I am going to let you in on a secret, one I don’t tell just anyone. I actually love this time of the year. It has very little to do with Christmas. All the flash and dazzle of the holiday depresses me. Where does the Birth of our Lord fit in with tinsel and our exchange of gifts? But I do love this time, specifically December.

          Back in 1989 I was becoming more and more upset with the way Christmas was being celebrated by the world as well as the folks in the church. And this was before Black Friday was a thing! I just didn’t like all the commercialization. So, the Sunday before Christmas, which was on Christmas Eve that year, I boldly went where no pastor had gone before. I preached on Hell. Let it rip, too. HAH! I showed them!

          The closing song was “Silent Night.” I went and stood with Marsha and greeted people as they went out. The words I got from the people stunned me. Have a Merry Christmas, Pastor. Looks like we will get some Christmas Eve snow! You folks going up to see the parents? What time do you folks get up for Christmas? My mind was jumbled. Were these people nuts? I had just preached a barn burner message on Hell, and it’s like they didn’t even notice.

          There was a good reason for that. They didn’t notice. Probably because they didn’t listen. I was really crushed that our people could be so sucked into worldliness!

          Fortunately, the Lord whacked me in the back of the head with a Yule log and got my attention.

          Christmas time is a time when people focus on Christmas things, just like Easter is a time people focus on Easter things. As much as I would like those things to all be sacred things, we do live in this world. The things of the world will come through and, if we watch ourselves, that is not always bad. I really enjoy seeing kids in their new Easter clothes. I like to hear the stories of what loved ones got their wives or husbands or kids for Christmas. Marsha and I always enjoy the Christmas lights drive each year. So long as our focus is right…….

          So, the Lord took me to the woodshed a little. But, He also inspired me.

          In terms of preaching, December is a limited month. You have to spend four Sundays on the birth of Jesus and one Sunday on the coming new year. It is just the way it is today. If you are looking for a church, don’t bother looking in December. The birth of Christ only takes a few chapters in the New Testament, although there is much in Old Testament prophecy. In December, the preacher is going to preach on the Birth. I have done so for the last 34 years, with the exception of the ill-fated message on Hell. There is a challenge in preaching on the same topic and still making it interesting. But it is still the same topic.

          Because of this, however, I came to a wonderful discovery.

          The Lord called me to pastor. What most people do not consider is that pastoring and preaching are two different callings. There are many wonderful preachers who are sad pastors, and many really good pastors who are poor preachers. I recognized this early on. Preaching was a struggle. Consequently, I struggled for years to be a better preacher. In seminary, I pursued a degree in ministry, but I read everything I could that was in the reading list for a preaching, or homiletics, degree. By the time I had my master’s in ministry I had done all the reading for a doctorate in homiletics. Marsha was the one who pushed me to go ahead and go for the doctorate, since I had done all the work already, except for some field work and the dissertation. You would think I would be a better preacher, but I am what I am.

          In all of that preparation, I came across an article concerning something called a Planned Program of Preaching. The PPP involves sitting down and planning your preaching for a month or even three months. Scripture passage, sermon topic and maybe some thoughts. Then, when you get to that week, you have the Scripture and topic, all you have to do is prepare (which is the fun part). At the time I first read the article, I dismissed if. How can you let the Spirit lead if you program it? Never thought about it again.

          Until the week between Christmas and New Years of 1989.

          The Lord brought it to my mind while I was in prayer one morning. I resisted, He insisted, so I thought I would give it a month. I spent a lot of time in prayer that week about messages for January. By the end of the week I had a basic outline for the month. You pray about it and the Lord leads and there were four weeks of topics. Pretty cool! No feeling of rush during those weeks that were heavy with pastoral duties. I already had the topics. The amazing thing was, we did have something suddenly come up that January in the church that needed to be addressed from the pulpit. The sermon that was on the PPP was exactly what was needed. What? You mean to tell me that the Holy Spirit knows what is coming and can direct my paths a month away? Un-stinking-real! As January drew to a close I looked to February and March. Again, the Lord didn’t disappoint. Having sought out the Lord and having prayed over everything, I found my messages were always on topic. It was unreal! As March wound down, I went for three months. Everything was perfect. There were weeks when I was at hospitals for various needs, when others had other kinds of problems, when I had to leave town suddenly for four or five days. In those cases, I was ready.

          When December 1990 rolled around, I was excited. I found I was already putting those messages for the first three months together in my mind. Easter was coming, and I love to preach curing the Easter season. Not only that, but I had been invited to speak at Kent State University on the topic of Resurrection, so I needed to prepare for that. I began to prepare at the beginning of December.

          One sermon led to another. The Lord was really moving! By the end of December I took stock of what the Lord had accomplished during the month. I was actually quite surprised that every Sunday during year had a topic and Scripture. No, no, no, that can’t be right, I thought. And what is this, starting in June? I had two topics and sets of Scripture for each Sunday through the end of the year. I remembered doing that, but why? Did the Lord want me to preach two messages on those Sundays? That wouldn’t go over well at all. Now I was a little worried. How could I prepare for a whole year in advance, and why the double messages for more than half a year? I was doing something wrong, for sure.

          But the messages were right on the money.

