12 Years and 2 Well-Served Lessons

I am taking my bride of twelve years to an undisclosed location—No! I’m not telling because we don’t want to be found. Yes! The kids are covered.—for an anniversary celebration. Just the two of us. Like it was “back in the day.” Now don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely passionate about my kids, but for this trip…it’s just us…a quaint little town South of here…a romantic bed and breakfast…dinner for two by candles…and…just the kind of thing one does for the one he loves and feels incredibly blessed to have.

But let me tell you something. I’ve been taking a little closer look in the mirror lately and I wonder…

…I wonder what has happened to me. I keep looking at Kathy and I am eternally grateful that that has happened to her. She is better now than in college. Wow! In the words of Max Lucado, “her beauty is luscious.” (Dead serious—check out the July issue of HomeLife magazine. For my non-Baptist friends, this is a monthly family magazine of the SBC. The July issue features Max Lucado and his wife Denalyn. Sorry Max for borrowing the quote but it is dead on for my bride.)

Now I am certain that I am no where close to releasing a best selling book on marriage. However, I would say that I have learned a few things over the past decade plus two. Some things were learned the hard way. Who among us has not occasionally uttered something stupid? Some things were learned the way of wisdom. Honestly, there are two things Kathy and I learned when we first got married that absolutely put us on track to a great marriage and the lessons came from two older couples.

When we “hitched up” on July 23, 1994, I was serving Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church as Youth Pastor. There was a great lady who served as one of my middle school workers, Loretta Wells. Loretta was married to Wayne and I noticed something quickly about them. One day I was over at the Wells’ home having a snack with Wayne and Loretta’s son Dennis. Loretta was standing at the table as Dennis and I were eating when her husband came through the door. As she was making a comment to me, she stopped mid-sentence and walked over to Wayne. There he dropped his briefcase and they shared the most wonderful kiss and hug I had ever observed between a husband and wife. It was so special and sweet and sincere. They literally looked like two teenagers even though they had been married for over thirty years.

Lesson learned: When you are reunited with your mate after time away, be glad to see each other. This is also true for when you are leaving for the day. Make it a point to stop what you are doing in order to make that happen. Kiss and hug and do not mind who is around. This lesson is particularly poignant and essential to me because after I left for seminary in July of 1996, Wayne died unexpectedly due to complications from surgery on Thanksgiving Day. Wayne Wells was a real man because he was completely unashamed to flagrantly love his wife. Loretta Wells showed that anything can wait while she went to kiss her man. Today, over ten years later, my eyes fill with tears as I think of that moment. I know the day that Wayne died was hard but of this I am sure, those two shared a kiss before Loretta left that evening. Man, it is a lesson I’ve never forgotten because you never know how your day will turn out.

Practice hugs and kisses for your mate but also for the benefit of young just-married men and women so they can always know that the passionate flame doesn’t have to die. It dies because couples let it!

About this time, a new family joined our church. Mark and Anna Jo Meyers and their two girls moved into area just before Kathy and I were married and their move turned out to be a huge blessing for us. We were immediately drawn to this couple. We made it a point to be around them as often as we could. I always noticed how good this couple was to each other. Mark always did the little things for Anna Jo like standing when she entered the room or left it. Opening the door for her was standard. But the thing that really stood out is how they really enjoyed each other. I mean they had a good time being around each other. Because I came from a divorced home, their marriage really caused me to take note.

One Friday they invited us to dinner and Anna Jo cooked some great Cuban food—her mother was from the island. While eating, we began to talk about marriage. I let them know how much I noticed about their marriage and asked them how they did it. Without blinking an eye they shared two things I have never forgot. First, Mark shared that they had committed early in their marriage they would never tell jokes about each other in public in order to get a laugh from people. Second, Anna Jo shared that they decided to never disagree publicly with one another. They both shared this had been hard at times but it was worth it to protect each other and contribute to the unity they shared.

Lesson learned: It is not worth getting a “ha ha” from the guys at the expense of my wife. Doing so does not show I treasure her about all things. In fact, I have learned that when you do not talk well about each other in public other people just think that you are a fool—or least people committed to building strong marriages. I figure that I sleep with my wife not the people in my Sunday School class or the job or at the cook out. She is worth me pleasing and upholding as wonderful. There is nothing better than speaking well of your spouse in public—even when your spouse is not around. I love it when someone tells me that Kathy has said something good about me to them. I am sure she enjoys it as well.

