Miracles

 Miracles come in all shapes and sizes. But maybe not exactly what we expect.

I'm a Bible guy so when I think of miracles I think of things like the parting of the Red Sea, Jesus feeding 5,000 with a boy's sack lunch, an axe head floating in water, Jesus walking on water (Peter, too), Lazarus brought back to life. There are a lot of them in the Bible.

But what is a miracle? It's something supernatural. It's something that can't really be explained - although today's sport-of-choice seems to be explaining away the miraculous. My simplified definition of a miracle is: something that can only be imagined within the context of God, something only God can do.

While miracles of biblical proportion haven't happened since...Bible times..., miracles do still happen today. Let me qualify that statement by saying that I haven't experienced miracles of biblical proportion. I fully believe it is possible. Here are some examples of miracles I have experienced or witnessed.

Tumors detected in scans just weeks earlier are no longer present. It's a miracle.

Ends that simply do not meet in the spreadsheet somehow work out so that the bill gets paid before the lights are shut off. It's a miracle.

The people in the car survived although the car sitting in the ditch would try to tell a different story. It's a miracle.

Sometimes, somehow, for some reason, God intervenes so that something happens that we cannot explain except to say that God intervened. It's a miracle.

One of my favorite songs is called "Miracle In Me" performed by the Greenes. The chorus says:

I have never seen the thousands fed or the blind made to see.
I have never watched him raise the dead but I know when he lifted me
There's a wonder right before your eyes close enough to see
In my heart is where this wonder lies, there's a miracle in me.

I wrote a song some years ago with a similar theme:

He gave the sight back to the blind, made the lame to walk again.
When only one leper gave him thanks, still he cleansed all ten.
But best of all he took my heart and washed away all sin.
It's no trick - the things he'll do, what he's done for me he'll do for you.

The most wonderful miracle I can imagine is that a sinner like me can be saved and made to be in right standing with the holy God. What he's done for me he'll do for you! It's a miracle!

Bookshelves

In February 2018 I packed up my library and moved from one church to another. The church I left had a spacious office. The church had bookshelves in the office. I had bookshelves I put in the office. A deacon donated some shelves he had been using in his home office that he no longer needed.

I had plenty of space for my library. And the library grew and flourished over the years I was there.

At the new church, I was an associate pastor. My office was in a space where renovations had started but weren't finished. No shelves. My library stayed in boxes along the walls of the office.

When I left there a couple of years later (budget-related down-sizing), I moved my boxed-up library to a corner of a storage facility that a friend let me borrow. Deana and I lived in small apartments for five years so we didn't have space to unpack my library.

But we moved into a house in January 2023 and I now have space. But no bookshelves. I found exactly what I wanted from IKEA. But had to wait to get them.

One of the things Deana and I did when we found the house and realized we would need some things to make the house more homey was to make a list. We had 20 or more things on the list. Things from a bed to a chair to lamps to rugs to patio furniture to a grill. And bookshelves.

Then we prioritized the list and set out paycheck by paycheck working our way down the list.

The last thing on the list was bookshelves. Not because of the price but because of the necessity. My library had lived in boxes for five years. They had forgotten what daylight looks like. They shuddered at the thought of freedom, like Red and Brooks in Shawshank. They were used to the spiders. Honestly, they were probably just as touched and used in a box as they would have been on a shelf.

You understand, don't you? We have things we treasure but don't use or can't stand to part with. I have books that remind me of people. Some that remind me of places. Others that remind me of principles. Just seeing the title showing on the spine of the book sitting on the shelf takes me places I might not otherwise go. Even a stack of twenty-five boxes - boxes that are starting to crumple from being on the bottom of the stack, boxes that have a number written on the side so I can have an idea of what's inside them based on how I packed them - stacked against the wall in the garage (behind other stuff that's been stacked in front of them over the sixteen months since I unloaded them from the bed of my pickup) can take me there.