          When we got to May there was a small, struggling church in the community where we lived (we didn’t live in the same community as the church I pastored) that was coming into some real problems. Knowing some of the folks, because we were neighbors, I was asked to come on Wednesday evening to talk things over from a Biblical perspective. My church’s weekly Bible study was Thursday evening, so that worked well. It would only be a couple of weeks, anyway. After a couple of weeks the little church asked if I might fill the pulpit for a couple of Sundays. Of course, I was pastoring, but they offered to change their times to accommodate my schedule. From that, I was there every Sunday for the next 80 weeks. The very first Sunday of preaching that dual situation was the first Sunday I had two messages listed for a Sunday on my Planned Program of Preaching.

          December is my special month. It is when the coming year is revealed to me, at least as far as sermons go. I also can pick out the Scripture reading (which is not the same as the sermon Scripture) for each week to go along with the messages. The liturgist for the month then gets that list. Rena the secretary knows in advance what the message and Scripture will be and Marsha, who picks the songs, will have a complete listing of songs for every service of the year by the middle of January, which she can then give to the instrumentalists. A fellow pastor once told me that the PPP was stupid. It completely took the Spirit out of it. I told him that we obviously had two different S/spirits at work in our lives. His spirit was only strong enough to cover him for a week at a time. My Spirit is strong enough to give me a year! 

          Well, you might say, God has blessed you. But here is the secret. I have access to the same Spirit you have access too. Incredible things can be done, if we just let Him have His way.

          I do love this month!

          Blessings.

          It is strange the things that give you pleasure as you get older. I know I am getting older because every time I go to the doctor and he wants to explain what my latest malady is, he starts out by saying, “As we age…..” So, yes, I am getting older. Can’t say I really care, either. But I do know that little things have the ability to make me smile.

          This morning had just such a moment. I switched wallets.

          I know. So what? What’s the big deal? You switched wallets and you enjoyed that? Kind of a sad little life, isn’t it?

          Well, there is a back story to this story.

          November, 1995. Geneva, Ohio. A town very much like North Manchester, only without a University. We had a Great Lake, so we were OK. I had been the new pastor at Park Street Christian Church a little over a month. Sitting at my desk, I heard the side door open and then the clump, clump, clump of someone coming up the steps. I got up from the desk and stepped around it to greet whoever it was coming in. She stepped into the doorway (the door was open), put her hands on her hips and snapped, “So, you’re the new preacher we have to put up with now?” I didn’t know it at the time, but she was 85 years old. At the moment she looked extremely cross, even angry, and her tiny frame seemed to fill the doorway. “Yes ma’am, my name is Rev. Larry Wade. And you are….?” With that a beautiful smile lit her face. She brought her hand to her mouth as she giggled. “You called me ‘ma’am?’ Oh my, I’m no ma’am! I am Leanore Keener. May I sit down?”

          That started a friendship that lasted for the rest of her life, which would have been sixteen years. Far and away, Leanore was the most unusual lady I have ever met. She walked everywhere she went, even in the dead of winter. She didn’t want to ride anywhere. She wanted walk. What can you see from a car? Who can you stop and talk to when you are in a car? When you drive somewhere, can you stop and talk to the squirrels? Actually, we tried to get her to quit talking to the squirrels, but the squirrels enjoyed it, so there you go. Only when she went to the doctor did she get a ride, and as time went along, that ride was more and more often me. She wasn’t a member of our church, but instead was a member of the Methodist church. She told me once, when she was 95, “Reverend, I would really like for you to do my funeral, but you aren’t a Methodist. I am sorry?” I told her fine, I didn’t want to do her nasty old funeral, anyway! And I didn’t. I didn’t think I would have a prayer of getting through it.

          Towards the end of 1997 I was taking her to the doctor’s office. Once inside, I walked her to the office and then at the desk I asked if I could have my parking validated. For some reason, I had to show some ID, so I pulled out my wallet and produced my driver’s license. She had been watching this from her chair and when I went over and sat down with her she looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Reverend, you need a gentleman’s wallet.” She often said things that surprised or confused me, so I took this in stride. “And what, dear lady, is a gentleman’s wallet.” She looked at me with no smile. “We shall see.”

          Later, when I took her home, she asked me to come in. This was always something of a treat for me. Her home was right out of the 1940s. Her husband had been a doctor, so the first room you walked into had been the reception area. Off of that room were five smaller examination rooms and one office, the doctor’s office. Past that was the living area. Everything, from the reception area all the way through the house was just as it had been the day the good doctor suddenly passed away. He had been twenty years her senior when they got married in 1940 and had died ten years later. She wasn’t keeping things untouched because she was still pining for him. She just had no reason to get anything new. I loved that house.

          Anyway, we went in through the reception area and through the doctor’s office into the living room. “Sit there, Reverend. I’ll be right back.” Off she went further into the house. When she came back she held a small box. “I want you to have this,” she said. “I gave it to Charles on our wedding day. He has little need of it anymore.” I opened the box and inside was a jacket wallet. The type of wallet that goes in the inside of a man’s suit coat or overcoat. Nothing fancy. No lettering or special stitching or anything. But she had kept it for nearly forty years in that small box. I looked up at her and saw the tears in her eyes. I realized what an honor it was to receive such a gift from this dear woman. I looked back at the wallet and took it carefully out of the box. I looked back at her to see a small smile gracing her face. “Leanore, is there any cash in it?” She grabbed a sofa pillow and whacked me with it.

