Posted tagged ‘Bible’

Practicing The Presence of Christ…Behind The Steering Wheel

May 14, 2025

And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

I wouldn’t characterize myself as being a “road rager,” but perturbed and annoyed would fit me as comfortably as my twenty-five-year-old Michigan State sweatshirt, complete with holes in the armpits.

I hurl flaming insults at drivers and motorcyclists who dart in and out of traffic, elderly great-grandmothers who creep along like they’re looking at Christmas light displays, teens focused on their cellphones more than the road (Against the law in Colorado now, thank God!), and sunglassed adorned professionals driving BMW’s in entitled kinds of ways.

It hit me this week that I am negligent, downright clueless, about practicing the presence of Christ when I’m driving. I’m like Peter drawing his sword to cut off the ear of Malchus as Jesus is being arrested. The rough edges of my life surface when a steering wheel is in front of me. It’s easy to pray for a wayward soul to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life. On the other hand, it’s revealing of my personality and character flaws when I reduce the annonymous guy who just cut me off to being a moron.

Why can’t my first thought be to pray for the person, to pray that whatever is going on in his life that is filled with darkness could be spoken to by the whisper of God? Why is my first thought more along the lines of casting him…verbally…into the lake of fire?

Is practicing the presence of Christ while driving my Civic possible, or is it more like an episode of “The Twilight Zone”?

It seems like when a person has things going well and is feeling pretty good about his relationshiop with Jesus that there’s a nudging from the Holy Spirit about some wart that I don’t habve tried to not see. Notice I switched from a person to “I” as that sentence progressed.

I think I need to put a sticky note on my dash that says something like, “Don’t Cuss At Them! Pray For Them!” Or “An Erratic Driver May be a Sign of An Unsettled Life. Pray For Their Peace.” At other times I need a poster board glaring at me with the word “Repent, Bill!” written in glow-in-the-dark letters.

This is an experience that will be properly defined as being “still in progress.” As I climb behind the wheel, I need to remind myself to pray for the road miles ahead. Sometimes, I pray for safety, but I have not considered praying for others.

Of course, the question might be, “Does it matter?” If no one hears me muttering Baptist profanity, what difference does it make? The answer is more about seeking the mind of Christ and realizing that no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’m reflecting Him, reflecting just how intimate my relationship with Him is. Triple A estimates that the average person in the U.S. spends 55-60 minutes a day in an automobile. That’s roughly 300 hours a year.

I can choose to be a negative ninny for 300 hours a year or practice the presence of Christ, even if it in interstate gridlock.

PRAYER: Lord, I’ll try. I really will. In those moments when I revert to Peter with a sword ready to inflict pain and abuse, please forgive me. May You be my Driving Force!

HIJACKING WORSHIP

May 11, 2025

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.  No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.” (1 Corinthians 10:23-24)

The good thing about the Christian faith is the freedom we have as a result of Christ. The bad thing about the Christian faith—and the church—is that we have freedom as a result of Christ.

A puzzling contradiction, you say. Yes. We have the freedom to live for Jesus and a tendency to be free in spite of Jesus. When my agenda butts head with Jesus call, I often have a way of putting Jesus in the back pew so He doesn’t interrupt.

Worship becomes the incubator for the personal oozings of fractured people. In my years pastoring, the oozing and spewing happened in various ways. I remember saying the dreaded words, “Are there any other prayer requests?” Aunt Matilda’s hand would go up to share such intriguing news as the newest saga of her battle with gall stones. Uncle Wilbur needed to share with the congregation that he had sprayed the weeds on the north side of the building…so stay off the grass. Little Lucy asked for prayer for her daddy who had been flatuating like an elephant all week long.

And then there was the elderly hard-of-hearing lady who refused the devices the church had to help people hear, but she always felt free enough to tell the guest speaker to speak up because she couldn’t hear him.

And then there was the lady who felt called to be a worship leader and was going to impress the congregation with her talent and words from the Lord for an insufferable amount of time. Her word was much more important than the pastor’s sermon that he had put at least twenty hours into preparing.

And then there was the traditionalist who would visually show his disdain for any praise song, but overly expressive himself when any hymn was sung. It was as if anything written after 1950 could not be inspired by the Holy Spirit. A Sunday where more praise music was sung than hymns would always be followed up with a ferocious letter to the pastor about letting Satan become a resident of the music people.

