Krispy Creme Religion

What is it about Krispy Kreme donuts that draw the crowd early in the morning and after six at night? When the famous “Hot Now” sign is lit, people have to turn in and buy a donut (or dozen) dripping with glaze. There is nothing like the freshness you find from a hot Krispy Kreme donut.

The problem is that if you let the donuts set in the box for an hour, they are almost just like every other donut. As much as I love Krispy Kreme, I know that there is no long term nourishment to sustain me during the day.

Many people search for a church that offers the best “Hot Now” taste in religion. Some people are drawn to a group of believers because it is the right thing to do “socially”. Maybe it has to do with a program the church is offering. Once the initial excitement is gone, they feel like it is just another church.

They are not connected to friends and just show up for an hour on Sunday. It is sad to think of what they are missing. What we have to realize is that life needs times of freshness, but it will be the enduring development of relationships in our community that lasts a lifetime.

Years ago living in Florida, I was out of town for Hurricane Charley.  Reports came to me from friends and neighbors of downed trees limbs all over my property. Yet the next day I got a telephone call from one neighbor asking me who cut up the trees in my yard.

These quiet friends can never be replaced by a program or a social religion. They are so much appreciated, and I don’t even know who to thank.  It was our Small Group.

If you are just getting involved with a church, jump into a relationship through a Small Group. Find out from the church offices where you can help with many people in need. Right now people may need assistance, and we can not be afraid to ask for help or find out where we can help.

Ruth 2:12 “God reward you well for what you've done - and with a generous bonus besides from God, to whom you've come seeking protection under his wings."

Prayer Time on a Tractor

With all the snow on the ground now turning to ice, it was impossible for me to go to the office and yet I had important papers that were needed.  So guess how I got to work?   On my tractor with its grading blade and front bucket.

The two and one mile drive at 8 miles per hour gave me time to enjoy the crisp cold air but also I found it a perfect time to complete my daily prayer time.  Usually I take the time when I first get to work to work on my Planned Growth Program, but this morning in the home office I jumped right into work.  So passing the time at a slow speed made praying for family, friends, our small group and the business was easy.  

Where do you spend your time praying?    I will admit that I did have my eyes open but me and the Lord had a great conversation.    

Living the Life of a Dreamer and a Christ Follower is fun every day!  Have you found your spot today to talk to the Lord?

Dreaming in the Snow

Winters are so unpredictable for the meteorologist here in Tennessee as they talked about winter back in October.  From week to week they change the forecast and say it will be cold, it will rain, it will snow, it will be warm, or it will be dry.  Yet after the short stretch  of winter we have experienced in Tennessee, they never pay attention to the signs that the Lord gives us all.

While out plowing snow yesterday, I looked once again at a squirrel coming out of its nest.  It reminded me that the Lord has placed it in the animals and small creatures the knowledge to prepare for the seasons ahead.  The squirrel's nest was built 2/3 to 3/4 up the in the tall trees.  The size of the nest was a medium size.  So what's that mean?

My father taught me that the Lord lets the animals know what kind of a winter to expect and they prepare accordingly.  As for the squirrels the height of the nest says how wet a winter we will have and the size tells us how cold a winter we will have.  As I have seen for so many years before  the squirrels know more than our meteorologist.  My Dad also said to look at the woolly worm in November as its colors will accurately tell about the winter.  

This year the woolly worm was black in the front (meaning cold temperatures) and medium brown in the middle and light brown on the back.  So I am looking to an early spring here in the mountains.  Year after year in studying what God puts right in front of our faces I have found Him to never be wrong.  (Imagine God being wrong)  Now I am waiting for the green frogs to come back but that's another life lesson.

Today even if you are getting snow or are experiencing cabin fever, go outside and just listen for a few moments.  Can't you hear the Lord speaking in the whispers of this day?  At least I can while dreaming in the snow.  Nature is listening, aren't you?

 

My Little Talk with God

Psalms 85:8    “I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace to his people and to His saints.

For a Dreamer I sat by the peaceful Tellico River and thought about having a direct conversation with God.   In my mind it went something like this:

God said, "So, you would like to talk with Me?"

"If you have the time," I said. God smiled and said: "My time is eternity and is enough to do everything; what questions do you have in mind to ask me?"

