On the night of the last super bowl, we had just left church services when it began to snow. Large, lazy flakes were floating to the ground and soon it was covered, Before I went to my house, I went to my daughter’s house to build a cheery fire for her in her lovely fireplace. Then I hurried home to catch the rest of the game which was now at the half. As you know, the game outcome was not certain until close to the end. At approximately two minutes before the end of the game, our picture blurred. In the next few seconds the screen displayed a rather cryptic message. It simply said, ” You have have a complete loss of signal”. The condition continued until about five minutes after the game was over. As this malfunction was occurring, I scrambled for a radio and just as I got it tuned in, I could hear congratulatory remarks being made to the winner. The snow had covered our dish and cut off our signal.
Thousands of years ago someone else lost their signal. King Saul became so out of touch with his God, he finally lost contact. He kept distancing himself from God, a fatal mistake for a human to make. Saul is a tremendous study in lost communication between the Creator and the creature.
” He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3: 11 (NIV)
” Draw near to God and He will draw near to you….” James 4: 8 (NIV)
The New Year is a time of renewal reminiscent of the fresh starts each school year brought when we were children. Starting fresh is intoxicating to those of us encumbered with a litany of bad habits and regrets we would like to leave behind. Overwhelmingly those who resolve to leave baggage behind each new year fail. Most can make it a couple of weeks, a few for a couple of months, and a small minority past six months.
As the habits and regrets each day mount, we trod along hoping for another fresh start fix. Like junkies we crave a fix and decide to move, or change jobs or one is forced upon us through the tragedy of divorce, fire, or death. With each start we once again resolve to change only to fail again. Our hope for the next new year renews and the cycle repeats.
There has to be a better way.
NOTE: For those who have followed this blog I apologize for a delay in posting. On March 10, 2010 we had a devistating fire that completely threw me off my routine. I posted the following article on my personal blog days after the fire. We hope to be fully back to posting articles in the coming weeks. God Bless.
It began with the emergency call code from Angie to me. [ NOTE: If you don't have one of these I recommend it. When I'm in a meeting or otherwise unavailable at work I press "ignore" when she calls which sends her call immediately to voicemail. She then redials and I know to answer because it's an emergency.] During my Wednesday morning meeting in Austin I answered to hear that our house (in Merkel) was on fire. Considering the situation she was surprisingly calm, frantic yes…but definitely not hysterical. Once the front windows broke and flames with smoke rushed from the house we both knew it was best for Angie to go next door to her parent’s home and wait instead of watch. As she was walking in I could hear through the phone the horns blowing for firefighters to evacuate and let it burn.
The fire department was on the scene within minutes of Angie’s call to 911. We found out later someone passing the house had called earlier so they got a head start. Even with the quick response there was nothing that could be done. Our house burned from a mix of accidental ignition of a heat source warming the dogs and 35 mph (with gusts to 50) winds. Even with seemingly initial success in controlling the blaze, the fire and wind created a blow torch effect that would require more water to extinguish than the two Merkel trucks and seven Abilene trucks could possibly pump. The responders fought until exhausted and made the correct choice to retreat, there wasn’t one thing in the house worth even an injury. Thank you to the Merkel VFD and Abilene FD for their efforts, you just can’t beat nature.
I have thanked God every day for Amie’s presence at our house on that day. She only periodically helps Angie clean the house but without screaming for Angie to come downstairs when she saw the smoke, Angie would have been in the shower on the second floor and endangered at best. I’m thankful Angie didn’t open the door to the back porch where the blaze was raging, the wind would have certainly blown the flames into her and Amie and I would be typing this from the hospital She could have thought she could save the dogs (they got out anyway) or put the fire out with her kitchen extinguisher (too late for that) but she had the presence of mind under pressure to just evacuate.
The community of Merkel is phenomenal…I will certainly write more on this in the coming weeks, we would not be as strong right now without the hundreds of our friends and neighbors who showed up to help.
Service to community and help to fallen comrades are tenets so engrained in the ethos of the Texas Army National Guard that we were almost overwhelmed with support. It took direct orders and a promise of future help to keep these Great Americans away. I will always be grateful to God for the blessing of working with such a great organization.
