I look forward to the opportunity to once again stand in the pulpit to preach the Word God has given me for the people of God in the place He has provided.  

Living Wisely

An image I have come to appreciate in the days and years leading into this 78th birthday month is the image of life unfolding.  It is an image that speaks to me at a number of levels.  First, it is a reminder that there is more unseen in life than seen.  More belongs to the realm of the invisible than ever considered possible.  What is seen is more like the tip of the iceberg.  The greater part of life is in the invisible realm, but it is a realm toward which we are always walking and as we walk toward what is still in the future, it is slowly and, if I might add, revealing itself, but in God's time.   

It is an image which brings to mind the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.  "Your kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10)  Even though heaven is an unseen reality, we still pray that what is unseen will one day be present here on earth.  In other words we pray for that day when the veil will be lifted and the seen and unseen will become as one.  To think of life unfolding is to position ourselves in a place of moving toward the will of God which though not always seen is always in the process of unfolding before us.  

It is not an image which accommodates our infatuation with instant gratification.  Try as we might, we cannot hurry the unfolding nature of the will of God.  Neither can we hurry into the future He has planned and prepared for us.  We can only wait for the Lord to reveal it to us. Whether we wait with patience or impatience, it does not change the fact that God is the One who is charge of the unseen which stretches before us.  He gives us today.  We wait for the coming of whatever it is that is a part of tomorrow and beyond.  It is unfolding.  The unseen part of our life is out there in the invisible realm and it is coming.  To live wisely is to learn the importance of waiting on the Lord as it unfolds.

The Unchanging Call

As this month of June unfolds and I walk deeper into my 78th birthday month, I find myself thinking again about a recent lesson learned about God's calling.  My first experience with the calling of God came just before my 18th birthday and weeks before I left home for Young Harris College.  It was one of those unexplainable moments that you knew you knew.  Though I had a long drawn out debate with God about the call to preach, I knew what I heard.  I simply did not like it, or want to accept it.  As it turned out, I loved preaching.  Of all the tasks which were mine as a result of ordination, preaching was the thing which I loved the most.   

When I retired it was strange to think of life without preaching, but before I had time to give it much thought an opportunity came to preach at a small church about ten miles from the farm.  Finally, though, after a little over four years, my circumstances changed and I had to step away from what would be my last full time preaching appointment.  A lesson learned over these last ten years of not preaching every Sunday is that God lifted the sense of urgency about preaching and led me into different ways of serving Him.  As I approach my 78th birthday, I am grateful that God is not through with me yet and that the call of long ago remains, but that it has moved me in new directions.  

As I write JourneyNotes on a nearly daily basis, I know the ability to do so is a gift from Him.  He has been as faithful to enable this writing ministry even as He did a preaching ministry of over forty years.  Another ministry which has unfolded before me in the place of preaching is praying.  While I have always prayed, more and more it seems that God brings into my life people for whom I sense the need to intercede in prayer.  What I have learned is that while what God asks or calls us to do may change, the fact that He is always calling us to be useful for His Kingdom's work is unchanging.

The Unforgettable Tree

On a recent journey from the mountains to the sea and back home again, many things stand out.  Watching the landscape unfold through the window of an automobile is like opening a great big coffee table book full of wonderful pictures.  Nothing is like the way mountains rise up to touch the white fluffy clouds and neither is there anything quite like the place where sand, rolling waters, and horizon all seem to be a part of each other.  There were mom and pop eateries, shops full of stuff not really needed, and so many people with stories to tell.  

Even though all these things are very memorable, a tree on the edge of the Flint River in Bainbridge, Ga. receives the award for the being most outstanding.  I first saw it in the early morning sun from the deck of a motel that provided a place for breakfast.  I do not know the species of the tree except to say it was a survivor.  It was the only tree standing in the area and its trunk sent huge gnarled twisted limbs into the sky.  Everything about it spoke of being of the ancient of days.  It was a tree that had survived flood and storm. When I first saw it, I thought of the first Psalm.  "They (the righteous) are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither, in all that they do, they prosper." (Psalm 1:4).  