On the other hand, there was the lady who used the eighteen verses (with the same words) to display her latest dance class moves, swiveling hips and swinging elbows included.

Or the young man who volunteered to do special music and, unbeknownst to the pastor, launched into the hit song by the Village People, “Y.M.C.A”, including the forming of each letter.

Or the elderly gentleman who volunteered to do the invocation prayer, which he used to inform the congregation who they should vote for in the upcoming election.

Or the visiting woman who, in the midst of the service, informed the congregation that the Christmas tree in the sanctuary was a symbol of the demonic.

In essence, just like the Corinthian church, there are various ways we still find the freedom to hijack worship and display the truth that we have not moved very far away from the warped congregation that the Apostle Paul had to spend an exorbitant amount of time trying to correct the course of.

Lord, help us!

The “Meh” Birthday

May 4, 2025

“The sun comes up, and the sun goes down,
    then does it again, and again—the same old round.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:5, The Message)

Tomorrow, I hit 71! My brother tells me it’s one of those “Meh” birthdays. It’s hard to get excited about it. It’s like ordering vanilla at Baskin-Robbins. Who does that??? Probably 71-year-olds.

I tried to find a scripture that would help me understand “meh-ism”, but all I found were numerous references in Proverbs about being a sluggard, getting spit out of Jesus’ mouth for being lukewarm (Revelation), and making the best use of my time because we live in evil times (Ephesians).

“Meh moments” hit all of us. Next year’s 72 will have a bit of entertainment to me, since I graduated from Ironton High School in ’72.’ On the other hand, each birthday reminds me of the fact that more of my Fighting Tigers classmates are no longer fighting. Their fight has ended.

Kind of a dreary thought.

I find it harder these days to battle through the “meh-ism” than the more intense difficulties of lower back pain, athletes I’m coaching who need their attitude adjusted, driving in the midst of psycho drivers, and managing my hunger for fried foods as my cholesterol level is screaming at me.

Some days, I’m like Simon Peter after Jesus has been crucified. He’s at a loss as to what to do, so he goes back to fishing because…”What else is a guy to do?”

My roots watered with Baptist guilt, shower upon me disbelief in how I have just wasted a whole day without getting anything constructive done. On “Meh Days”, a person tends to keep asking, “Why? What’s the point?”

I know, I know, I’m sounding like a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. Hitting 71, however, gives me a new perspective on the subject of meaninglessness. Tomorrow is my birthday…and it just is.

I think hitting 71 will tell me that it’s okay to sigh, to not be as excited as a Colorado Rockies every time they unexpectedly win a game, or also as depressed as the same fans on the regularity of their defeats. It’s okay to trust that the Master will guide me through the day, to nor have to always be behind the steering wheel. dictating to Him like an Uber driver on the clock.

As it also says in Ecclesiastes 1, “There is a time for everything…a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away…a time to love and a time to hate.”

Tomorrow is just…a time. Another day, I will lean on Jesus to pull me through.

Avoiding Saturday

April 27, 2025

 “The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:62-64)

Recently, I was joking with a friend who attends a mega-church. They were having two Saturday evening services and three services on Easter Sunday. I asked him if they changed the words to the Resurrection Sunday songs they sing for the Saturday services, like “He’s Almost Risen” and “He Lives…in a While.”

Actually, he and his wife are a part of a very good congregation that does a ton of service in the community. I’m just a stickler for tradition, like celebrating Jesus’ resurrection on the day of the week that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.

Sorry to be such a “Debbie-downer”, but going deeper (or perhaps backing up), it seems that part of the death and resurrection of Jesus’ story, the part we tend to skate over, is the silence of Saturday after the agony of Friday. Holy Saturday was a day of waiting.

We don’t wait well. We don’t like silence. We don’t like uncertainty. Holy Saturday was a day of all three. It’s easy to skip ahead to the flowery, Easter-lily-ied, dress-up-in-our-Easter-suits-and-dresses day when the tomb was empty. Empty of the grief and full of expectation.

Saturday would make us think and consider the quiet of our room or, for the disciples, the quiet of the room they were locked inside of. Saturday is more about the misery and confusion of Job. It’s the day when we wrestle with the questions “Why?” and “What now?”