So we find ourselves at zero. Even with the donations of clothes and essentials from the community we still can fit our earthly possessions into the back of my truck. We have always talked big talk that we don’t put any stock on earthly things but the talk falls flat when we actually lose everything. An inventory runs in our minds of all the things we lost…
It’s not so much the loss of stuff that causes sadness but the loss of the memories connected to the stuff. We are saddened to think of losing Angie’s wedding ring, wedding dress, childhood doll “Susie,” cookbook collection, and high school cheer uniforms (into which she still fit!); Chelsea’s impressive collection of books, cheer and dance gear, senior scrapbook, and American Girl dolls; Chera’s sports medals, cheer gear, scrapbooks, snow globe collection, and artwork; The Bible I carried through combatin Iraq and my Jeep (it’s a jeep thing you wouldn’t understand) [Note: Monkey is safely secured at my parent's house because my mother rightfully decided years ago I wasn't responsible enough to have him yet] .
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust [and fire] destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust [and fire] do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19-20 (NIV)
On Wednesday night we had a family meeting in our hotel room to discuss the importance of the day. I believe that with every life changing event there WILL BE change. It’s up to us to make it positive. After a family hug we all confirmed that stuff didn’t matter and our memories will survive without the stuff. More importantly, we had each other.
The GREAT thing is we are only at zero in terms of possessions. We are blessed beyond description in so many other ways.
- We still have treasures in heaven by the grace of God through Jesus Christ
- Our family has never been closer and each are stronger
- We live in the greatest community in the world
- I work for an organization dedicated to service to others
- Starting at zero gives us the unique opportunity to rebuild with focus on what’s REALLY important
We are thankful and at peace…Shalowm
Once upon a time a man lived in a little village that was overrun with skunks. This man was a good hunter and trapper and knew how to entice the skunks into cages. People would ask him to come and remove the skunks that denned up under their houses. He became known as the “SKUNKMAN”! He eventually charged a small fee for his services and most people were happy to pay him to take away the odorous little creatures.
One day, after removing the fifth skunk from a home, the homeowner asked what would happen if he didn’t pay. The SKUNKMAN said he put captured skunks into little cages and gave his clients thirty days to pay. If on the thirty- first day he had not received his money, all the skunks he had collected from under the non-payers home would be returned to the front porch. Needless to say, this policy was seldom enforced.
Our sins are like skunks, they seem to hang around and stink. Satan likes to bring them back to our door, over and over and over. He wants to shove our faces into our mistakes and shortcomings. He wants to keep us captive, ruminating over old failures. It is one of Satan’s biggest tricks, to get people to despair and think there is no way they can be “good enough” to be acceptable to God. The good news is that the price of our “skunkey” sins are paid for by the blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ! Satan cannot bring back our sins for payment, they have been paid, in full!
“ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“…and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” I John. 1:7
I grew up in a time when church frequently included special gospel meetings that featured a guest preacher imploring over the course of a week to get right and reap the rewards of heaven or certainly go to hell. Night after night the message and volume would escalate until a satisfactory number had responded to avoid the punishment of hell.
As a result, my upbringing most of my Christian life has been spent figuring out what “get right” means. My relationship with God was shallowly based on a set of rules based more in the tradition of my recent ancestors than the Word and Spirit. It took a couple of family tragedies and a tour to combat for me to reevaluate and search for a deeper foundation [Christ] for my relationship.
The struggles of my God relationship search came flooding back as I read Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us in which he presents a compelling case for a deeper method of personal, peer, and subordinate motivation. I was struck with how closely the history of motivation parallels the Bible story and my story.
I’ve been to war.
Not a figurative war, which many people have experienced within their unique circumstance, but a real war where bullets fly both ways and mortars and rockets explode with the intent of ending lives. My war experience, of course, is no longer unusual as the United States continues adding to the longest period of conflict in our history. I understand the damage a war can do.