I'm a bit OCD and have a memory that will sometimes kick in and run like a cinema. I remember Riley and I packing up the library six years ago. We started from the left-most bookshelf, worked top to bottom. Shelf after shelf. Around the corner. Numbering the boxes as we filled them. Putting them in the truck, taking them from the church office to the garage of the parsonage. Later we'd pack them up and take them to the new church. Then pack them up and move them from storage unit to storage unit until finally (lastly) stacking them along the wall of the garage in the house where we now live.

And Saturday IKEA delivered the bookshelves. We had worked our way down the wish-list as we could and had energy and desire. Deana and I began the task of assembling the shelves. The last one was much easier than the first one. Now they are in place exactly as we envisioned when we moved in. It is very satisfying.

But the shelves are empty. Not yet "book"-shelves, just shelves. That will change soon. We've started looking through the boxes, one by one. Unfortunately, tragically, the boxes are no longer in numerical order having been shuffled and reshuffled with each move. Please allow me pause to shudder. Thank you, I can go on now.

I have more books than shelf space. That's not a mistake; it's by design. Most of my pastoral library is duplicated on my Logos software. While I'm old-school enough to prefer listening to a baseball game on the radio rather than watching on TV, I do like my e-books. Between Logos and Kindle, I have quite the e-library.

So I'm culling. I felt all you bibliophiles shudder when I said that. But I'm culling. I'm OK giving away the books I don't keep. I'm also good loading them one more time in the pickup and taking them to the dump. If you think you may want the books or just can't stand the idea of them being cast away, let me know and we can arrange for you to come by and pick them up. They'll be in the crumpled boxes along the wall in the garage.

So I'm culling and that means I have to make decisions. Have I ever read the book? Do I remember why I have the book? Might the book ever be useful to me? Is this a book I want visible on my bookshelf?

Shortly after we were married, Deana and I bought a house. We had an open house soon afterward and a guest stood at my bookshelves for a lengthy time then turned and said, "You can tell a lot about a person by the books in their library."

So I'm culling and making decisions. So far we have opened about a third of the boxes and kept about half of the books. I can't put them on the shelves yet because, like I said, I'm a bit OCD and the books have to go on the shelves a certain way. So I'll have to know what all is going on the shelves so I can put them in the right groupings and order.

This morning I got out of bed before 7:00, made a cup of coffee, and headed to the back porch with a book in my hand. Not my iPad, but a book. A physical book.

Any guesses what the book is that I picked to read first? After six years without my library, I chose "Lord of What's Left" by Vance Havner.

What a delight. Maybe today will be the day that my library is set free from the boxes to live again in the daylight on beautiful bookshelves. As I walk through the house in the early morning hours I expect to hear the books singing the old gospel song "He set me free! He set me free!" Up to now I've been hearing, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen," by Potsie Weber.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

I've not tended to my blood sugar over the years so now I'm on medicine. Today was the follow-up visit after getting the first prescription last Fall.

The last time I was at the doctor's office, she had a med student in tow. Today she had another one, a different one. I think I must be a fine specimen, or something.

I had lost a few pounds since the last visit. We all celebrated. Then the two of them talked among themselves about how the medicine was responsible for that. I thought we were celebrating me losing weight. Turns out, we were celebrating the medicine peeling the weight off of me.

I think I should get some of the credit. No, I think I should get all the credit. I wonder if I had eaten like I'd always eaten if the weight would have come off just because of a prescription. I think not. Further, I think even without the medicine I would have lost a few pounds because of how I've made better food choices.

Give credit where credit's due!

Notice how this happens too often? God works overtime in your life and when the breakthrough comes you take the credit. And God is ignored.

I think we should give credit where credit is due. I want to thank God for all he does for me. Some I know about; some of it I simply have no idea what he did. But I believe he loves me and works in ways that are always for my good. Thank you, Lord!

I'm glad God worked in my mind and body to help my A1C go down. The scales, too. I gotta tell you, I stepped on those scales with confident expectation today - swagger, if you will - because I knew what it would say. I was almost prideful. Almost.

God may have even used a pharmaceutical to make this happen. Maybe.