Holy Saturday, however, does not draw a crowd. Unlike the funeral of Pope Francis, people don’t flock to gatherings for contemplation and remembrance.

Pointing the finger back at myself, there have been a number of “Saturdays” in my life that I have tried to avoid. When a friend, ministry colleague, and mentor, Ben Dickerson, had a sudden heart attack and was on life support for several days, it was a “Saturday” journey. We prayed for his restoration. We wanted the tubes attached to his body to be gone and Ben to be back with us. We wanted to have a conversation with him and to have him share what God had been saying to him. The Saturday, however, stretched out into day after day of unfulfilled hope. When I spoke at his funeral, I had a difficult time keeping it together.

That loss is twenty years in the rearview mirror and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Yesterday, like a Saturday.

And yet, the Saturdays of our lives shape us and condition us for our Sundays. Loss is sometimes the prerequisite for gain. Holy silence precedes exultation and transformed lives.

oly SaturdayI’ll continue to razz my friend about the not-quite Easter Sunday services, but not too much. He knows I’m a Baptist. We have a history of making Mother’s Day the third holy holiday and singing eighty-nine verses of “Just As I Am,” after which we leave just as we have been.

Loser-Friendly Christianity

April 17, 2025

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

Following Jesus is for losers. Seriously, if you are afraid of losing you will end up being a square peg trying to fit on a wooden cross.

Once in a while, when I encounter one of my students who seems to be the center of the universe, I make a point with my finger and draw an imaginary circle around it. Then I say, “Is this you, and is this the world that revolves around…you?” Following Jesus means having Him at the center and my actions, decisions, words, attitudes, schedule, finances, and life revolves around Him. When a person follows Jesus, he loses something.

Jesus accepts losers. The world has a hard time being that merciful.

If there is a downside to that, it’s that the faith community of Jesus accepts people that no one else would…and some of those people use that to their advantage. Advantage means that they are still the center of their universes, and they know that followers of Jesus are suckers for hard-luck stories. Like scam emails about owing money to the state’s toll road system, they sound authentic. Most followers of Jesus have had their heartstrings pulled by a few of the folk who bring tears to our eyes.

Yet, Jesus doesn’t shake His head at us and seem bewildered by the mercy of those who follow Him. His kingdom is populated with those who have lost themselves in finding Him. There is community in this mass of losers.

That doesn’t compute with those whose lives are centered on achievement. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father is trying to get his elder son to understand the reason for celebrating the younger son’s return from waywardness. He says to the older son, who is noticeably peeved at his brother’s return,  “‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:31-32)
The church is loser-friendly. When we LOSE sight of that, we lose the connection with our roots and God’s grace.

One more thing! Followers of Jesus need to be sensitive to “evangelistic arrogance.” That is, seeing those who have not experienced the love and grace of God as “second-class losers,” as if they are less of a person and spiritually stupid. That might sound weird, but followers of Jesus can take on the elder son’s perspective and sum up the picture as an “Us and Them” situation.

All of us are lost. It’s just that some of us have been found. We’re called to be friendly to those who are late arriving at the loser-friendly party.



Footwashing

April 5, 2025

“After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13:5)

Perhaps the most counter-cultural story in the gospels is when Jesus washes His disciples’ feet. Not that someone washing another person’s feet was uncommon. That’s what servants did for their masters. With the dusty roads of Israel, washing feet was for cleanliness and protection against disease.

But servants did it, not rabbis, or teachers, or…messiahs.

And then Jesus got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed feet. Peter protested, although he never offered to return the favor or take Jesus’s place. In my Kentucky roots, I can hear one of my aunts telling me as I’m getting up from the table to get something from the kitchen, “You sit down there and let somebody else get that for you.”

Jesus didn’t let someone else do it for Him. This was Him. This was a visual lesson on how the gospel is countercultural. In my middle and high school teaching and coaching experiences, having someone take the role of the servant or sacrifice for the team is not a common occurrence. Even Jesus’s disciples had a heated argument about which one of them was the greatest.

At my middle school, one of the ways a student’s bad behavior is dealt with is that he/she spends an hour after school helping one of the custodians clean up. One day, a sixth-grade girl who I had coached in cross-country was helping. I was surprised because she had been excellent this past fall. When I inquired about her, the custodian spoke up and said that she was volunteering to help them two days a week after school. That’s counter-cultural.

