Words from WW Blog

This coming week is going to be weird. My opening act in a sixth-grade classroom has come to an end. The new teacher, who I know and is awesome, arrives on Tuesday. I’ll be occupying my stool at Starbucks when the bundles of energy and hyperness arrive at school.

Energy defines these kids. My classroom was set up to create it. From “The Side Question” on the side whiteboard, changed daily, that entertained their comments and interests, to “The Far Side” cartoons that spelled “SMILE” on the other side of the classroom, to the Daily Dad Joke, to Wolfe Wisdom, each class was like a power plant of eleven-year-old excitement.

It occurred to me that I’ve had several experiences in my life that resemble what I just experienced. They were church youth groups. Four of them come to mind: 1) My youth group as I was growing up at First Baptist Church in Ironton, Ohio. Lifelong friendships were created in that group, including two of the guys who were a part of my wedding party. 2) The first youth group I led at First Baptist Church in Marseilles, Illinois. It was a great group of kids in a small town who took me under their wings and taught me as much, or more, as I taught them. 3) The youth of First Presbyterian Church in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Wow! I’ll always remember the trip to Young Life Camp in Colorado. 4) The youth of First Baptist Church in Lansing, Michigan. Chuck Landon mentored me as a pastor and also entrusted his kids to me. That group was awesome, funny, and kept me on my toes as we met in “the upper room.”

Now, I’m leading, mentoring, and encouraging the leaders of the youth at First Baptist Church in Colorado Springs. I can sense the energy building as we take these adolescents on a journey of discovery and faith.

Kids need groups such as these. I can see how they have shaped me in my growing-up days, and have firmed-up my faith as I have assumed the role of leader. We’ve had movies like “The Goonies” and “The Sandlot”. Someone should make a movie called “The Youth Group” and show the lives that get transformed in the midst of it.

“Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.” (Psalm 131:3)

“I don’t trust you.”

Those words have been said in a variety of situations: Parents to their teenager who has a tendency to scheme, the government towards the pharmaceutical industry, citizens toward law enforcement, and teachers toward their students.

Trust is in short supply these days. The news we receive often weaves a path grounded in mistrust. Granted, wise consideration of the circumstances can usually lead to intelligent mistrust, like when one of the multitude of roofing company salesmen shows up on your doorstep or when the timeshare salesperson makes you think you are an imbecile for not forking up the dollars for that week at a condo on an overcrowded beach in Florida.

However, mistrust is as rampant today as coughing and sneezing kids in school. How did we get to this point of unbelievability anyway?

In my opinion, it has become easier to believe in words of mistrust than words that require trust. Mistrust doesn’t need a leap of faith, while blind trust might lead someone to fall off a cliff. And quite frankly, our culture, like a palm tree during a tropical storm, leans heavily to mistrust. Perhaps it’s the scammers that are proliferating like springtime dandelions. We hear too many stories of people who have been drawn into their web of deceit and lost massive amounts of money. As people have wised up in specific ways, the scammers have become more sophisticated and creative in their crimes.

This past week, a postcard attached to our front door informed us that we had a package that couldn’t be delivered and told us to call a specific number. There was no indication who had sent the card. My wife, wise beyond words, asked me if I had ordered something. I hadn’t, and she correctly judged it to be a scam. It brought back memories of the old days when a man selling Filter Queen vacuum cleaners almost convinced us, newlyweds at the time, to buy one at a hefty price after leaving a postcard on our apartment door.

In essence, we’ve evolved into being skeptical. The tragedy is that if mistrust develops in someone as their “go-to,” he will never develop the capacity to hope. Hope is one of the destinations of trust. It requires loosening the grip that has tightened with our fears. Hope is attached to the hand of God. It is a deep belief that God has me in His grasp. Psalm 131:2 gives us the picture: “Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.” (The Message)

In a mistrusting world, I am firm in my belief that I can trust the Lord. It’s the anchor that holds firm, even as our culture’s behavior erodes. It’s the blanket that warms me as the bitterness of the world chills people’s attitudes.

I am content in the arms of God, secure in His embrace.

“Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:43-44)

Recently, a mom went on social media to boast about her nine-year-old son’s generosity. In one way, a decision he had made was generous, but at the same time it also revealed his family’s out-of-whack excessive hoarding of possessions.

The mom posted a picture of her son’s 18 pairs of sneakers. He had decided to give almost all of them to an organization (like Goodwill) that gave them to less fortunate families at a fraction of the cost. The gesture was appreciated by those who couldn’t afford to go to Dick’s Sporting Goods and shell out $150 for a new pair.

The picture of the sneakers lined up in a couple of rows revealed that they all looked like they had never been worn. This prompted me to wrestle with the question, “Why does a nine-year-old need 18 pairs of sneakers?” That resulted in a second and more puzzling question: Why is the parent of a nine-year-old overstocking his closet with approximately two thousand dollars of footwear?

The story from Mark 12 has Jesus watching people placing their offerings in the large offering pots at the entrance of the temple. The well-to-do made quite a show of their contributions. Their coins made an elevated amount of noise as they dumped them in. Heads turned in response. In my mind, I can hear the applause of the crowd, as if someone today was presenting a million-dollar-gift at a charity fundraiser.

