“How beautiful are the feet of them who bring good news…”
Photoshopped? Perhaps. I don’t know. But can you deny the power of Baby Samuel’s grasping hand? High-five, little buddy!
Archive for the 'Children' Category
16
Aug
15:20
“And he got up and went to his father. But while he was still far away, his father saw him and was moved with pity for him and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss.”
–First century parable from the lips of Jesus
Long about noon on Saturday a father and son will meet in a giant bear hug far from the horizon that once separated them. And Mom will be there too, just the right touch needed to make a three-corded strand. Perceptive onlookers might catch a glimpse of something arcane and otherworldly in this simple tapestry: a family wrapped, cinched and secured in the keeping power of the Strong-Armed One. I’d call that an unbreakable family bond.
The son is, at long last, coming home. Gone will be the rags and fetters of the far country and, though the memories of depravity and hellishness will linger, the air will be gloriously cleared of the demons that enslaved and harrassed.
I noticed a subtle nuance about that story this afternoon. I found in my Bible, the NASB’s translation of Luke 15:32 to be, “this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live…” The translators took the verb anazoo and made the distinction in it’s aorist tense that a process or action has begun that, if it continues, will certainly end in a completed action or effect.
That’s pretty technical sounding so let me dumb it down for you and me. When I have told others of our son’s return, I (a) do not refer to Graham as a “prodigal” because he no longer wears that moniker by the grace of our Lord, and (b) advise them not to expect our boy to exude an ethereal glow and matching halo. The boy has begun to breathe again the new air of the liberty by which Christ has set him free. He is just now beginning to lay hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of him.
Like me (and you), he will not have “arrived”. He might break our hearts again. (I sure wish there was a verse 33 in that chapter so we could see how it plays out six weeks, six months or six years from the banquet!) He might revert. I pray not, for the scriptural phrase “a dog returning to its vomit” is not such a good thing. It’s deadly, in fact.
All we have is today.
And 15:20.
And verse 32.
And that’s got Mom and me giddy from the word go.
And go we will. To meet our son on a hillside of grace, restoration, reconciliation and…
JUBILEE!
Finally, let me end with this captivating story found in Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? The details might not mirror ours exactly and while it is about a young girl rather than a teenaged boy, you’ll see why I’ve done it.
A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old- fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. “I hate you!” she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.
She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid detail the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.
Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that make her feel better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.
The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car–she calls him “Boss”– teaches her a few things that men like. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives now seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.
She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline “Have you seen this child?” But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wears, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.
After a year the first sallow signs of illness appear, and it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. “These days, we can’t mess around,” he growls, and before she knows it she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. “Sleeping” is the wrong word–a teenage girl at night in down town Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens. Continue reading ‘15:20′
27
Jul
Unplugged
So…
Where ya been?
The keyword of my life lately has been ‘connect’. That, and the woeful lack thereof, as the case may be. As you are well aware, little is heard from Green Pastures or Sound Bites these days except the plaintive whistling through the hollow reaches of cybersphere and the occasional tumbleweed meandering across your monitor along with the amaranthine chirping of techno-crickets.
I have been beset by mind-cramps, faithful reader, and those incessant mental charley horses have caused me to seize up and rub it out until it goes away.
My Outlook Express has decided to join the mournful processional by going feet-up for the past two weeks. So help me, if I have to look at another ugly window popping up telling me my server has not connected for the past 60 seconds and would I like to wait another 60 seconds, I may be shopping for yet another laptop as this one will be sporting a nice clean 20-gauge grin in its kisser.
No telling how many emails I have idling out there which has given me the uneasy sensation of having my tether ripped free from the mother ship and being slowly drawn far out into collapsing darkness and utter cold. Nooooooo!
All this has me looking for a soccer ball with which I might strike up a friendship and wondering how I’d look in a long, scruffy beard.
Now I find out that my internet browser is giving me the cold shoulder, sharing the news that it has encountered a problem and must shut down and asking me to forgive it for any inconvenience. Again and again. For the past twenty-four hours. You are most definitely not forgiven, Firefox.