Most of us strive for prominence and prestige…top dog…but Jesus flipped the script. Even His entry into Jerusalem prior before the foot-washing episode had people thinking He was coming to be crowned the new king, when He was coming to begin His passion walk.

He flipped the script. Now we might say that “We GET saved by the GIVING of His sacrifice so that we might GIVE as a result of what we have GOTTEN.”

Amen!

Volun-told

March 22, 2025


He directed two of his disciples, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him. Ask the owner of whichever house he enters, ‘The Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there.” (Mark 14:13-15)

There’s a new term that I guess I missed. “Volun-told.”

It’s when no hands go up in the air, and something needs to be done. It’s Jesus saying to a couple of his disciples, “Go…” There’s a task at hand even when there isn’t a raised hand.

At school, whenever I need someone to take the class attendance slip to the office, there are so many students willing to volunteer, it’s like a rush for Taylor Swift concert tickets. Getting out of class for three minutes and strolling down the school corridor is savored by every student halfway interested in the body paragraphs of an essay construction. Heck! I’m interested, but I remind myself that I’m the teacher.

Jesus often “voluntold” his disciples to be about a task. Perhaps it’s because the gospels were written in a different language, but Jesus never said please when telling one of his disciples to do something. The only time he said please was in reference to “pleasing His Father.”

A disciple follows the one who is the teacher and, in doing that, follows the commands of the One directing. There is a trust factor involved in it. The disciple trusts in the guidance of the Leader.

Just my opinion, but I believe churches are populated with people who are waiting to be voluntold what to do. New people in the community of faith are especially in need of being voluntold. They are like the disciples of Jesus, unfamiliar with systems and procedures, needs and wants. Like a sports fan at a new arena searching for the section that his seat is in, they’re willing but uncertain.

On the other hand, there are a few manipulative people in faith communities who are prone to lay guilt trips on those who are a bit uncertain and vulnerable. If a request includes words like, “Jesus would want you to do this…” or “Anyone who calls themselves a Christian wouldn’t hesitate to say yes,” it’s manipulation in full throttle.

Jesus never commanded the disciples to do something that He thought was beyond them, even casting out demons. He raised the bar regarding their capabilities. He maximized their potential. So many followers of Jesus are uncertain of their potential. To be voluntold needs that element of the leader’s faith. In her charge there is the tone that says, “I believe in you!”

To be voluntold is to insinuate that people are on the same team and have the same goals and objectives. Sometimes, the church doesn’t need a committee to decide on how the squeak in the entry door is to be cured. Just tell Jim to do it, and it will get done yesterday!

The Outward Appearance

February 21, 2025

You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.” (Matthew 5:36-37)

Coaching basketball at the high school level this year has been challenging at times. I enjoy the time spent improving the skills and game understanding of the freshman and sophomore girls. They’ve made significant strides during the course of the last three and a half months.

One observation that has caused me to shake my head is the team tee shirts that different teams wear that say things like “Never Quit,” “No One Works Harder,” and “Hustle Defines Us.” When the game begins or the practice proceeds, it has often been my experience that the words on the shirt are in contradiction to the play or effort on the court. When little Johnny doesn’t get his shots or the amount of playing time he wants, a more accurate shirt would say, “Selfishness Defines Me” or “It’s Have Attitude Problems.”

Sometimes, the outward appearance is in sharp contrast to the reality of the situation.

Sadly, I find this is also true for a large number of churches. Sometimes, the church marquee that says “All Are Welcome” could be an antonym for what the truth is inside the doors. Grace and peace are two hopes that are often shoved to the side. Social media is the new connection piece for congregations to get their name and look out there. It’s one of the two main ways that people find a church home, the other being as a result of someone who is a part of the church and invites them to join them on a Sunday morning or Saturday night.

The outward appearance is always shiny, populated by smiling faces young and old, and committed to quality products to promote that “All are welcome here” mindset. Once in a while a church lays the truth out there right from the beginning. Like a church I know of back in Ohio that has a long list on their marquee of what defines them: King James Bible, Gospel Preaching, Soul-winning, Fundamentalist, Independent. They tell the truth right up front, more like a barbed wire fence to keep out the riff-raff.