          It was that wallet I switched to this morning. I’ve used it for twenty years now, ten years longer than Charles. The wallet is sixty seven years old and is perfectly good in every way, although it is getting worn. I only use it now in the colder months. On those rare occasions when I buy a cold weather jacket, I make sure it has a pocket on the inside for my wallet. I can’t use it in the warmer months because it is too long to go into my back pocket and I don’t wear a sports jacket or a suit coat every day. But I still really enjoy using the wallet because it came from Leanore.

          To say that Leanore was eccentric would be like saying the Pope is Catholic. Because she walked everywhere, she was known by everyone. Any kind of weather, right up to the time she was 100 years old, she was on the move. And her mind! She was so sharp! Always had some comment that carried a lesson in it. But, her mind was a little odd. She was in her own personal orbit. Trying to figure her out was sometimes pretty hard.

          Although she went to another church, she came to our church for Bible studies. She said she liked the way we prayed better than the Methodists. At one we were in the book of Acts and were talking of the early church. To help the less fortunate Christians in the early church, those with money were giving it freely and those with land were selling it and giving the money from the sale to help those in need. For whatever reason, this struck a cord and we had people in the church begin to do these very things. It was inspiring, but has to be another story for another time. Leanore came into my office one day (she never knocked, just came in and sat on my sofa and started talking) and told me she would like to help. Since she didn’t drive, she wanted to donate her car. I looked at her and smiled. “Leanore, you do not have a car.” “Of course, I have a car. It’s in my garage!” “Leanore, you don’t have a garage.” “Of course, I have a garage! It’s right there in my side yard!” “You mean the shed?” “Why, that’s no shed! That’s my garage!” It was about 300 yards away, so I asked her to show me. Walking over, I asked her when she had last driven the car. Oh, it hadn’t been long. She had bought it to go to Florida, Florida being too far to walk. When had she gone to Florida? Oh, the first time was in 1979. Went again in 1983. You bought a car to drive to Florida? Oh, yes, just needed it for Florida.

          She opened the shed and there sat a car. A 1979 Buick Regal. Looked like it had sat there forever. Tires were flat, battery was dead. It was covered in years of bat and bird droppings. “Think you can use it, Reverend?” “I am sure we can.”

          I pushed it out of the shed and looked it over. She said she had never really driven it anywhere but to Florida those two times. The interior was showroom. However, on the dash there was a large compass mounted. Right next to that was an equally large altimeter. Both looked like something I had seen mounted in a small plane when I was a boy. “Leanore, I understand the need for a compass, but why the altimeter?” “Well, I was going to Florida! I didn’t want to get to high in the mountains on the way.” I didn’t say anything. Her mind just worked that way.

          She liked talking to Marsha, whom she called Mrs. Reverend. Their minds were on the same basic wavelength. Marsha liked Leanore’s phone hang up. When she was happy, Leanore would squeal out, “Yippie skippee!” Whenever she had enjoyed her phone conversation she would say good bye and then as she was putting down the phone you could hear her say yippie skippie and then the phone would make contact with the windchimes that sat on the same table as the phone and you would hear those chimes. It was weird and it was sweet.

          Our youth were always helping the elderly in our church with their yards, so I arranged to take them over to Leanore’s. I walked around her house having her point out what she wanted done. We got to the back of the house and she said, “Reverend, something is wrong with my back door. Something’s not right. Could you check it?” I stepped up to the door and turned the knob and gave a little push. The knob came off in my hand and the whole door fell in and crashed onto the kitchen floor. “See what I mean? I don’t think it’s supposed to do that, is it?” We fixed her door. Yippie skippie!

          She was a true hoot. But the time came, when she was 101 years old, that her life ran out. Now I was working at the funeral home as staff clergy. The former owner of the funeral home (he had sold it to his son) was kin to Leanore and had handled her finances (quite well, too) for several years. Knowing how close we had been, Ford (his father had been Wilford, and everyone called him Wil, the son was also Wilford and everyone called him Ford) did not want me to be involved with her preparation. Ford was handling the funeral and all preparations. Leanore had requested cremation. As she had said, if she was cremated she could be buried in the same plot as Charles, and they had had so little time together. But, before cremation, she wanted a full funeral at the Methodist church. She had requested I be a pall bearer. She also wanted me to drive the hearse. She felt that since I had carted her around for several years, she would trust me for her last ride.

          For the funeral, Leanore was prepared and then placed in what is called a rental casket. When someone is to be cremated but a regular funeral precedes the cremation, the family will rent a special casket. The deceased is placed in a special box inside the special casket. When the casket gets to the crematory after the service the foot end of the casket is opened and the box is slid out and the person is cremated in that box. The foot end of the casket, when opened, is actually a little ramp that helps the box slide out. In this case, the rental casket we used was wood, and quite heavy. I pulled the hearse up to the church and got out and opened the back door. The pall bearers stepped forward, under the direction of Ford, and we brought the casket out. I was having a hard time with it because she was so dear to me. I was one of the rear most pall bearers. The steps into the church were unusually steep and taking a casket in always was a problem. We started up the steps. In this case, because it was a wooden casket and very heavy, Ford took the end of the casket to help us up the steps. At the moment when the casket was at a 45 degree angle I felt a little lurch and heard Ford grunt. I looked back and the only outward reaction on the long time professional funeral director’s face was his eyes were much wider than normal. He looked at me and said very quietly, “The back broke open.” “I’ll fix it at the top,” I said back. I didn’t know it at the time, but whoever put her in the casket (it would normally have been me, but not this time) had failed to tighten the clasps on the foot end of the casket. The ramp had opened. If we had used a metal rental casket, much lighter, Ford would have gone ahead and prepared everything at the top of the steps. The ramp would have opened and no one would have been there to hold it closed. Leanore would have been in the street.