Make jokes about your wife and she might tell you it doesn’t matter. If you believe that then I’ve got some beachfront property in Kansas I would like to talk with you about.

I am so grateful to God that he sent Kathy and me some excellent and wise married couples to be around. We haven’t always gotten it right. But I’ll tell you this. Those lessons learned when our own passion was new and hot showed us that it could burn just as hotly when it was not so new if you consistently practiced well a few things.

Oh how thankful I am to twelve very good years. And by the way, that looker on my right arm—she’s with me! (Imagine me with a big and loud laugh and my head thrown back and enjoying what God has blessed me with!)

When Being Moral is a Threat

This Summer I have been reading a thoughtful and excellent volume by Eugene Peterson. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005) has certainly caused me to pull back the dregs of "thought slumber" and do some needed mental work. Peterson paints broad and beautiful word pictures that cause you to do much head nodding along with the occasional catch of breath. I would like to render you this sampling...

Jesus' death is our way into salvation. There is no other way.

But however much we admire Jesus, and however many hymns we write and sing about the death of Jesus...this death talk doesn't go down well with us. We can't avoid it in our preaching and hymnody and calendars, but we do manage to find ways to dodge it in the way we live.

The most common way that we in the Christian community have of avoiding or marginalizing Jesus' death is by constructing a way of life that is safe and secure and guilt-free. We have a lot of information on how to live rightly before God...we have considerable stores of wisdom accumulated through the Hebrew and Christian centuries on how to conduct our lives decently and pray effecitively. We take on huge commitments to teach our children and others...

When things go wrong, whether at home or in society, in church or in government, it is easy to find a moral reason: disobedience or ignorance of the biblical commandments is obviously at the root of a lot of what is wrong with the world. We conclude that if only we can educate our children and our parents, our politicians and our professors, our business leaders and our celebrities in right thinking and right behavior, things will imporve dramatically.

All this is true enough.

But the moment this becomes our basic orientation for dealing with what is wrong with the world, we have turned our backs on the cross of Christ, on Jesus as our Savior. The moment the moral life defines our way of life we turn our backs on most of what is revealed in our Scriptures, refuse to admit the presence of God in what is happening around us, but worst of all, refuse to deal with the most significant thing we know about Jesus, having replaced the real Jesus with a crude, one dimensional cardboard cutout. It amounts to a defiant denial of Jesus. We place ourselves in a position to receive Jesus' most serious rebuke: "Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things" (Matt. 16:24). When we rip the moral life from the living context of the Christ life, pull it up by the roots from the nourishing, loamy soil of Scripture, we end up holding a withered, drooping, and finally dead flower, a cut flower.

I am going to use this term "moralism" to designate this common, seemingly inoffensive, but in fact disastrous betrayal of Jesus...Morality is built into reality as deeply and inescapably as atoms and protons and neutrons. We are moral beings to the core--the very universe is moral. Right and wrong are imbedded in the creation. It matters what is done, said, believed even thought. Morality is fundamental and non-negotiable.

But moralism means constructing a way of life in which I have no need of a saving God. Moralism is dead; morality is alive. Moralism works off a base of human ability and arranges life in such away that my good behavior will guarantee protection from punishment or disaster. Moralism works from strength, not weakness. Moralism uses God (or the revelation of God) in order not to need God any longer. Moral codes are used as stepping stones to independence from God...

If what fixes the world is simply getting everyone forced or conditioned into good behavior, we don't need salvation anymore; we need education and training, political reforms and a cultural renaissance, a stronger police presence and a superior military, more information and more power.

Eugene Peterson
Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places
pp. 144 - 146

New Innovations in Evangelism

Have you been troubled by your inability to give, what you might deem, an adequate Christian witness? Do you wish to share the Gospel but often struggle with what to say or even how to say it? Do you fear that you might not be able to clearly communicate the essentials of the Gospel? Well...fear no more!

Let me introduce you to a cutting edge evangelism method that will enable you to share the Gospel to a countless number of people with clarity. You need not fear stumbling over your words any more. The method? Bathroom Stall Evangelism.

That's right. I was introduced to this effective method of evangelism this past Sunday while eating in a local steak house. I was struck with its impact while taking my youngest son to do the duty. I carefully placed him on the toilet and as he was doing the do, he pointed and asked me, "What's that?" I turned to see Bathroom Stall Evangelism.

