A Puzzle

   One of my favorite holidays, perhaps my favorite one, is Thanksgiving.

   Maybe because it is a family Day. What better way to celebrate and be Thankful than to be around those that you love and partake of the Day together?

   Fun, Fellowship, Food and Football....those are listed as the four blessings of the Day for many people, and I am thankful for all of those, and what they represent.

   I woke up this morning and lay in the comfortable bed, under warm covers, and reflected on the many things that I have to be thankful for, and I am. So many people do not have a bed, or covers, or heat, or so many of the things that most Americans take for granted. Just flip the switch and open the fridge and you have heat and food and water, and not the worries about all the items that you need and don't have.

   I realize that it can be hard to be truly thankful, really truly thankful, way down deep in the soul, when you can't remember not having all these comforts. How can you know unless you have been without? I think maybe that I can't.

   But then I have to ask the question: Why me? Why us? What did I do to deserve all of these?

   A lot of those questions are unanwerable. They are like the puzzle that we are putting together this week. I know they must all fit together somehow, all 1,000 of them, but right now we don't even have the outside framework together so we can fill in the blanks. We've got a lot of partial parts of the picture done, and we even have the picture on the box to let us know where they go, but there are still a lot of supporting pieces to fit in.

   Sure I know that I will enjoy this Day. There is a turkey in the oven. There will be family around the table. We may even get the puzzle put together,  but there is still the challenge of the questions.

   I know to whom thanks are due. God Himself has blessed me in many ways because of His Love and Grace and Mercy, and I am thankful, but I still can't wonder about the whys and what fors.

   Those to whom much has been given, much is required.

   Micah 6:8 states:

   "He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

   Reading this, I have to wonder how all of these things play out in my life. How do they fit into the puzzle of my life.

   It is cold outside, but the sun shines brightly. The house is warm and filled with good smells and laughter. I am blessed, and I know it, but the puzzles wait.

   Thankfulness is an important start, but it is just a start.

Flexibility Has Its Benefits

   Thanksgiving week and a week for us to do some traveling. Our plans called for us to go to Blacksburg on Tuesday and Charlotte on Friday before returning home. Or so we thought.

   Late on Sunday afternoon Doug called, wondering if we could move our plans up a day and come on Monday. A weather front was moving in Monday night, and Tuesday could be an iffy day to be on the road.

   No problem. We were almost packed, and it would not be hard to leave early on Monday and be there for supper. So we did. Eight hours of driving did the trick, and we were in Blacksburg at 3:30, just as the kids were coming home from school.

   Doug had called while we were on the road, wondering about our arrival time, because he said that Drew had a basketball game, and we could go if we could be there by 5PM. So we were, and we did.

   That was a treat that we had not anticipated. His middle school team was traveling to Shawsville to play Pathway Academy, and it would be the first time we had seen him in action. An added bonus was that I could practice taking action shots inside a gym and play around with the settings on the camera.

   Another bonus was that his school team won the game in convincing fashion and he got to log several minutes on the floor. With 18 guys on the team and being one of the younger ones, Drew does not see much action in close games, but he got in quite a bit in this one.

   We are retired, our calendars are fairly empty, our time is flexible, and we are proud grandparents. That lineup works well for catching a game 450 miles from home on short notice.

   And, Oh yes, we woke up to this on Tuesday morning.

   Our car is parked outside, and the house is warm. Doesn't get much better than this.

   Thanksgiving coming early this year....

A Man Used

   Billy Graham is 95 and still serving His God. His message on The Cross was shown all over the Internet and on nationwide TV in November, and today, the pastor used it as his message for this morning. It was a powerful video, but just hearing Rev. Graham speak brought back several memories.
Here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

   The Billy Graham crusade came to Chattanooga, I think in 1952, and the meetings were held in the Warner Park Fieldhouse, which had just been constructed. I'm not sure exactly how it happened but I had an opportunity to volunteer and help set up the fieldhouse for that use. I remember that I was a junior and was in Dr. Bob McCallie's 11th grade English class when the call came. I was probably more interested in getting out of school for a day than I was for any crusade helping job, but I was quick to volunteer.