Private, figurative wars, the ones without bullets, have been raging for centuries and are just as spiritually damaging as the real wars are physically damaging. Spiritual wars are waged in our minds as we deal with the loss of loved ones, the breaking of a heart through shattered marriages, the breaking of promises and vows, the loss of stability financial or emotional. The lists go on and undoubtedly will touch everyone who will read this paragraph. The private wars have touched my family and me through suicide, cancer, divorce, death…
Once, when I was a little boy, something happened to me that was way beyond my control. I had sustained a dangerous head wound and was helpless. My father took me in his arms and carried me to the hospital which was very near to where we lived. I’m sure my dad lived the event over and over in his mind all the days of his life, even though he rarely mentioned it. My mom and dad were not young when I was born and our age difference could have made him my grandfather. He had lost my sister only five years before and must have died figuratively many times as he carried me to medical help. My father did not cause the accident, would never had let it happen if he had been there. I don’t know what went through his mind as carried me in his arms; perhaps this, “ I would never dream of letting something like this happen to you, but if you will let me, I will love you through this, help you through this, and show you how it will work eventually for your own good.”
In this world bad things happen. When they do, God is there and He, like my dad, says, “ I did not cause this, I would never plan this horrific thing that has happened to you, but know this, if you let Me, I will love you through this, help you through this, and show you how it will work eventually for you own good.”
Surely God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my defense,
He has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2 (NIV)
Listen to an audio presentation on this topic here
On May 29th, my darling little granddaughter, Sierra died. She fought a most heinous form of cancer for eighteen months. She died bravely, the way I want to when it’s my turn. I was with her at one o’clock in the morning when she breathed her last. Those eighteen months would take a volume to chronicle which I will never do. But, through all the hours of weeping and happiness, yes, happiness, there is something that I learned that is on my heart to share. Maybe it will help you, I hope so.
People usually deal with dying and death, particularly a tragic one, in pretty much the same way. They believe that no matter the severity of the illness, prayer will more than likely change the outcome. Their core belief is that God will interdict on behalf of the sick person and heal them. Modern medicine does what was impossible only a short time ago, people live who would have died then. These medical marvels are a gift from God.
But what about those who are not healed? And no matter how many, how long or how fervent the prayers, they die. When this happens some will blame God for “taking” their loved one. How could an all knowing, all powerful God let theirs die and let another live? It’s a puzzle that begins to eat at the very center of the believer’s heart. Well meaning friends might say, “If we had only had more faith”, or some other horrific statement, the sick one would have been made well. This is a satanic phrase and even though well intended strikes terror deep into the soul. How guilty would you be if your loved one died because you “didn’t have enough faith?” Yes, we should have faith, enough to move a mountain, as Jesus said, but this faith is not for physical mountains, but spiritual ones.
“All the glory is due you! You are the Holy One! You’re the One, You’re the only One!”
I listen as my family and I sing these words. We sit together as one unit, one band of people suffering through a tragic loss; if you only knew what we had been through. You wouldn’t believe it if you could hear us singing these words with all of our hearts. You wouldn’t believe that just a little over a month ago, we lost one of our family members to cancer. A little girl, we loved her without measure and now she is gone. We are upset and we do struggle through life sometimes. However, you would never believe it if you could hear us now. We hold our heads high as we show God that we trust His judgment. “You’re the One, You’re the only One!” We know it, we believe it, and we sing it with pride… together.
Chelsea Chaney is a 17 year old Christian who loves God and Christ. She is a leader and inspiration to her family and friends. In addition to being active in the church, she is the captain of the high school varsity cheer squad, senior class president, student council president, book club president, and publicist for the Spanish club.
And my daughter…
Practical Christian application:
1. We have confidence in an eternal reward through Christ
2. It’s impossible for us to fully understand God’s will
3. God wants us to have patience, know that evil will not prevail, and to fully place our trust in Him
Last week we lost a 15 year old family member after a lengthy battle with cancer. Her struggle was featured in a post by her grandfather last month. As I prepared to officiate over her funeral I thought it was appropriate to share on this blog the comfort our family found through God.
Over and over family members and friends in the community asked how God could let something so terrible happen to someone so young. A close friend who had lost his wife in a tragic car accident years earlier had great counsel to me. Part of his word he took from a message Billy Graham delivered on the National Day of Prayer, September 14, 2001
I’ve been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept by faith that God is sovereign, and He’s a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. Full message here
Our family found great comfort in suffering knowing that God is a loving God even though we may not know why such tragic things happen. We choose to trust God.
