The words of a song speak to me far more than the music. I have always wanted to sit down with the old time writers and just talk about their inspiration.

One of the songs from Sunday's worship service at my apartment complex was written by Horatio Spafford and the music was penned by the great Gospel composer, Philip Bliss. The poem Horatio Spafford (what a great name!) wrote in 1873 has always stirred my spirit, usually making me fight the tears. It affects me like no other song.

Horatio grew up in Troy, New York. The Hudson River runs through Troy and there it is slow and wide. Later he would become very familiar with the Atlantic Ocean. The first two lines of his poem are, When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll. Oh my, I have sat next to peaceful water and felt a deep comfort and I have sat next to rolling waves with the sound and vibration and felt the pain and sadness of the moment in my life! I identify with the words! Then, Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul. Yes! Whether peaceful or roaring, it is water, the most necessary thing for life. Jesus, the Living Water! He has control.

Then the second verse. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come. Certainly, we have felt Satan. The closer we get to the Lord and the more we serve Him, the more we feel the Satanic 'buffet.' But there are many trials that are not of Satan. They are the things that come in life. The Lord never said trials would not come, just the opposite. We will struggle. However, whether the difficulty comes from Satan or just from life, the Lord walks with us. The verse continues; Let this blest assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And has shed His own blood for my soul! Christ knows our situation and our struggle! We have won! He has taken care of all of it. We can be in dark days, but we know we are still in the Light.

Then the third verse. This verse is the one that gets me. This verse infuses me with hope and praise. My sin---oh the bliss of this glorious thought--- My sin, not in part but the whole, The Roman Catholics have different levels of sin. Murder is worse than adultery and so forth. While a Protestant might reject that, the Protestant will still justify their sin. "I took some paper clips from work, and a stapler, but that is not so bad. They can afford it." But the Biblical reality is that the simplest sin will send us to Hell. When Horatio says 'my sin, not in part but the whole,' he is talking all of it. Every sin ever. The verse continues; Is nailed to the Cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Oh my soul! Horatio understands that his sin is horrible before the Lord, but he also understands that the Christ on the Cross is the same Christ who rose from the grave and sits on the right hand of God and pleads his case. Horatio's Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Oh my soul! is more powerful and more gut wrenching than any praise song from today. You can disagree, but that is my take.

But it doesn't end there. There are three more verses, but in most hymnals verses four and five are not added. Verse six, the last verse, is the verse I want to end on. And Lord haste the day when the faith shall be sight, Horatio had faith that Christ died for him. Now he is asking that the Lord, sooner than later, cause that faith that he feels so deeply, to turn into reality. He wants to see the Savior! The clouds be rolled back as a scroll Horatio was a lawyer. At that time the verdict in a trial was on a scroll that would be rolled open and the verdict read. And then the verdict, The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul! The verdict is in.

Horatio was born in Troy, New York and grew up there. He studied and became a lawyer and moved to Chicago to practice law, all the while being faithful to his Lord. He was known as a fine, upstanding Christian and was friends with D.L. Moody. He became quite successful and began to buy properties. Then in 1871 the great Chicago fire happened. Over 100,000 people were left homeless and Horatio lost most of the properties he and his wife owned. Even so, Horatio and his wife Anna poured their financial wealth into aiding those who had lost everything. 

In 1873, Moody wanted Horatio to join him in England for a series of evangelistic crusades. Horatio decided to take Anna and their four daughters as a break from a rebuilding Chicago. He sent his wife and daughters on ahead while he stayed behind to tend to one last business matter. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship his family was on was rammed by another ship. Their ship went down in twelve minutes. Anna was one of the few survivors. She was pulled unconscious from the ocean. She lived, but the daughters, ages 11, 9, 5 and 2 all perished. The survivors were taken to Cardiff, South Wales, where Anna sent a telegram to Horatio telling him of the awful tragedy. He left immediately for England to be with his wife. On his crossing the captain of the ship Horatio was on, had him come to the chart cabin. There the captain pointed out on the chart where Horatio's daughters had perished. They were crossing that spot at that very moment. The story goes that he returned to his cabin and wrote the poem, "It Is Well With My Soul." When sorrows like sea billows roll........