   Regardless, a bunch of us boys (no girls in this school), had the job of assembling the seating. There were wooden benches that had been broken down, probably from a previous crusade, that were shipped in and reassembled on site for the new one. My job, as I remember, was helping to put these back together with nuts and bolts, which we did for a whole day.

   The Crusade team also came to our school and had a chapel program which was met with a good response.

   My second thought on Billy Graham takes me back to the time that our daughter, Donna, went with a group of young people from our church to Atlanta to one of his crusades in that city. Billy had crusades all over the country, and in some foreign places as well, but this one stands out because Donna made a profession of faith there, and recorded that event in her Bible.

   Billy Graham was quite a news figure in my lifetime, pictured with Presidents and other leaders around the world. His Evangelistic Association was making motion pictures, making available tapes of his messages and the music of the artists that went with him. It was a big enterprise, and he was in the limelight all the time.

   I was met with a big surprise years later when my older son, Dwayne, asked me to come to his school in Davidson, NC to be a substitute for the high school history teacher when she had to be out for a few months. This was a US History class and they were into the 20th century in their study.

   Part of my methodology was to use the personalities of the period of study to illustrate the events that were going on at that time in our nation's history. So, one day I asked how many of those juniors knew who Billy Graham was. I mistakenly assumed that they would have some notion of who he was and what he was known for, but they all looked at me with a blank look. He just had not figured into their world even though his worldwide headquarters was in Charlotte and his library was close by.

   Finally, one boy's hand went up in questioning recognition. "Is that the person that the Billy Graham Parkway is named after?"

   This was, at the very least, a teachable moment. The material was not in any of the history texts, but those kids now know who Billy Graham is and what he does. They even got to see and hear some clips of his message. There was even a Billy Graham on the next exam.

   Of course, it is not so important to know who this man is and what he has done. The important thing is the message that he preached and the ones that understood and responded all over the world.

   And that God used him to bless so many for so long. His light will shine long after he has been called home, and for that I am thankful.

Thanksgiving is Today

   It is easy to see myself as good, if I don't look too hard at the way I live, but I have to wonder sometimes what God sees.

   I read the Scripture this morning from Luke 18, a parable spoken by Jesus:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’"

   Which person am I, not in my limited vision, but His?

   People may come up and say, "look what all you are doing", meaning, " look how good you are", but I think "you don't really know or see". "if you only knew" is my silent response.

   The Pharisee wanted others to see how good and pious he was, but the tax collector knew his own life and heart.

   God loved both of these men. One knew he needed it, and the other felt he did not.

   The words from my favorite hymn, the first stanza:

"How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure"

   I may think I am "good", but I know who the "wretch" really is. God does, too.

   The passage in Luke continues with these words:

" I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

   Justified: declared innocent or guiltless. Not by what he could do by himself, but what God would do through his great steadfast love.

   Thanksgiving is not only on next Thursday, it is any day that we realize what He has done for all us wretches.

For Such A Time...

   This is a post about a Change, a Conscious Decision, and a Realization. Let's see if I can fit it all in starting with a verse or two from the page of Psalm 105:

"When he summoned a famine on the land
and broke all supply of bread,
he had sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave."

   As I read this, the words of Mordecai to Queen Esther came to my mind, and the phrase, "For such a time as this".

   In the not so distant past, my wife began having trouble with her right hand. There seemed to be a disconnect between what she wanted it to do and what it actually did, and so gripping with it and holding on to something was uncertain. So a Change had to be made in our division of duties around the house.

   I began to do more of the work in the kitchen. Not the actual cooking stuff, although I can make good oatmeal, but more the clean up and putting away. This would free her from the anxiety of possibly dropping something. A Conscious Decision that this was the time, and life would be easier for both of us. After all there is plenty of time in retirement for me to play, even after a little "work".

   This morning, after breakfast (oatmeal, again), we were talking about how our roles had changed in the kitchen area. As we talked, and she thanked me for all I was doing to help, the Realization hit me. Not only did I not mind doing these things, I actually enjoyed it.