Grief and sadness can do strange things to you. That image hit my mind and I started to laugh. Leanore would have loved it! I dropped my head and kept lugging the casket, trying not to laugh out loud. It seemed half of the town was on the sidewalk, there to pay respects to one of the most loved women the town had ever produced. Evidently, with my head down and my shoulders shaking, they thought I was weeping. Several made comment about how broken up Pastor Wade was. That made me laugh harder. Not only that, but now Ford was laughing the same way. Head down, shoulders shaking. The people on the sidewalk and just inside the church saw how overcome we were and real tears started. Which made it even funnier.

At the top of the steps, just inside the church, awaited the bier, which is the wheeled thing the casket sits on. The pall bearers placed the casket on the bier and Ford stood tight at the foot to hold it together. He asked the folks to go on in the sanctuary and told them we would be right in as soon as we made sure Leanore was presentable. The people filed in while I stood at the head and Ford stood at the foot, with heads bowed. Some would reach out to us and touch our hands in sympathy. It was horrible. It was so funny. At the moment I didn’t know if I could fix the casket or not, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

Finally, we were alone. Ford looked at me and said, “Fix this #&@** thing!” I had never heard him swear, so now I really was pretty useless. We opened the casket and Ford made sure she was presentable and I saw what the problem was and secured the ramp, and we went in. Wonderful service.

About a week later Ford came into my office and sat down next to the desk. “Tomorrow meet us at the cemetery at 8 AM with Leanore’s urn. You have the graveside.” “Oh, Ford, I can’t. She told me I wasn’t a Methodist, so I couldn’t do it. I’ll bring the urn…..” Ford reached into a pocket and pulled out a paper and showed it to me. It was her final instructions. In her own handwriting it said to have Larry do the graveside. Now I was choked up. Leanore had never called me anything but Reverend.

Next morning, with just family and Ford and his wife Debbie in attendance, I carried the urn to the grave and handed it to Ford. He placed it on the pedestal, which was next to the wind chimes that Leanore had kept next to the phone. Leanore’s only child, daughter Vera Mae, had brought a holder for the chimes and they were making a sweet, soothing song for us in the morning breeze. I read a few Scriptures I knew Leanore loved, asked anyone who wanted to share to do so, and then I said a few words and prayed. As I said ‘Amen,’ Ford said, “And all of Leanore’s people said…” and all together, not even having planned it, we said “Yippie Skippie!” I let my hand brush the chimes and we heard her old hang up.

          I love this day each year when I change wallets. Makes me smile.

          Last Sunday was the day after Veterans’ Day. It was proudly reported in the media that, in honor of Veterans’ Day, not a single NFL player took a knee during the National Anthem. Wow. What a tremendous show of patriotic zeal and fervor. The players stood for the Anthem.

          Whether or not the players have the right to protest the flag and the Anthem is up for debate. I believe that if the league made it mandatory then the players would have to stand. It would be a work place issue then. It is mandatory that the players wear helmets. It is mandatory that they wear the jersey of the team. But, the NFL is pretty much gutless, except for Jerry Jones of the Cowboys. So, the league is failing to make their players do the right thing. At the leagues expense. But the real issue to me is not whether they have the right to protest before a national audience. The real issue is that they are completely oblivious to what the flag and the Anthem that lifts the flag up really mean.

          On a hot day on a little island in the South Pacific, a young man was patching bullet holes in a bulldozer that was needed to finish the air field that was being constructed. The date was February 23, 1945 and the island was Iwo Jima. The young man had joined the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. Three plus years of war on scattered islands in the Pacific had left scars, both physical and emotional. On that day he should have been on his way back to the states. He had fresh wounds that would be with him forever. As he worked on the dozer he was using a wooden board as a crutch to help get around. The shrapnel wound sustained on the day they hit the beach showed no signs of healing. The stitches kept opening up. He would have been gone except that not everyone on that island had his expertise. And, he chose to stay. At the moment, he was behind the lines, but there was no real safety on that rock. As he worked he had a rifle slung over his shoulder. If he had stopped to think about it he might have wondered why he had been so driven to lie about his age back in December, 1941 and get into this mess. Now, wondering if this war was going to end and, if it did, would he ever see his native Kentucky again, the man kept working, and bleeding, to get an airstrip in.

          Gradually, he began to realize that men were shouting, some cheering. He looked up to see men pointing toward the top of Mount Suribachi, one of the peaks on the island. Some men, officers mostly, had binoculars. Everyone was excited. That peak had been the sight of some fierce fighting and dying by the Marines. His eyes followed the pointing fingers, but he really couldn’t see anything. A navy Ensign stood on a bulldozer nearby with binoculars trained on the distant peak. The young man, rifle slung over his shoulder and a board for a crutch, called out to the Ensign. “Sir, what’s going on?” The Ensign lowered his binoculars and turned to the wounded sailor. His voice choking and tears running down is face, he said, “The flag, Chief, they got OUR flag flying on the mountain!”