500.

Back in 1985, the secretary told me that if I could get my newsletter column in by Tuesday mornings, we would have no problems. Oh, OK, no one told me anything about writing a column for the newsletter. Secretaries have a way of looking at you with a silent look that lets you know it doesn't matter what you were told, you are playing on their turf now. Writing really wasn't my thing. Oh, I had written research papers in school, fully annotated and double checked. But there was time to write them. One had to be at least 100,000 words long and allowed for only five mistakes total. Spelling, grammar, content. But I had a year to write that paper. However, this column thing was another matter. I figured it had to inform, entertain and maybe do some good. Not my kind of thing.

But then, oddly, I found I enjoyed writing. As time went by, I found it was more interesting to me than preaching. I reached more people. Writing that column just felt good.

After a decade at that church, I left. At the next church the secretary told me that if I could get my newsletter article in by Tuesday mornings, we would have no problems. (What is it about secretaries that make them like that?) I think I surprised her when I said, no problem. And it was no longer a column! Now it was an article! So much more impressive! It was at this church that I began to write for magazines and newspapers, too. But that extra stuff all went away as it became harder and harder to find the time. 

Then I switched over to being staff clergy at a funeral home. I figured the writing was done and I would do no more. It wasn't long, though, before I found myself doing writing that wasn't strictly church related. Much of it was, but much of it wasn't. It was, however, all fun!

And then, I went to the church in Indiana. There, the secretary told me that if I could get my newsletter column in once a month, we would have no problems. (Carolyn, Lorie, Denise and Rene. I always wanted to take these four ladies who have shared my office space with me and have made my life interesting, to a fancy restaurant, have them order whatever they wanted and, when they were feeling all good and warm inside, run out and stick them with the bill. Actually, I loved each of these ladies and count them as dear friends. Carolyn has gone on to be with the Lord and is probably telling St. Pete what to do and setting a time limit.) I was actually disappointed that this newsletter was just once a month, but you take what you can get. After about six months or so we did a series called Forty Days of Prayer. It was already made up and all I had to do was to post it in a daily e-mail. But I also added some thoughts and had some fun with it. It had just ended when I ran into some of our ladies at a funeral. Eileen Weck took me aside and said she had really enjoyed my musings in the Forty Days of Prayer. Could I do something weekly? Well, our newsletter is only a monthly letter. Really, I am afraid of Rene and I wouldn't want to ask her to do more. Eileen laughed like she thought I was kidding and then said I should talk to Mary Earle since she did something weekly. So I had Miss Mary explain to me what she did.

Well, now, Miss Mary wrote a BLOG! Blog is short for web log and it is on the internet. Oooooooo! That sounded like real fun! I started writing columns, moved up to articles and now might write a blog! Miss Mary set me up and on my birthday in 2017, I started. And I have continued even though I left the church. 

And this blog today, is number 500. Of course, whether it is a column or an article or a blog, it is essentially the same thing. I have written many more such writings than 500, but these have been different. It seems there are a couple of people in Turkmenistan that have nothing better to do with their lives than read this thing. I have gotten comments from all over the place. And, yes, I do feel a pride in that. That pride, though, is that the message of Christ is still making the rounds in a new way. The internet can be such a cesspool, but it can also be a miracle.

So, I leave you now with number 500. (And, if you want to read some really good stuff, go to mary-marysmoments.blogspot.com Miss Mary is my mentor, my coach and my friend. She talks directly to God and shares the conversations. She writes about her good friend Bill and some guy named Norman and all sorts of stuff.) I want to thank all of you for hanging out with me over the years. Drop me a line at oldirishguy51@yahoo.com

Now, go out and be a blessing.     

 

2007. I had left the regular pastoral ministry to take a job at a funeral home as staff clergy. On the side I was working with churches in crisis. Churches that were facing the end of their ministry time. It is interesting all the different ways a church can destroy itself and blame everyone else, from former pastors to various members to denomination oversight to changes in society. In every case it is satanic influence, but congregations wanted none of that. They wanted to blame anyone else but their own failings.

