Ever had one of those days that you suddenly lost control of?
If your days are like Judy’s, and mine, it doesn’t take much to send them into a tailspin. Like you, we get up every morning with a lot more on our schedule than we could possibly accomplish—even if everything went just right, just as we planned it. Our days are so packed there isn’t much margin for error. And then…
I fight an almost nightly battle that you might find a little too familiar. My mind defaults to the problems and pressures of life the moment I try to relax. Thoughts fly toward worst-case scenarios—what will we do if? Or how will we ever get past that?
When this happens, there’s always one verse that brings me back to the sweet center of trust. Sometimes it even brings a smile just before I doze off.
If you’re wondering, “What could it be that keeps you up at night fretting Ed?” here it is. Please know, I’m not telling you this to show you how difficult my life is. I’m telling you this so that you can know that my life is just like yours. We’re all under pressure and worrying about our families, our friends, and our country; it’s just that we’re worrying about different details and pressures.
Last Saturday Judy and I attended our first football game at West Point’s Michie Stadium. It wasn’t our first college football game. As USC fans we’ve cheered our Trojans through some exciting Rose Bowl games. But the experience at Michie Stadium differed greatly from our games at LA’s Coliseum or the Rose Bowl.
It wasn’t the intensity of the fans that made the difference, though we couldn’t help notice the politeness of the crowd. The inappropriate taunting and swearing and the usual group of one-beer-too-many idiots replaced by the “yes-sir”-“no-sir,” family friendly atmosphere of a military community was refreshing.
An early lesson God taught me through teaching the Bible to His people was how uncomfortable we are with unresolved tension. He taught me the difference between our minds and His. It was, and still is difficult, because it requires an admission that I can’t explain Him—the same admission I seek from those who wish I would “clarify something” following most of my Sunday sermons.
I had just finished preaching on Jesus’ healing of the demonized boy in Mark 9:14-29. One sentence in bold summarized my thoughts: If you want to follow Jesus, you must learn to fast and pray. An earnest gentleman approached me wearing one of those “I disapprove greatly” faces every pastor knows too well. Before I could greet him, he reminded me of about fourteen other passages, verses, and theological truths that just didn’t seem to fit with what I had just said.
Prof!Recently I spent an hour with one of the most important men in my life—Professor Howard Hendricks. I was in Dallas for a few days and scheduled some time in his office at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Prof has had a lot of health problems over the last few decades. On the outside he’s obviously not the dynamo I remember quickstepping across campus from one classroom to another where he kept us spellbound with the most effective teaching I ever sat under.
Back then, his energy seemed limitless, his strength seemed unrestricted, and his mind undiminishable.
It was obvious to me that my beloved mentor’s steps have slowed a little and his thoughts take a little longer to connect now days.
But I’ll tell you what has not changed: His passion for the Lord Jesus and his plans to serve Him.
Taking Care of JesusI don’t know why, but I always felt like it was up to me to make sure Jesus got credit for anything I did in His name. For some reason I thought I should be the one to connect what His Spirit might prompt me to do with His glory.
If an opportunity to help someone in a small or even big way came, my first question was, “How can I let this person know that I’m a Christian, that I’m only doing this because He has changed me and He loves them?” Too often this meant that while I was still debating and calculating in my little brain how to guarantee that everyone would know that this moment was a truly eternal moment, the moment was gone!
I’m ashamed to admit that it didn’t bother me that much. “Sure wish there was a way to glorify Jesus there,” I would tell myself. “Oh well, maybe next time I will get a real opportunity to do something kind in the name of Jesus.”
Still Want to Live and Serve?A friend asked me recently if I still wanted him to ask God to “Please let Ed live and serve.”
My response? “Absolutely! Why wouldn’t I want you to continue praying for me?”
He seemed surprised. “But we’ve been praying this for eight years! Isn’t it time to stop asking or at least time to change the prayer a little? Don’t you think,” he wondered, “that God’s tired of hearing the same thing over and over again?”
His comment unmasks a common misconception about prayer: That we should communicate with God in adult ways—trying to figure out what He wants to hear and then making sure that we get it right and don’t bore Him.
Innocent TrustOur first worship service was just about to begin when I noticed someone running toward my usual “preacher front-row seat.”
My sweet seven-year old granddaughter, Mary with her long brown curls and bright blue eyes ran into my arms in all of her Sunday morning best, hugged my neck and said, “Good morning, Papa!”
It wasn’t “grown-up” behavior. It was wonderfully childlike.
An adult would never do what she did. Grown-ups don’t think and act that way. Grown-up thoughts would have considered the crowd, wondered what they thought, calculated that this might be an embarrassment to them and a distraction to others and decide not to run to someone they love, hug their neck, and tell them good morning. No matter how much a grown-up might love that person, they would never express it with such innocent exuberance.
No You Don’t!“I just want to know what God wants me to do,” the man said to me.
His eyes filled with rage at my answer: “No you don’t!”
“What do you mean?” he protested. “I do too; I want to know God’s will!”
As we sat across the table in my office, I reminded him that he had asked me to help him determine God’s will in his finances three times before, over a period of about six years. Each time I brought him to the same conclusion from God’s Word: “God’s will is clear—give to His work. You cannot look past His clear teaching that connects all of His financial promises to your faith in Him. You must trust Him enough to give before you can expect His guidance and blessing concerning your money situation.”
But here we were, going around the same block, considering his same questions, and reviewing God’s same answer.
A few years ago Judy and I visited a friend during his last week on earth. His faith in Christ and hope of heaven encouraged all who watched him go home. As his body began to fail him, he referred to it as his “container”. He was in deep pain the day Judy and I were privileged to come to the side of our friend and his bride. We read Scripture, prayed for healing and comfort, and then had to say goodbye. We knew that unless the Lord intervened, we had probably talked with our dear friend for the last time and that the next time we talked to the love of his life, it would be at his memorial service.
Yet, as we were leaving, our friend demonstrated a life-lesson I’ve “lived” myself—he told us that he was going to mow the lawn!
Judy insisted that I intervene. “You can’t let him mow that lawn. Tell him you will do it for him!”
“No,” I told her, “you have no idea how much he needs to mow that lawn. If he collapses dead mowing that lawn, he will be happier than if I did it for him.”