          Later, the young man finally got a pair of field glasses and saw the flag himself. Maybe, after all, they would win. Maybe, after all, he would get home. Maybe this hell on earth he had been living would be over.

          Of course, it never was over, not really. For the rest of his life he would occasionally jerk awake at night thinking he was on one island or another and was being shot at. Over the next 20 years or so little bits of shrapnel would work out of his leg. For a long time, a backfire or sudden loud noise would make him duck down. He got to where he drank too much and he would never talk of his experiences. It wasn’t till he was older that he began to share his stories. For some reason, he shared with me, his only son. The stories came out in bits and pieces, and my perspective of my father slowly changed. The rush of emotion he felt when he saw that flag flying on that mountain was amazing. (The flag he saw was the first flag. After a while a photographer took some guys back up the hill and they reenacted the raising of the flag to get it on film. But my father saw the first one.)

          I used to be a football fan. A die hard, really. But that changed years ago. My father, though, was almost fanatical. When the anthem was played before a game, whether it be high school, college or pro, he was on his feet. He looked at that flag, always remembering that day on Iwo Jima. To him, that flag meant he might actually live. Now, however, if he were still alive, I am sure he wouldn’t be turning the games on, not even for his beloved Dolphins. He just wouldn’t watch men who refused to honor the flag he had fought for, and nearly died under.

          The base salary a pro football player makes is $465,000 a year. That is for a first year player straight out of college. For a first year borderline player. Generally, you make even more if you can stay drug free all year. Someone could argue and say that their careers are short, but a high school teacher won’t make that in ten years. (Takes even longer for a country preacher.) Along with salary, the NFL marginal rookie gets free travel, great health insurance and other perks just for riding the bench. And, if they make the team for year two, they get much more.

          But, what would it be if men like my father hadn’t vowed to protect the Constitution of the United States and to follow the flag? Because these NFL players are disrespecting the flag, players all down the line are disrespecting the flag. All the way down to third graders. If a child doesn’t appreciate their country now and if a child doesn’t respect their flag now, they will not defend it when they are older. If men like my father hadn’t existed, there would be no NFL now. If men like my father hadn’t existed, there would be no freedom to choose now. If men like my father hadn’t existed, there would be no United States now. And these big, burly NFL players would now be working in the mines or factories or doing almost anything else other than playing a kids’ game.

          What about the soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines that have followed that greatest generation? Korea, or Vietnam or the Cold War or the conflicts in the Middle East? Those men and women have laid their lives on the line so that we have safety and protection now. What better place for a terrorist attack than a packed football stadium on a Sunday afternoon? Two jetliners crashing into any stadium in the country would kill tens of thousands of people, including players who chose to kneel in disrespect of the flag. But, it is very likely never going to happen anytime soon because American men and women are following that disrespected flag to places far away from home to protect the spoiled and degenerate.

          Is there reason for kneeling? You can make an argument for anything, I suppose. But there is a price to pay. I won’t pay it, I’ll be gone and forgotten. In another 20 years or so the country might very well be wide open for attack by foreign powers. There will be no one there to stop them. Everyone will suffer, including those players who choose to take the knee now.

          A people who will not stand for their country will also not stand for God. Will God continue to bless America?

          Mornings start early for me. Prayer time is usually in the dark. It is quiet, calm. A time to communicate with the Lord. Then the day gets rolling. Cleaned up, a little time on the computer to organize my day, a quick bite to eat and then out the door. Most times, the Lord gives me my first joyous blessing then. The only mornings that I don’t embrace are those mornings that are overwhelmingly hot and humid. Rainy? Love it! Snowy? Well, not as happy as rain, but cool. Cool and crisp? Oh, yeah, bring it on! Mornings are the best.

          This morning was a special blessing. Probably my favorite type of morning. Not really common, but not uncommon, either. When we lived less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean I saw more such mornings, as when we lived 200 yards from Lake Erie. This morning was a special morning.

          This week is packed with activity. Lots to do and only so much time. As I was getting ready this morning my mind was working over the week’s agenda. I walked out onto the back patio and stopped. Just for a moment, then I headed to the car. But, in that moment, I took it all in. A blanket of fog covered the land. I was just going to scoot across the street to the office. (I drive my car to the office because I want people to know I am there if they need me or need to talk.) However, in that moment of hesitation before I got in the car, I altered my morning plan. A little drive, a cup of coffee from McDonalds and maybe a little side trip to enjoy the fog. You have to get out in the fog to really enjoy it, and a cup of coffee is required to make it memorable.

          I love fog. If there is wind, the fog is driven away, so when fog lingers, it is quiet. But, hearing a fog horn out on the sea or the horn of a tug boat as it edges up to a freighter is a special treat. Driving along at the break of day and seeing trees seemingly hanging in the air is a joy to me. Chattanooga, Tennessee is a city braced on three sides by Lookout Mountain, Signal Mountain and Racoon Mountain. Lookout is the highest. When I was in college sometimes in the morning I could look over at Lookout and see just the peak jutting out from the fog. One fellow student rushing to class one morning stopped when he came up on me staring off toward the mountain. “You know, we have more important things to do than look at that!” Then, off he ran to class. I was late to class, which earned me some demerits. That was a problem for me, too. However, whenever I have thought about it I have always felt a little sorry for that other student.