Human Dignity

This week marked the fiftieth year since the Supreme Court's decision Roe v Wade. That decision was overturned by the Supreme Court last year and I am thankful for that. At the core of the abortion v life debate is the issue of human dignity.

A friend was let go from his job this week. I understand and agree that businesses must make decisions that sometimes negatively impact people. I tend to side with Business over Labor. This situation was particularly marked by poor communication. Patrick Lencioni says that firings/layoffs must consider the person's dignity in the way those things happen. Poor communication revealed a lack of respect for human dignity, in this case. At least a lack of consideration of respect for human dignity.

Worshippers in Jerusalem were fired upon last night in a synagogue. Several people are dead. Just a few days ago a shooter opened fire on a celebration in Los Angeles killing several including himself. Google the word "shooting" and see the results. The frequency of such things is incredible. Crime is, at least in part, an issue of human dignity.

Human dignity is important because all humans are made in the image of God. The Christian faith and the Christian Bible are clear on this. The issue is in the first few paragraphs of the Bible. The first mention of humans in the Bible is that we are made in the image of God.

EVERYTHING about people from that point forward must be considered in light of the fact that humans are image-bearers of God.

As image-bearers, the individual has responsibility to follow God.

As image-bearers, each person has the responsibility to treat each other person with dignity.

As image-bearers, each person's sin distorts how God's image within him comes out in his attitudes and actions.

Not long after the Bible mentions the image-bearers it tells us of sin and the destruction sin brings to the relationship between God and man and between man and man. Not long after that, the Bible tells of the hope of restoration and reconciliation that God provides through Jesus Christ.

As I understand what the Bible teaches about eternity, all creation will be redeemed - or brought back to a right standing with God, a standing that was marred by sin. The only exception to that are the image-bearers. Not all image-bearers will be redeemed.

God has made the way of redemption for the image-bearers a little different from the redemption of the rest of creation. The heavens and the earth, the waters and the land, the plants and the animals will all be redeemed. Image-bearers - human beings - will be redeemed if they choose to accept the salvation promised from the very first pages of the Bible.

The entire Christian Bible is the revelation of God creating all things including humans; humans bringing sin into the picture; God purposing to redeem all creation and all humans who will believe; the Incarnation of the Savior - Jesus Christ; his death, burial, and resurrection; the life of believers within the community of the Church and in relationship to the world; and the return of Christ and consummation of the redeemed.

I believe the issue of abortion must be seen in light of the human dignity due all image-bearers.

I believe the issues of Human Resources must be conducted in light of the human dignity due all image-bearers.

I will extend that statement to include marriage and family, crime and punishment, community and government. Really, I can't think of any arena where the dignity of image-bearers is not important. Sometimes I might think that the person who isn't doing a good job of image-bearing doesn't deserve to be shown dignity and respect - but I'd be wrong.

I don't get to place value on life, a life, or a person - God already did.

I want to be

Lots of folks make New Years Resolutions. Do you? What kind of resolutions do you make? Do you want to lose weight, eat healthy, and get in shape? Do you want to be less critical and more understanding? Do you want more followers in your goal to be an influencer?

Since when was "influencer" an occupation? I think that is particularly an Instagram and TikTok thing. I'm sure I left out the newest and most attractive social media app and all of you young enough to be my children sighed heavily, noticeably, demonstrably. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you might as well also admit you color your gray hair.

But I've noticed young men and women on these platforms listing "influencer" in their bio. Where I would list "pastor" or "husband" or "father" or "accountant," they list "influencer."

If someone self-identifies as an influencer - you see, they weren't born that way, they just say they are that way. I doubt anyone came up to them and said, "Wow, you sure have a lot of influence. Are you an influencer or something?" No, they self-identify as an influencer.

If someone self-identifies as an influencer, I'm stubborn enough to refuse to be influenced by them. I don't have enough hair to wear mine like they do anyway. The clothes they wear don't come in my size.

"Creator" is also an occupation. It means you post a lot of videos of yourself.