Written in black permanent marker--a Sharpie, I assume--was the following message:

"Do you have Jesus in your heart? Without him, you can't be saved.
Trust him today as your Lord and Savior. You can't go to heaven
without Jesus!"

Now I fear that my four year old did not appreciate what was before him. I was blown away. Wow! Since so many trashy people write negative and embarrassing messages on bathroom walls, why not claim this space--as some brave brother, I hope--as holy ground for the clear proclomation of the Gospel.

I could not wait for the thought of some unsuspecting lost person having to do his business in that stall and looking up and there he would see the most important message of his life. I know he will be impressed with the person who wrote the message and his absolute disregard of the business owner's property. He will surely de drawn with the neatness of the message and how the black ink interacts so well with the blue of the stall. It might be that he recognizes his greater need right there in an humble stall in Cordele, Georgia.

Might you try this effective method? All that is needed is a Sharpie marker of your choice and a carefully worded message in a bathroom stall in the local eatery of your choice.

Have a friend you have been trying to witness to for some time? Why not treat them to lunch and invite them to use the bathroom. Who knows. It might make a complete difference for their eternity.

I pray it is so.

My New Family

He explained it to me with great passion. His face—the one I had only seen a few moments before at the conclusion of my children’s closing celebration of Vacation Bible School—lit up as he told me about the place. It was so evident that it brought him such happiness to be there and to have the pleasure of sharing how wonderful it was with me. I got excited for him as I listened.

He told me the environment was fantastic. Everyone liked being there. No gossip or “backstabbing” that he could see or had experienced before. He looked forward to getting up to be there. The people were positive. They had welcomed him with “open arms” when he first arrived. In fact, he went as far as to call it a real “family.”

He shared an example to illustrate his point.

“You know, I’ve been there since February. I had been somewhere else for about two years before going there. All of sudden, about eight weeks ago, a man there was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was so fast between the time he found out and when the doctors operated on him to remove about eight inches of his colon. When he got home, several of the people set up a rotation to take food to him and his family. Guys volunteered to cut his grass for several weeks. We did anything that we knew he would not be able to take care of while recovering. I tell you, it was absolutely amazing. I’ve never seen anything like that. It just keeps reminding me over and over how glad I am to be there. It’s great. As far as I’m concerned, I’m never going anywhere else. I’d be crazy to!”

Was this his new church? No. It was his new job.

Dear Father, let me “work” to love others and to be a part of a movement so powerful and attractive in my life that it would be even better than my new friend’s work place.


Books4InsideYourHead

Worship in the Wilderness by Bob Kauflin (check out http://www.covlife.org/, click growth resources, then click sermons and scroll down to November 5.) No, this is not a book but a sermon. Kauflin is Worship Pastor at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland and works with Sovereign Grace Ministries. If you have ever found yourself in a "wilderness" circumstance, this sermon on Psalm 63 reminds us of what is the core of things even in what appears (or is) to be the worst of times. Let me tell you, mark http://www.covelife.org/ in your web favorites and go to the sermons here often. I have found them all to be great drink in a very dry and thirsty land. On a fluffy Christian landscape, Covenant Life Church and those that preach there provide real meat and potatoes. Joshua Harris, known for I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Stop Dating the Church is pastor there. Faithful and soul edifying biblical exposition is found in abundance. Download a sermon and be challenged, encouraged, convicted and grown by the Spirit of God.

I have a theory. Sportswriters may be some of the best around. I’ve been known to shed a few tears after reading an article in Sports Illustrated. Let me offer you two. I just finished Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003) by John Feinstein. Feinstein can take seemingly unimportant things and make them sound great. This is about the 2002 US Open from the dream of putting it on at a New York Municipal course—Tiger, of course won—to clean up.

Everyone loves a great father-son story. The best father-son story I’ve ever read and the best bargain book I ever bought—paid $1 for it at, you guessed it, Dollar General Store—is The Last Magic Summer (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1996) by Peter Gent. Gent is best known as the author of North Dallas Forty which was made into a movie that had Mack Davis and Bert Reynolds (I think) in the 70's. The Last Magic Summer is at a time where Gent is nearly bankrupt and physically broken after a long career of boose and football. The story is his last shot of redemption in coaching his son during his final summer of baseball. It is great. A good lesson for what dad should not do.