And then there is a widow with two small coins that were so insignificant that even the angels may not have been able to hear it. The widow’s mites offering would be comparable today to a child who dropped two pennies in the offering plate. However, Jesus makes the point that the widow gave out of her poverty, not her abundance. In fact, He said she put in everything. Perhaps it meant that she would go hungry that day. Maybe she didn’t even know if she would have anything to buy a piece of bread the next day.

We mistake sacrificial giving for giving out of our excess. Sometimes, in our society of abundance, we give what we no longer find useful, or when we figure out that we have too many of a certain item. For example, I’m a book hoarder. I’ve started giving away some of my books, but before you break into applause you should know that giving up some of the books on my shelves actually means I can replace them with some of the books that are already in stacks on the floor. Sacrificial giving for me would cutting my library down to the number of books I plan to read in the next five years (about 200), instead of keeping all 1,500 of them.

Honestly, when we give books, money, and a car we no longer use, there is something inside each one of us that hangs for recognition. We want people to notice what generous people we are. Like the mom who posts a picture of her son’s eighteen pairs of tennis shoes, we crave recognition.

And then there’s the way Jesus sees it. Recognizing the one who tries to be anonymous, the one who slips two small coins out of her garment’s tattered pocket, the one no one else would have even thought about.

“Unless the Lord had given me help,
    I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.
 When I said, “My foot is slipping,”
    your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.
 When anxiety was great within me,
    your consolation brought me joy. (Psalm 94:14-17)

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 consisted of seven debates in different parts of Illinois. Even though Stephen Douglas won the senatorial election that fall, Abraham Lincoln made a name for himself and the call to abolish slavery. In those days, the Illinois legislature made the final decision on who would be the elected official. Even though Lincoln had won the popular vote count, the legislature had more Democratic representatives than Republicans. Thus, Douglas was chosen.

Abraham Lincoln’s comment after the defeat was, “It’s a slip, not a fall.” Two years later, he won the presidential election.

There’s a difference between slipping and falling. The first is a momentary unsteadiness as a result of a misstep or misjudgment. A fall, however, is a plunge to the depths, an experience that often leads to brokenness. Sometimes, we mistake slips for falls. Sometimes our minds tell us that we are not valuable enough in God’s eyes to recover.

And then there’s the words from the psalmist: “My foot is slipping…” It hints at an imminent fall that is coming, a failure of obedience, a stumble toward stupidity. For me, the slip comes in a judgemental attitude that, in insidious ways, devalues someone, a group, an idea, or a way of life. Instead of seeing someone through the eyes of Jesus, I slip into a frown of disdain and disgust.

It’s as I’m slipping that the hand of Jesus reaches down to me and keeps me from falling.

“… Your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.”

The love of God is a rescuing hand and a brace of support. The Message paraphrase of the Psalm 94 verses resonates with me:

“The minute I said, “I’m slipping, I’m falling,”
    your love, God, took hold and held me fast.
When I was upset and beside myself,
    you calmed me down and cheered me up.“

We have a God who is intimately concerned with our slips and falls.

Back to Abraham Lincoln. On election night, after finding out that he had been elected as the sixteenth president, he left the telegraph office at 2 A.M. and made his way home. The last words that he was heard to say as he left were, “God help me! God help me!”

He was in desperate need of the embrace of God, the need for the Almighty to hold him up, because nine days later, South Carolina seceded from the Union.

“The glory of young men is their strength,
    gray hair the splendor of the old.” (Proverbs 29:20)

“Old age is upon me, and I shan’t outrun it. Perhaps I may act juvenile and fool it, or ignore it and it will go away. Maybe I can hide and it won’t find me, or tone up my body or botox my face and it will mistake me for discovering the fountain of youth. However, wisdom hints to me that I take old age by the hand and walk in peace toward the sunset.” -Rev. Bill Wolfe, 7/12/24

The doubts about an octogenarian president have topped the news headlines each day. Everyone from the towel boy at the health club to the well-groomed barber to the twentysomething guy wearing sandals and swim trunks in front of me at Chick-fil-A have opinions.

Me, I have emotions. They are mostly the kind that are displayed in sad-looking emojis that communicate despair, dread, and doubt. They are emotions that have me facing the sunset that draws nearer and the reality of death down the road a lesser bit than yesterday. But more than that, they are emotions that cause me to face that point where every AARP, Medicare, Social Security, pension-backed grey hair comes to. There are certain things I can no longer do like I used to, and there are other things I’m capable of doing, but OTHERS doubt that I can handle them more easily than I ever have before.

For you see, wisdom is much harder to see than frailty. The slowing of my walking pace is more evident than the wisdom I possess because of a wealth of past experiences.

As more people urge our president to step to the side, those of us who are in the twilight years of our lives are anxious. Many of us wonder if someone will try to push us to the side in the coming days as our culture becomes increasingly enamored with the excitement of youth that is often blemished with stupidity.

Perhaps the president is too stubborn to admit that he needs to step to the side, or maybe folk who are more thirsty for power than loyalty are forcing the issue. Either way, those of us who are too far behind age-wise are wondering if there is someone who has started doubting us.

And the attached quandary goes along with that: Maybe it’s time for me to step aside from some position or responsibility I’ve held for the past decades.

As my poem at the beginning said, “Old age is upon, and I shan’t outrun it.”