Perhaps, part of the appeal was that it looked like a kinsman.  So many of us bear the scars and other evidences of making it through the storms and floods that have often seemed overwhelming, but somehow by the grace of God, we still stand as survivors.  Certainly another part of the attraction of the tree was the way it found its home by the river.  So many of us have planted our lives in the stream of living waters.  It has become our home, the place of our roots and life.  Our home is by that stream which "flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb..." (Revelation 22:1). Seeing that tree by the river was like being home and all I wanted to do was sit with gratitude flowing from within.

The Source of Silence

I have read the Creation story many times and only this morning was I caused to see an aspect of the created act that I had never before seen.  I had read about the creation of the earth and sky and sea.  I had read about the birds of the air, the animals of the earth, and the fish of the sea.  I had read about men and women being created in the likeness of God and with the imprint of the holy.  After listening to a friend's devotional this morning, I saw what I had been missing.  As surely as God created all the things we see around us in creation, He created the silence.   

What seems obvious in this moment is that God not only created the silence, but that He also created in the silence.  What we have been doing since the beginning is adding layers of noise.  While there was certainly noise before the Tower of Babel, that moment causes us to hear the confusion that noise can generate.  We live in an increasingly loud and confusing world.  The noise around comes at us like powerful race cars roaring around the track.  It not only fills our senses, it overwhelms them.  

Anyone who hears the silence and senses the stillness must develop an inner discipline which not only tunes out what is around us, but also enables us to hear what or Who is inside of us.  The Scipture tells us that the Spirit of God desires to dwell in us.  What His presence brings to us is a bit of the stillness and silence that was breathed into the very fabric of creation.  It is surely one of those things we have lost, but at least we know where to find it.  The silence is not found in turning down the volume controls on the external, but in turning the volume controls up on what enables us to hear what God has put within us. 

 

The Blessing of the Gull

The sun was still meandering around the eastern horizon when he came.  I was sitting quietly on the porch with a freshly peeled orange when he arrived.  I was not expecting him.  I looked up from my orange and he was perched on the handrail of the steps.  We were about six feet apart when I looked up and found myself looking eye to eye with a mostly white seagull.  For at least a minute or so ours eyes were locked on each other.  I stirred not, nor did he.   

Here is what is probably viewed by some as the strange part.  I spoke to him, "Good morning, friend," I said, "I hope you have a blessed day flying around the water today."  He said not a word.  He just seemed to be looking at me as intently as anything could look at another thing.  Suddenly he was gone as quickly and as quietly as he had come.  Perhaps, he stopped by for a visit because on other such visits he had found some easy food.  I do not know.  What I do know is that I may have verbally blessed that bird, but without saying a single word, he blessed me as surely as I did him.   

Like you I cannot count the times, God has provided a blessing through the Creation. Some call it earth or nature, but I am one of those who believe it is a living thing brought into being and sustained by God and is, therefore, a means by which He can bless each one of us.  I was blessed by a sunrise this morning.  I have been blessed by thoughts of how heaven and earth are so close they sometimes seem to mingle as I walk in this place where water and sand end and begin.  I am thankful, too, for the morning blessing from a visiting seagull.

Where We Live

We walk the spiritual journey in a world where there is ever present evil, far more than just three temptations, and enough stress to sink a ship.  Faithful living cannot be done in a spiritual cocoon.  Neither can we pull up our robes of righteousness and bury our head in the sand.  When we read the accounts of the Desert Fathers, we see that not even a life of solitude and silence kept the world away.  The truth is that as long as we carry our own heart within us, we will face those things which can turn our eyes from the direction we want to go.   

This morning provided a comfortable chair on a porch overlooking a river.  Birds were flying overhead.  Ducks were meandering around the water's edge.  The sun was working magic as it brought shadows and light on the landscape. In this midst of all these things which invited spiritual reflection there was the sound of hurrying automobiles on the nearby bridge.  Before that noise was tuned out, someone turned on a leaf blower.  Finally, a young woman sat down not far from my place of reflection and shared a cell phone conversation via speaker phone.   

Life is always full of distractions.  The quiet moments we anticipate with God are often hijacked by some unexpected intrusion.  The intrusion or distraction may be some unnaturally generated noise, or it may be our mind wondering off to worry about a problem.  It does not take a loud noisemaker beside us to take us away from where we intended to be to where we are.  This morning's message from God through His Creation reminded me that we live as His disciples not outside the world, but in it.