          I have read why people love fog. They say it is the distant memory of being in our mother’s womb. I think sometimes people say such things to sound smart. I don’t remember being in the womb, but I have it on pretty good authority that the womb isn’t foggy. Dark, certainly, but not foggy. I think the comfort of fog goes back farther and is associated with our genetic memory. The Bible tells us in Genesis 2:5-7---When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground--then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. When mankind was first formed, the earth was watered by a mist, or a fog. I think to Adam and Eve, fog was a great comfort as it watered their home. Scientists, of course, would scoff at such thinking, but it makes more sense than foggy wombs.

          When I pastored in northeast Ohio it was very common for me to head to a small park along a cliff overlooking Lake Erie, well before sunrise. I became such a usual visitor that when the police went by on their patrols they would just toss up a hand and call, “Morning Pastor!” I got to see the Lake at its wildest, I got to see the Lake frozen and hear the groans of the ice, I got to see the storms come and go. In all of it, I saw the hand of God on the deep. One morning, during a time when our church was in a struggle and tempers were frayed, I parked my car and sat with the window down, crying my heart out to God. The moon was casting an odd light on the Lake and a slight breeze was blowing in from the water. I saw the bank of fog before it reached the shore. When it arrived, it swirled around the car and the trees. The slight wave action ceased and all became peaceful and quiet. All that was clear in my vision was the inside of the car, and even that seemed a little blurred. I closed my eyes and opened my soul, which is what I should have been doing all along, anyway. The thought came to me that the congregation was going to do what they wanted to do, whether it was God’s will or not. But, God was going to protect me and my house, for we served the Lord. A peace that cannot be described came over me. No matter what happened, we would be OK. In time, the church did the right thing, very good things happened and all was well. However, the assurance of that was made clear to me in that morning’s fog.

               To me, fog is a gift.

          Carl Sandburg, the greatest of American poets, grew up and lived most of his life near Lake Michigan. Fog would often put him in a mood to write and, although he rarely mentioned the fog, it was one of his muses. When he did write a poem of fog, it was almost as though he didn’t know how to explain it. Short, just a few words, but saying what needed said.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

          Next foggy day that rolls in, get that cup of coffee and reflect.

          Blessings.

          Our Church Board met Wednesday evening. During the meeting there were discussions and contemplations and explanations and votes. We have a lot of things to deal with right now. Weighty matters that will affect the church long term. You have to have these meetings. Sometimes there are disagreements, sometimes there is uncontrollable laughter, sometimes prayer breaks out. Meetings like this are had in thousands of churches all across the country every month. Personally, I have sat through hundreds of these meetings over the years. I would rather be busy with the Spiritual needs of the church, but meetings such as these are needed so that we can see to the business of God’s people in this community.

          While I don’t particularly enjoy these meetings (don’t get me wrong, they are mostly peaceful and productive), the last item dealt with seriously depressed me. Not just me, either, but all of us. Last Sunday in a place called Sutherland Springs, Texas, a gunman walked into a church and killed over half the congregation that was there that day and wounded many of the rest. The only motive that might have been is that the gunman’s mother-in-law was a member there and his wife attended, but no one is even sure if that was it. Maybe he just wanted to shoot something up and he knew that at church he stood a good chance of getting away. No one knows for sure. First Baptist Church sits about 150 yards off a state road. There is a gas station on the corner, a post office and a bank. Last census there was a population of 643. A tiny little country hamlet. The state allows conceal and carry, so there were probably more than one or two with weapons on them. In Texas, tucking a small handgun into its place on your person is almost as common as putting on your socks. The folks were in church, worshipping, when the gunman walked in and started shooting. No warning, no time to react. Twenty six people died. Think of that.

          We were all thinking of that on Wednesday night. We voted, as a Board, to lock the doors of the church during worship. At 9:40 AM the doors will be locked. The head usher will keep an eye out for anyone running late, but the doors will be locked. The front doors have crash bars, so that they can be easily opened from inside. But someone from the outside would have some difficulty getting in.

          Sutherland Springs is a community much like our community. A small cluster of homes surrounded by farmland. Much hotter in Sutherland Springs than here. Dusty. But the people are similar. Hard workers. Good neighbors. Funerals are community events because, one way or another, the deceased was related to almost everyone. Sutherland Springs has a bank and we have a veterinarian. Not much different. We have always known it could happen here, but Sutherland Springs makes it feel closer. And, apparently, we are not the only church in the area taking precautions. There have been church shootings before, but mostly in larger towns. It didn’t seem likely in places like Urbana or Wabash or North Manchester or Roann. Or in Sutherland Springs, for that matter. Yet, here it is.

          Fifteen years ago, Marsha and I were in Fredericksburg VA for a conference. The conference ran for three days had ended on the last day around two in the afternoon. We used the time to explore that wonderful little city on the banks of the Rappahannock River. The boyhood church of George Washington is there. In George’s time, it was St. George’s Anglian Church. When we were there it was St. George’s Episcopal Church. Washington’s parents are buried in the little cemetery attached to the church. We had wandered around the grounds, looking at everything. It was after six in the evening and I said that I wish we had gotten there earlier so we could have maybe looked inside. Marsha, being Marsha, walked up the steps and tried the door. It opened. We went inside where we saw a sign inviting us in to pray or look. It asked that we stay in the sanctuary. The sign said that the church had never been locked and would never be locked. Always available for the weary traveler looking for Spiritual refreshment. But, times change. The doors are locked today.