   Me enjoying "women's work"? Now that was a novel thought, but it was true.

   I told Mayre, way back when this all started "You have done all this for me for the first 50 years of our marriage, now it is my turn to do it for you in the next 50".

   She would much rather be able to do all of this and serve me, that is just her way, but times change and circumstances with it. We all must play the hand we are dealt.

   How much better to play that hand with "yes, I can" rather than play it with "do I have to?"

   And I can thank God for letting me see what needed to be done and being able to embrace the change with joy. A miracle for sure.

   For Such a Time as This

 

Hurry or See? A Dilemma..

   I read in Luke 17, the beginnings of a narrative. It starts:

"On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance"

   Jesus was on a purposeful journey, to Jerusalem, for a predetermined reason. It was to be His crucifixion and resurrection.

   Next week we will take a purposeful trip also. We will go to our son's in Virginia for Thanksgiving. We won't dilly dally along the way, we will take the interstate all the way to within 5 miles of his house. It will be I-95 to I-26 to I-77 to I-81 until we get near there. It is a long trip, and we will be in a hurry to complete it in the daylight hours of one day.

   When Jesus traveled the roads of Palestine there were no bypasses for any towns, no interstates with one exit for a town that you could not even see from that roadway. No doubt the paths He walked went right through the heart of any town or village. If He had been in such a hurry to get to his destination, He might have missed those 10 lepers in that small place, and they would have missed Him.

   I have to think it would be like some of our courthouse trips. The majority of the county seats in Georgia do not lie in cities or towns right by the interstates. They are on the smaller roads, off the main traffic routes. You can't be in too much of a hurry if you are headed there. We end up on roads such as Georgia highway 37, heading toward the county seat of Calhoun County, Morgan. No bypasses around this town because there is no need. The highway is just another road coming into the town, ending up at the courthouse square. If there is anyone to be seen in this town, it will be here, right in the middle, in the Square. If there is a divine appointment for us with someone in Morgan, it will be here.

   Jesus would have walked right this way, into this town. This did not seem the place to be in a big hurry. He would not be too busy to stop and heal, not too busy to notice and listen to a call to Him.

   How much of my life is like travel on the interstates, drive fast, miss towns and hurry along to a destination of my choosing? How much do I not see along the way?

   I did not see any folks in Morgan that day, maybe because I was in too big a hurry to get my shots and move on toward home, but I bet there were some there.

   Jesus' purpose was to meet the needs of people that were placed in His path. Mine was to get a shot and get home. How much can be missed even on those small roads?

   Hurry may get you there, but it won't help you see.

What Do I Look Like?

   There is a video making the rounds on the Internet, actually it is a Dove soap commercial, where a forensic artist makes a sketch of a person, in this case several women, from the description they give of themselves. He does not even look at them. Then he takes the words of a person who has had interaction with that first lady and draws a sketch from that also. The gist of the commercial is that the women are too hard on themselves, and they really do reflect a beauty that they do not see, but others do.

   The video is here: http://www.upworthy.com/2-people-described-the-same-person-to-a-forensic-artist-and-this-is-what-happene?g=2

   I thought of this as I looked at a self examination sheet that I need to fill out for a discipleship class that I participate in at church. There are 30 character issues that I am to respond to with either a plus, minus or zero. Plus being that I do that, minus that I do not and the zero for sometimes. Then I get to add up the pluses and see how I am supposed to stand in regards to all of that.

   How I rate myself. How others might rate me. Are those the most important things?

   If I am honest with myself, I might gain some perspective on my life, but it is a big "IF".

   If I desire the good thoughts of others about my life, I can spend my time trying to look good without truly being good. That is not good either, whether anybody knows it or not.

   How does God see my life and what I do and think and say?

   He is the ultimate judge, regardless of my thoughts or others reactions.

   And He is the One that I want to give me the "thumbs up" and say "well done".

   Don't let me get caught up in the other two scenarios.