"What concerns you most about people?"  I started.

 God answered: "That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.  They lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health.  By thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, resulting in that they live neither for the present nor the future.  People live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived.

" God's hand took mine and we were silent for a while and then I asked . . . "As a parent, what are some of life's lessons you want your children to learn?"

God replied with a smile: 

• To learn that people cannot make anyone love them.  What they can do is to let themselves be loved. 
• To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives.
• To learn that I loved them so much that I gave my Son as a sacrifice for their sins, so they can be in heaven with me someday. 
• To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. All will be judged individually on their own merits, not as a group.
• To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least. 
• To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and that it takes many years to heal them. 
• To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness. 
• To learn that there are persons that love them dearly, but simply do not know how to express or show their feelings.
• To learn that money can buy everything but happiness.
• To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it totally different.
• To learn that a true friend is someone who knows everything about them . . . and likes them anyway. 
• To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they have to forgive themselves.  People will forget what you did and said, but will never forget how you made them feel." 

I sat there for awhile enjoying the moment.  I thanked Him for his time and for all that He has done for me and my family.

He replied, “Anytime. I'm here 24 hours a day. All you have to do is ask for me, and I'll answer.  It’s called prayer!" 

My Parable Stick

Matthew 13:3       “Then he told them many things in parables and illustrations saying, . . . “

When you are teaching people new truths about life, sometimes just saying the words isn’t enough.  You must make an impact with a demonstration. 

As a youth minister working with high school students, it was difficult to provide illustrations that related to their lives.  This was the case when we looked at forgiveness from our past failures and sin.  During the 70’s, the drug culture had worked its way into every fiber of our society.  In order to bring young people to the realization of grace and God’s love, I needed a parable to get their attention.

While walking at the edge of some woods one day, I saw some odd looking trees.  They were dead but their trunks had a strange twist.  I broke one off and took it to my father to ask what type of tree this might be.  He told me that it was a common ash tree.  I asked, “What caused all the twists in the trunk and made it die?”  He said, “Honey suckle”.  My response was, “Right!  Honey suckle is a thin vine that has a smelly bloom.”

Then we headed to the woods for my object lesson.   There we saw several young trees alive with honey suckle vines all around the trunk.  The thin vines were easy to break and appeared to be harmless with their beautiful blossom smell.  The trees and vines were both alive and growing quite well.  Upon closer examination though, the vines had wrapped themselves around the tree several times and gotten bigger.  At the same time the sapling had grown its bark around the vines. 

At first glance you could not even see the vines because the bark had grown over them and they were hidden from site.  But then as we looked around, we saw similar trees withering and dying.  I broke off a couple of dead trunks and took them back to the house.  Then a few weeks later on a trip to a craft shop in Gatlinburg where a tree with that same condition had been made into a walking stick.  The craftsman had carved a picture into the top, polished the stick, and then coated it to make a beautiful possession. The dead trunk had been given new life.

With the new walking stick in hand, I now had my parable.  That visual illustration has made a big impact on the lives of people with which it was shared.  The scars are still there, but the master craftsman has turned them into something beautiful.

Society feeds us so many things that the Lord says is bad for us.  They are just little things that we welcome as not harmful or a major sin.  Over a period of time these things wrap their way around our lives but we don’t notice them.  Soon they get a choke hold on us and we cannot get rid of them. 

Every Christ Follower has scars from the past.  They may not be visible from the outside, but they are always there.  But the amazing thing about the Lord is that he can take those scars, through his grace and forgiveness, and turned them into a beautiful person who can relate to others who have similar scars.  His forgiveness in our lives may never wipe out the scars of abuse, drugs, or other events from our past, but it will allow us to focus on how beautiful we are when we turn our lives over to Him.

Helping those who feel hopeless

 I Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Have you ever wanted to help someone but knew that your efforts would be in vain? How do you give hope to someone when the person does not want to hear about the Giver of hope?