All my bookmarks, all those saved articles, every designated folder. Gone. Kablooey. Kaput. With a resigned sigh, I regrettably slump back toward my old nemesis, IE7, and pray it will accept me back into its good graces. Great. Just great.
Welcome, old friend.
Where have you been?
(grinning fiendishly) We knew you’d be back…
Lest you think all in my life has been on disconnect, I need to tell you about a connection that I made recently that trumps all these bloopers rolled into one. This past weekend I spent twenty-four hours with my son who has been away at a school for troubled youth for nearly six months. I haven’t said much about it, and won’t, except to say that our prayers for a jubilee over his life seem to have a strong hearing in Heaven and the recent shifts in the atmosphere tell us that a very significant corner has been turned.
Will it last? Not sure. There may be setbacks and hard miles yet to come, but we have assurance that whatever it is that God wanted to get out of him in this chapter of his young life, He seems to have done just that.
Our life with Graham has consisted of a weekly ten minute phone call and a handful of short visits. It’ll tear your heart out like nothing else when you take your monthly visit and when time’s up, to watch your only child disappear slowly behind the front door of an austere barrack-like building and you drive away, leaving him there, facing a fourteen hour drive home. And all you want to do is call it all off, that this can’t be right, that we can make it work, but knowing every agonizing minute that the battle for his soul requires such sacrifice.
So be it, Lord. Get Your glory in this…
I came within an eyelash of not making July’s visit and, boy, am I glad I listened to God.
Thursday morning, Douglasville, GA.
I lay in bed, sensing the Lord was telling me I needed to go. How can I, Lord? The drive alone will put me back into Shepherd for more skin surgeries. Go. But, Lord, gas is so high. Go. But there’s a special speaker at church this Sunday and I’ll need to introduce him. Go, go, go!
It took some convincing of Sandy to let me do it by myself but we agreed it was right, however I’d need to ask a special favor of the school. I reached for the phone and dialed the all-familiar number. Continue reading ‘Unplugged’
11
Apr
Seeing Red
Educators, you may not want to wear that red blouse on exam day if you want to give your students a fighting chance at passing. According to a recent study done by researchers at the University of Rochester, introducing the color red—even a “hint” or “flash” of it—prior to administering a test can negatively affect your students’ performance.
These researchers have bridged the color red with “avoidance motivation” which means the aesthetic value of the bold color may cause the brain to go into hibernation. Red is associated with danger, blood-letting, stop signs, not to mention that ugly red marker teachers are so fond of using. While red uniforms give a psychological edge in sports, sitting next to a person who is wearing red while taking a test may do anything but.
Here’s what I’m thinking: if you find yourself in a “testy” situation, slug down some Red Bull beforehand because we all know what happens when a bull sees red.
You know, just in case.
10
Apr
99 Balloons
This comes from the files of the “And you thought your trials were hard” department…
“Eliot was born with an undeveloped lung, a heart with a hole in it and DNA that placed faulty information into each and every cell of his body. However, that could not stop the liv
ing God from proclaiming Himself through this boy who never uttered a word.
In the midst of heartbreaking tragedy, the Mooney family found the presence of God strengthening, comforting, and guiding them. Their story reminds us to seek God and endure our struggles rather than blame Him for our hardships.”
(from the Igniter Media Group website)
For the 6-minute video, click here—and be in awe of God’s sustaining grace through this couple’s bittersweet journey of hardship and discovering God’s all-sufficiency through it all.
05
Apr
Do It Again!
The following is a famous quote from G.K.Chesterton, Christian philosopher and apologist. It succinctly captures the creative and redemptive ways of God—Our Heavenly Father whose heart is stamped with the eternal playfulness and reckless abandon of a child!
A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
Imagine also, the profound glee of the Father as He mirthfully wills the Holy Spirit to draw another seeking soul to Life in His Son: “Do it again!”
And again.
And again.
Our Lord just loves the miracle of resurrection…
For the choir director. A Psalm of David.
I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.
How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.
Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, (Do it again!) And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.
Psalm 40:1-5
I’ll probably get some stern looks and cold shoulders for posting this, but, hey, I just calls it likes I sees it, even though I didn’t write it. But I should have.