          It is a different world, a vicious world. A world where babies die every day and few care because we call it an abortion. A world where a man in Ohio raped and killed an eighteen month old girl a couple of months ago. A world where a man, disgruntled because he lost money gambling, killed fifty five people at a concert. We take comfort in saying it won’t happen here. But it can and may very well happen one day. Some will call for more and more ineffectual gun laws, and then some killer will plow his truck into a crowd. You don’t need a gun to kill. You need an evil spirit. Only God can change an evil heart. No law, no good intentions. Just God and God alone.  

          As a pastor, I would rather die myself than see my people die in that situation. I cannot imagine what it has to be like for Pastor Pomeroy, who not only lost church family, but also lost his daughter in the shooting. That has to be a special agony. Yet, he is standing tall and leading his people. God’s man at God’s place at God’s time.

          It is a sad time. But until we can evangelize the world, we need to protect ourselves. Since we know from the Word that the world will never be evangelized, we need to lock the doors. I am sorry. I am sorry for you good people who have always felt safe and secure in church. I am sorry for your children who will likely not know that safe and secure feeling. And I am sorry for myself. For the first time in 42 years, almost 2200 Sundays, I will enter the pulpit in a church locked to protect the people from the very people we need to reach. This is not good.

          The last two verses in the Bible I leave with you now; He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.  Amen.

          Our son did not grow up watching TV. We had a TV. It had to be turned off by 9 on a school night, but, other than that, there was little in way of restrictions. We were all readers. Much more common for the three of us to be in the living room reading than the three of us watching TV. On Friday or Saturday night (depending on his schedule) we would have pizza and a movie, but that was mostly all the three of us watched TV together.

          When Adam left home, he decided he didn’t want cable. He bought a 60” TV before anyone even knew such a thing existed. No flat screens then. That thing was HUGE! He bought it for watching movies and to use as a computer terminal. If you know the game TETRIS, it is awesome at 60”! But he has always had the latest, newest whatever. Yet, he would rather read.

          When he got married, his wife was fine with it all. Her parents are movie watchers, rarely using their TV to even watch the news. Now, Adam and Kim will have nights where friends will come over for an evening of board games (they have a room where one whole wall is stacked with board game, 95% of which I have never heard of) and maybe a movie. A regular geekfest.

          Marsha and I don’t do a lot of TV. When we moved here we didn’t get cable or Dish or an antenna. Adam bought us something called an Amazon Fire-Stick, a device that plugs into your TV that draws programs from the Amazon web page, mostly movies and old TV programs. We are currently enjoying old “My Favorite Martian” shows. We like 1960s TV. No commercials, no swearing, no sex and all for just $10 a month. We like it. Some nights we never turn it on.

          Back in April, Adam and Kim came for a visit. I was going to have my by-pass and they were going to be here for a while. The night before my surgery, Adam looked up what we used to call a ‘stupid movie.’ One that was so bad you could watch it and make fun of it through out. He and I started that when he was about 12 and we did it once a week for at least 20 years. We watched a lot of poor movies together. So, all four of us watched this really stupid movie the night before by-pass.

          Marsha and I didn’t know it at the time, but Adam and Kim didn’t like that we had a small TV. A couple of weeks ago, Adam called Marsha and told her that for Christmas, he and Kim were getting us a new, 55” TV. Marsha tried to talk him out of it, but he was insistent. Dad needs a bigger TV so he doesn’t have to strain to see the screen. Which is funny. The only straining I do is straining to stay awake for a half hour program. But, there it was. It will be delivered to our door.

          The next question is where do we put it? Not what room, but what does it sit on? We decided we needed a TV stand. For me, a lightweight metal job was fine, but Marsha wanted a piece of furniture. Her rational is that, since we didn’t need to by the TV, we could afford the piece of furniture. My thinking is, we weren’t going to get a TV anyway, so let’s just get the metal stand. Strong and cheap.

          We got the piece of furniture.

          Assembly required.

          I am not like Duane Wagner, who can look at a piece of wood and envision what it will look like and then just build it. However, with a box full of wood and materials and instructions, I can build it. Part way through, Marsha said, “Why do you have to do this?” My answer, “It’s step 14, that’s why.” “Well, yeah, but why?” “Because it’s step 14.” “OK, I have that, but how does step 14 figure in to the end result?” “How would I know? I never read the end of a book first.” Step by step, and you are done.

          And that made me think. We don’t know where God is taking us. Well, in the larger sense, we know we, as believers, are going to heaven. But what will the trip be like on the way. Right now, I am in prayer for four churches that are searching for pastors. Two in New York, one in Virginia, one in Texas and one in Indiana. I have communicated with people from these churches and, for the most part, they know what they need. But they don’t know what they will get. They have to be careful not to let emotions get the best of them. They have to be open to the Lord. And they have to know that it isn’t what they want, but what God wants for them. It is the unknown. But, step by step, and you are done.