You may have heard about the famous basketball player and his girlfriend who left on a boating trip with the basketball player’s brother. Weeks later the brother turns up trying to get money by using the basketball player’s identification. To add further to the mystery, the basketball player’s brother dies in the hospital before any charges can be filed. The two were still missing at sea. Two weeks later one of my business acquaintances missed work for almost a week and no one would tell me where he was. When he returned I called and talked with him for a few minutes. He advised me that he had gone out west for a memorial service. It was for his niece, the girlfriend of the basketball player. According to my friend, the brother admitted that he killed them and threw their bodies in the Pacific Ocean. While grieving the loss of his niece, my friend’s mother told him that she has terminal cancer and will probably not live to see Christmas.

This devastation caused him to turn inward, become angry at life and the world, and unable to truly express his feelings. He had not experienced a relationship with the Lord and after a few words with him it was apparent that mentioning the Lord’s grace, forgiveness, and love was not wise counsel.

After letting him talk for a few minutes, I asked, “How are you really?” He wouldn’t answer, so I asked him the same question again. After the third time, he broke down and said that it seemed that life was hopeless. We talked for a while longer and the only thing I could do was tell him I was available 24 hours a day to listen and wanted him to never feel that a telephone call from him was an inconvenience. I could have told him about the hope that comes from knowing Jesus Christ at that time, but I knew that he was not receptive to my words. His pain is too great to listen and truly hear.

The only way I can help is to be there for him when his pain becomes too strong to bear alone. Privately, I prayed for him daily. It’s tough to feel helpless when you see your friends in pain. For some of us, it’s natural to want to fix the problem and give them hope, love, and grace. We want God’s timetable to be our timetable.

In today’s scripture, faith is the foundation and content of God’s message to us; hope is the attitude and focus of tomorrow; and love is the action. We must love the person where they are today, believing in the faith of God’s promise for us, with hope being our Christian reflective attitude of life’s good and bad experiences.

Look around, we all know people who are experiencing hopelessness in their lives. Pull along side them. By being a friend who cares about the whole person we can witness the Lord’s love and give hope when the door of their life opens. Just be there for them.

A Dreamer Living the "Dash"

Ecclesiastes 6:12 How can anyone know what is best for us in this short life of ours -- a life that passes like a shadow? How can we know what will happen in the world after we die?

One of the most exciting parts of the Olympics is to see who the fastest man alive is. A young man from North Carolina proved to the world that when he ran the 100 meter dash in 9.85 seconds. When asked about the race his comments were, “This is what I was born for," Justin Gatlin said. "This is why I started running, and this is why I live. I said it was going to be the most exciting race in the world, and it was. This is what I train for.” Now Justin is just a memory as Usain Bolt of Jamaica ran the ran in 9.58 seconds.  I ponder who the fastest man was in the 1970’s, 1980’s, or even the 1990’s. My mind is blank. They are all now shadows in history.

Years ago the “dash” in life though took me to a small cemetery outside of Cincinnati. There I saw a number of monuments that had the same last name as mine. One name was the familiar name of my great-great grandfather, Jackson Balser, who served in the Civil War. I still have his field rifle that has been passed from generation to generation, including notches in the stock.

Staring at the monument I noticed the dash between his birth date and his death date. What had he done in the lifetime called “dash”? What was his farm life like? How did he relate to his children? How did he serve during the Civil War?  What legacy did he leave? Throughout the cemetery there were people from infants to those over 100 years of age. Looking at each one I was void of what they did in their life. Then it hit me. I am part of my great-great grandfather childrens' dash.

The principles of life were passed to his children who passed it on to their children and so forth until it came to me. Maybe it was looks, maybe it was attitude, probably not my temper, but since it was in a church cemetery that my great-great grandfather established. I realized that it was his faith that lives in my heart and is being passed on to my children and will be to their children.

What is in the “dash” of your past?  Not everything that has happened in our past will be things we want to recall. Yet the best part of living this life is that we live under the grace of love in Christ.

One important aspect, as you look at the “dash” in your family’s lives, is that you can keep and cherish what is good and discard what is bad. As we build a relationship with the Lord, think about what the “dash” will be in your life.   Build the “dash” in your life everyday so people will know who you were, not by events or accomplishments, but by your reflection of Christ’s love through you every day!

Just remember what Solomon said, “Everything you were taught can be put into a few words: Respect and obey God! This is what life is all about.” Ecclesiastes 12:13