The first church that reached out to me was a First Baptist Church. One of those places that had a great complex, lots of property, wonderful history and a handful of people who were struggling to keep it going. This church belonged to the American Baptist denomination. We all have a picture in our minds when we talk of Baptists, but there are actually 37 different Baptist groups in the USA, so there is no clear definition of what a Baptist is. The American Baptists were once a part of a national Baptist group. In the years before the Civil War there was conflict between the northern churches and the southern churches, mostly over the subject of slavery. Before the Civil War commenced, the group split. The northern group took on the name Northern Baptist while the southern group became the Southern Baptist. Same core beliefs. In fact, both groups kept the same statement of faith and still do to this day. After the war, the Northern Baptist tried to expand into the South. The southern folks wanted nothing to do with those northern heathens, so the Northern Baptist changed their name to the American Baptist. That didn't help, either, but they remained the American Baptists. As it turned out, the Southern Baptists eventually expanded into the north with various degrees of success. Over the years both groups have drifted away from the Bible to a different degree. It is what denominations do. Just ask the Methodists and the United Church of Christ. The American Baptists became more liberal in their beliefs, but the Southern Baptists are headed that way, as well. However, they still hold to the same core beliefs. Sort of.

So, with that bit of history, let's go back to 2007. First Baptist Church was struggling. I had just left a long term, quite successful, pastorate and First Baptist contacted me for counsel. This was actually my entry into working with churches in crisis, although I didn't yet know it. I filled their pulpit for a couple of Sundays while we met for several meetings during the week. One thing led to another, and I wound up as a six month interim pastor. Meanwhile, in the same town, another Baptist church, a Southern Baptist church, was looking for a pastor. They had a man who was able to preach on Sunday mornings while they were searching, but this church also had a Sunday night service. They contacted me and asked if I could preach on Sunday nights as they went through the search process. Personally, I saw no problem with this since First Baptist had no evening service and I was available. I had pastored two nondenominational churches over the previous 22 years, so an American Baptist and a Southern Baptist combination was nothing to me. I told neither church about the other because it just wasn't important. I wasn't trying to keep anything secret, it just never came up. 

One night after church at the Southern Baptist church, the Deacon chairman took me aside. He said he had been coming home from work a few days before and noticed the sign in front of the First Baptist Church said Dr. Larry Wade, Interim Pastor. He thought that was quite a coincidence that there were two Larry Wades locally in the ministry. No, I told him. It was just little old me. And that ended my time at the Southern Baptist church. The Southern Baptist despised the American, and the feeling went both ways. And yet they had the same core beliefs.

I have seen the same animosity between Wesleyan Methodist and United Methodists, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synad, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Presbyterian Church America and many other splits and splinters and divergent groups with the same core beliefs, but different names. This is probably the main reasons attendance is down across the country. There is more conflict about who is right than a belief that only God and His Word is right.

In the ministry I have started in my retirement, we worship. If you came and visited, it would feel like church. But we are not bound by church rules, denominational oversight or what some 'Board' in some far off city tells what we are to do. We pray, we sing, we get into our Bibles and then we leave to go out and serve the Savior. It is....freeing, I guess. 

One of our ladies, an Episcopalian, gave me a poem the other day. Just a few short lines written by an unknown author, but those lines speak to the attitude we should have as we walk in the presence of our Lord.

It is only a tiny rosebud,
A flower of God's design,
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers
Is not known to such as I, 
The flowers God opens so sweetly
In my hands would fade and die.

If I cannot unfold a rosebud, 
This flower of God's design,
Then how can I think I have wisdom
To unfold this life of mine?

So I'll trust Him for His leading

Each moment of everyday,

And I'll look to Him for His guidance

Each step of the pilgrim way.

For the pathway that lies before me

My Heavenly Father knows;

I'll trust Him to unfold the moments

Just as He unfolds the rose.

Now, go out and be a blessing.