          God told Abraham to pack up his family and move without telling him where he was moving to, and Abraham moved, trusting God daily. God told Paul to take his ministry to Macedonia and Paul did, never realizing that the Gospel would spread throughout all of Europe and then to the new world because of Paul’s faithfulness. God led Martin Luther to take a minor stand against the abuses of Catholicism, never knowing it was the start of the Reformation. These people suffered because of their step by step pursuit of God’s will, but they changed their worlds.

          God is leading you out of your comfort zone. But if you go step by step, it will get done. Move forward! Eyes on the prize! His will, not yours.

          Blessings.  

          2 Timothy 2:15 says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The King James says Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The Greek word ‘spoudazo’ begins the sentence, and it means to exert one’s self, to do diligence. So, we are to work hard so that God is pleased with us and so that when we are sharing truth from the Word of God, we do not shame ourselves with our ignorance caused by a lack of effort. This is a command to Christians, all Christians, not just Timothy and not just at that time in which the verse was written. It is not a suggestion, it is not an option. It is a command.

          Yet, I have heard many Christians say, “Well, you know, the Bible says somewhere that………” What they are saying is, “I think the Bible says……” They don’t really know. There is nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know, but I will look it up for you.” But, for some reason they don’t want to look uninformed, so instead they go out of their way to prove they are uninformed. The one I really cannot stand is when a Christian is trying to explain to another person why something bad has happened is, “The Bible says, ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to unfold.’ Trust in that. It will all work out.” Except, the Bible doesn’t say that the Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to unfold. Nor does the Bible say that it will all work out. It doesn’t always work out. It often gets really bad. The Bible does say in Romans 8:28, And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  That isn’t saying it will all work out, it is saying that for that person loves God and is following Him in their lives, seeking to do His will and purpose, whatever is to happen will be for His good. Here is something else that is really, really important. The passages in the Bible that are comfort passages or promise passages only apply to believers. They do not apply to the lost. When a lost person needs comfort, they need to be told that comfort begins with salvation through Jesus Christ. If a lost person believes that all the comforts in the Bible are his and if that lost person believes that everything is going to work out, why do they need salvation? Isaiah 40:28-31 is a wonderful passage of comfort. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. What a joyous message for the weary and nearly broken! But, Isaiah was writing to the few who were followers of the Lord.

          When we do not study, when we are not prepared to handle God’s Word, we can say some really damaging things, even to the point allowing a lost person to believe that they, or their lost loved one, will go to heaven regardless. We have been commanded to study.

          It is also important to remember the times in which Paul said these words to Timothy. The only copies of the Bible were hand written. Hardly anyone had a copy. Among the Jews, the people would listen to the Scripture being read at the Temple and they would write it down. Then they would memorize what they had written. After they were convinced they had correctly memorized the passage, they would often place their written passages in a small box they would strap to their foreheads. This is called in our English Bibles a frontlet. They would wear this frontlet on the Sabbath or the Day of Atonement or some other Holy day. The symbolism was that when they entered the Temple, the Word went before them. For the early Christians this practice was largely not done, but they kept their own writing on scrolls and in their minds. It was precious to those people.

          Right now, as you read this, do you know where you Bible is? Have you read it today, or are you relying on a devotional to do the work for you? A few weeks ago, I preached out of Habakkuk. Did you find it easily, or did you give up?

           Why have we come to have such a cavalier attitude about the Bible? Several years ago, I was a guest speaker in a church. I remarked to the church leader who was standing with me as the people were walking in, “Folks don’t bring their Bibles to church here?” He chuckled and said, with pride, “No need. We have pew Bibles. When you read your Scripture, give them the page number of where the passage is in their pew Bible and then read it from that translation.” This was a time when I was working with churches in crisis. When a person fails to bring their own copy of the Word to worship it tells me one of two things. First, they may not have one but they are seeking they Lord. In that case, Bravo! The second thing it tells me is that they are not attached to their own Bible, it is not a part of their daily lives. It is not important enough to bring to church, just something to weigh them down. In that case, shame on you. I told that church leader that a big part of their problem was a lack of respect toward the Word. I also told him that I had brought my own copy, which I would read out of, and besides, their pew Bible was a truly horrible rendering of the Word of God. (Oddly enough, they had me back every Sunday for six months while they worked at reorganizing their failing church.)

And then, there was the church we were at where a young man came up to me before church and asked me what translation I would use that day. I told him, but then asked why. He had the Bible in a phone app with ten different translations. I started paying attention and saw that over half the congregation fired up their phones when it was time for me to preach. I started telling people turn in their Bibles or turn on their phones to whatever the passage was for the day. At that church there were Bibles if you needed them on a back table, but every one of the members either carried their Bible in or had the app. That was a great church.

John 1:1-5 says this; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. That Book you have somewhere in your house, that Book that has lost some of its importance in your life, that Book that you haven’t seen for a few weeks, is the very essence of God. Think about it for a moment. His very personality, His thoughts, His letter to you.

          I try to be quiet in the morning so as not to wake my wife. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to walk very quietly so as not to wake my sleeping beauty. I glanced down and saw one of her Bibles, opened on the night stand next to her. It could have been a book or a magazine, but it was her Bible. A part of her life. It can be for you, too.

Blessings.

ONE MORE THING!!! TIME CHANGE IS THIS WEEK. BEFORE YOU GO TO BED SATURDAY NIGHT, SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK AN HOUR. NO EXCUSES ACCEPTED FOR NOT BEING AT CHURCH ON TIME!