Pardon me while I go check to see if I have any guts…
_________________________________
“THE NEW FAMILY TRUMP CARD” (Family Time v Church Time)
by Albert Mohler (www.albertmohler.com)
Is “family time” encroaching on “church time?” Leadership, a publication in the Christianity Today family of magazines, surveyed 490 pastors last year, asking them about church life and family. A major theme — parents are taking their kids to soccer games rather than to church.
The soccer games are only an illustration, of course, but team sports loom larger and larger in the lives of many kids and families, often leaving little time for anything else.
From the Leadership report:
The phenomenon of overprogrammed kids in the last decade or so is well documented–to the point of satire. (A recent sitcom showed an alien begging off an invasion of Earth because his kid had “a thing.”) What isn’t so well documented is the effect this legion of extracurricular activities has on church life.
The pastors we surveyed report the overall busyness of families is keeping families away from church. Asked whether people are spending more discretionary time on family activities or church commitments, 76 percent said the scale tipped toward family activities. This contrasts with the perception of 62 percent of respondents that a generation ago, free time was more likely spent on church commitments. The balance has shifted.
(Read more)
Sandy and I have been on pins and needles wondering about our son. Nearly three weeks ago we sent him to a school for boys in a state far away and part of the school’s policy for new arrivals is a ‘black-out’ period for a couple weeks. No calls. No correspondence. It’s been as though he was shot to the far side of the moon and we’ve held our breath through a vacuum of uncertainty. This morning, however, we awakened to the knowledge that today was the day. Our first call; our first news of how he fared.
We were given a window of three hours in which to make a ten-minute call to our boy. I repeatedly held my watch up to the morning light, waiting for the exact minute we could call. Sandy and I both agreed that we would call the first tick of the allowable time because we wanted our son to know we were living for this moment. And indeed we were. With ten minutes to go, we snuggled close, held hands and prayed. I asked the Lord a question. I wanted to know how the tone and tenor of the conversation might go as we had been warned by the headmaster that the first call is often quite horrible. Everything from begging to come home, wanting to know why they had to be sent away, questioning the parents’ love, threatenings to sabotage everything, calling out hateful diatribes and calling down curses. The works. Continue reading ‘Good News From ‘Thessalonica’’
Our church just completed ten full days and nights of round-the-clock prayer leading up to the Global Day of Prayer on Pentecost Sunday. In the spirit of what these days have meant, I thought I'd share some prayer humor–from the perspective of little children:
UNANSWERED PRAYER?
The preacher's five-year old daughter noticed that her father always paused just before he delivered his sermon. One day she asked him why.
"Well honey," he explained, blessed that his young daughter was so observant about spiritual things, "I'm asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon."
"How come He doesn't do it?" she inquired innocently. (Ouch!)
BEING THANKFUL
A pastor asked a precocious little boy, "Your Mommy says your prayers for you each night? Very commendable. What does she say?"
"Thank God he's asleep."
TIME TO PRAY
A minister asked a little boy if he said his prayers every night.
"Yes sir," the boy replied.
"And do you pray to the Lord in the daytime?"
"Naw," the child responded, "cause I ain't skeered in the daytime!"
THE BLESSING
My wife invited several people to dinner one evening. Just before the meal, she turned to our six-year old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" "I wouldn't know what to say," our little girl said shyly.
"Just say what you hear Mommy say."
"Okay…" she said, then bowed her head. "Dear Lord, why did I invite all these people to dinner?"
BEWARE OF TRASH
One pre-schooler prayed: "…and forgive our 'trash baskets' as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."
SAY A PRAYER
Little Johnny and his family were having dinner over at Grandma's house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When Johnny received his plate, he began eating right away.
"Johnny, wait until we've said the prayer," his mother said.
"I don't have to," he replied around a mouth full of food.
"Yes you do, young man," his mother insisted. "We always pray before our meals at our house."
"That's our house," Johnny reasoned. "But this is Grandma's house and she knows how to cook!"
What say you pray with your children tonight? You never know what gems they'll come up with!
RAMs (Readers And Messages)