But the rush of our culture is to be like everybody else. That specifically means to be as different as possible while fitting into the pop culture mold of uniformity. A conundrum, huh!

Influencers have to - at the same time - be unique, just like all the other influencers. The more unique they are, the more they fit into the cookie cutter.

The outside might be as different as day is from night when you put two influencers side by side, but the inside is pretty much the same. "I want to be famous." "I want everybody to know my name."

They should go to Cheers.

Here's a true truth if there ever was one: Jesus knows your name and he wants to be your Savior, Lord, Friend, Brother.

My New Years Resolutions are more about being and becoming. I have always had a list of things I wanted to do. But this year, I have a list of things I aspire to be.

I want to be a friend my friends consider a friend they can count on. I've not been that very often.

I want to be an encourager. Too often I'm just the opposite.

I want to be generous. I tend to be stingy.

I want to be helpful, kind, joyful, patient. I know me better than you do and that doesn't sound much like me.

I want to be more like Jesus. His Spirit works within me to make that a reality, but I get in the way way too much.

If I yield to the Spirit, he will make me more like Jesus. And all those other things will be part of the package.

Then if I am a good influence on others, so be it.

photo cred: forbesindia.com and shutterfly

Christmas Songs

 Christmas songs churn up memories. Any time of year, too.

"Gather 'round and I will tell the story of a Christmas bell..." I can hear Lynn Anderson singing that just as clearly today as when I was a kid at my grandparents' house. For those of you unfortunate souls who don't know, "Ding-a-ling the Christmas Bell" is a classic. It's on Spotify so do yourself and your family a favor and play it...today!

It's hard to beat Burl Ives singing anything related to Christmas. Can't you see the animation when he sings "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"? And "A Holly Jolly Christmas" is top-shelf.

Several years ago I was sitting in a Starbucks working on a sermon. They were playing Christmas music - a CD you could buy in the shop, "Under the Mistletoe." I bought it. Bob Dylan singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" is worth a few minutes of your time.

The Cathedral Quartet did an a capella Christmas album years ago - in the 80's maybe. Outstanding arrangements, vocals, song selections. I hear this in my head often and with my ears occasionally.

When I was a radio DJ playing Southern Gospel music, I loved Christmastime because of the really good music the groups released. I still have many of the CDs the record companies sent out to the DJs.

Y'all know that I love the Statler Brothers. The Statlers' Christmas albums are outstanding. "Who Do You Think," "Old Toy Trains," and "Somewhere in the Night" are songs I love to hear and love to sing when I get the chance. Many-a nursing home resident has endured my renditions.

For a year I was interim music director at Second Baptist Church in Russellville. My job was to keep the church singing and keep the choir together. I'm so glad Al Ray Taylor came along when he did! I loved that season and have fond memories of it.

One memory is from the Christmas musical of 1996. One of the songs told about John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" I think was the name of the song. Like many choir songs do, this one had a spot toward the end with a key change and I thought a punch in intensity would be appropriate. We practiced and the choir did great.

When that place in the song came up, I gave the choir the signal to punch it. And they did. I think I kept waving my hands like music guys are supposed to do. But I know I was sobbing uncontrollably. I was so overwhelmed by the message, the music, the performance. Much like I am right now. Can I get a hankie, please.

So this is Christmas Eve. Surely nobody will object to you playing Christmas music today. Sing along. Sing loud so I can hear you.

Word Count Ploys

My average daily word count is likely way below the human average. I don't even know if that is calculable but it sounds deeply contemplative. What I mean is that I probably talk less than most people I'm around each day.

In full disclosure, I must say that Sundays don't count. I'm a preacher and a Sunday School class teacher.

But Monday through Saturday... Well, to be repetitive moves me closer to the other side. The dark side.

Some people run up their word count as if a championship is to be won. Imagine a bracket with two people pitted against each other and the winner advances to play another day. Some days the winner barely gets by with a buzzer beater flurry. Other days highlight a blowout...no contest.

The bracket will grow. That's what brackets do. Am I right, NCAA Football?

And the bracket grows larger over time because lucrative financial benefit looms large. Apparently irresistible. Am I right, NCAA Men's Basketball?

So I'm out at Round 1. Unless it's Sunday.

Some people run up their word count by talking nonstop. Deana and I work together and take one vehicle to work each day rather than two. I'm pretty sure that when I mentioned Deana in this context that you immediately thought I was going to give my basis for choosing her to win the bracket.

But this is not about Deana. Sometimes she can be quiet. Very quiet. That's usually when I feel the need to talk...to defend myself. (**crickets** from the other side of the room.)

On our drive home the other day I began talking about my day - which was rich with things to talk about. Excuse me, you should not end a sentence with a preposition. My day was rich with things about which to talk.

Do grammatical corrections count toward the overall word count?

The drive from work to home - and, similarly but not oddly, from home to work - is about 30 miles and 35 minutes. I've noticed several lawbreaking citizens who make the trip a bit quicker. Very few drivers respect law to the point of taking a longer period of time to make the drive.

In the past, I drove with the lawbreakers. Is it necessary to say, "In the past" if I use the past tense verse "drove"? There is no possibility to use the past tense verb to refer to any other time. That's why language has verb tenses. So people will run up their word count by saying things like, "In the past, I drove with the lawbreakers."

"I drove with the lawbreakers" and "I have driven with lawbreakers" and "I drive with the lawbreakers" and "I will drive with the lawbreakers" and "I will have driven with the lawbreakers" each give us a timeframe through which to consider when I might speed. Or might have sped. Or will speed in the future.

Was it necessary to say, "in the future"?

Actually, was it necessary to start this post with this sentence: "My average daily word count is likely way below the human average"? Humans are the only beings that use words so I could have, should have, simply said, "My average daily word count is likely way below the average."

Do you see how people can run up their word counts in subtle ways? Or in ways of grammatical error?

Or from lack of understanding? Here's what I mean. VIN number. ATM machine. PIN number. 8:00 A.M. in the morning.

My friend (he's actually my hero because he and his wife foster and adopt!) recently shared that he told his son it was time to go to bed. After a bit of debate, the boy headed to his room. A couple of hours later my friend checked in on the boy. He found the kid sitting in bed watching TV. The debate that followed ended with the child explaining to the father that he was, in fact, in bed. The boy did exactly what the father said to do.

That reminded me of my first day in seminary. The professor introduced himself then asked each student to introduce themselves. When I said what town I was from he interrupted and asked where that town is. I said, "About an hour and a half from here toward [a larger town further away]."

"Where is that?" the professor said. I gave a direction. I probably even pointed in the direction.

The professor kept asking for clarity. Everyone in the class was snickering. I was the only newbie and the other students had seen this happen before. (Sorry. When else would that have seen this happen!)

At the end of a very discouraging and embarrassing episode, he said, "You need to tighten up your language." I've come to consider this episode one of the most hilarious things that I have experienced. And the advice is something I've handed out to others (who else would I have handed it out to...I mean, to whom else would I have handed this advice?) with glee. My glee, not theirs.

Advice is that way. The giver often does so gleefully. The receiver might not experience such glee.

So I reminded my friend - who was in that seminary class - that he should tighten up his language. My friend, by the way, excels at reminding people not to end a sentence with a preposition.

Another seminary professor (perhaps my favorite of all the profs I had) spent a large amount of time on the topic of word economy. My favorite lesson relates to listing or making points. If something is "First of all," it's first. Tighten up your language.

One time I was talking with a friend about the time I smashed my fingers between the sections of the garage door. How likely is it that I would talk with a friend about this more than once. "One time" was totally an aggressive word count ploy. But when I mentioned the garage door I said (using hand gestures), "You know how it goes up and down..." She interrupted, "Thank you, Bob, for describing how a garage door works."

So on the drive home from work the other day, I used up a couple of weeks worth of words.

My favorite version of the Christmas story in the Gospels is found in John 1:14. "The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

As you can tell, I appreciate economical word count.