Biblically-speaking, that’s the refreshing point of 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul draws a picture for us of the church at Corinth. It would make for a good reality TV series. They’re not very welcoming and considerate. They’re taking each other to court, and their sexual conduct could be defined as “steamy” at best. They’ve been prone to following personalities and displaying a kind of spiritual superiority. It’s a great depiction of what the reality of church life is sometimes.

Not that churches today should put it right out there on their sign: “We sin a lot here and do things that make Jesus cry.” Maybe a nicer way of putting the truth out there is to say something like, “Under Construction and Completely Forgiven.”

Meanwhile, I leave the gym after a game thinking the team shirts are about as accurate as the players’ three-point shooting. I think the shirt should say, “Can’t Throw It in the Ocean!” or “My parents say that defense is optional, but the offense is necessary.” Maybe one boy will have a unique, personalized shirt that says, “The Coach Doesn’t Like Me! That’s why I’m at the end of this bench!”

Those things probably won’t happen because, as we know, “The truth hurts!”

Bad Wisdom

February 2, 2025

 “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

In my seven decades I’ve run into a few people who have no common sense, and yet they seem to have this idea that wisdom is their strong suit. It’s their reason for being on earth, their calling. Following their advice would be comparable to a train being redirected onto another track that leads to disaster. A trainwreck, as we call it.

In the Old Testament the majority of the book of Job consists of Job’s “friends” giving their advice and wisdom. Think Lucy Van Pelt of the Peanuts comic strip sitting at a booth with the marquee “Psychiatric Help- 5 Cents.” Job gets peppered by Bildad, Eliphaz, and Elihu. Each takes their swings at him, trying to make him see that everything is his fault…the loss of his kids, his livestock, his servants, even the sores on his body. Job 2:11 says that they “…heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

It’s not that they were trying to be mean and accusatory like the senators at a Senate Hearing. His friends had already made up their minds that bad things happen to bad people or people who have done something bad. Pain and suffering were because the person had stepped out of the boundaries that God had set. Their wisdom was tainted, to begin with. They had bad theology, which always leads to wisdom that is suspect.

At the end of Job’s story, God says to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

The harsh truth is that we live in a culture that is pimpled with bad theology and dumbed-down wisdom. We give an ear to crackpots who can be wordsmiths of ludicrousness. Since our foundational beliefs are wind-driven by the latest cultural myths, we waver and stagger aimlessly.

Job’s friends felt like he had to have an intervention to get him straightened out again. The good news is that Job was solid enough in his relationship with God that he deflected and refuted their dubious directives.

Oh, that our foundation would be solid enough to figure out what is horse manure in a culture that has lost its sense of smell.

TikTok, MLK, and Jesus

January 20, 2025


“…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth…” (Philippians 2:10)

There was the sound of gnashing teeth and loud moaning in my youth Sunday School class yesterday. It wasn’t because of the extremely frigid temperature outside or the news of the severe famine in Somalia. In fact, most of my students don’t know where Somalia is. Instead of the cold of the Colorado morning and the malnutrition of African children, the students were weeping over the end of TikTok, or rather the end of their access to TikTok. They had been greeted with a warning that rivaled the Surgeon General’s words now printed on every pack of cigarettes, except worse. Smokers still have a choice. Tik Tok’ers don’t.

I pondered the “tearing of their cloaks” through the rest of Sunday. On Martin Luther King Day this morning, millions of African Americans remember what injustice was in life-altering ways before the Civil Rights Act. They faced much more than being unable to access videos on their cell phones. They were excluded, separated, diminished, abused, ridiculed, and characterized, at best, as second-class citizens. They didn’t have a voice, and their cries fell on deaf. After the Civil Rights Act, they still had to face oppression, exclusion, and persecution. Government legislation rarely is able to erase the hatred that is harbored in the hearts of people.

Interestingly enough, on this date in 1918, during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, all the places of worship were closed, and all religious instruction was outlawed. In essence, Jesus was told to take a hike from the country. Hundreds of Russian Orthodox bishops and priests were executed. Protestant Christians were imprisoned or sent to mental hospitals. Churches became the property of the government. It was a campaign to eliminate religion from Russian society.

Life is populated with injustices and adjustments. The two are often mingled into one. Because of their inconvenience, life adjustments are often characterized as injustices. Whereas, some of them could very well be, in other situations we have come to see that we are entitled to have them. For example, the uproar from students at my middle school when cell phones were banned from being used during the school day as a result of how they were impacting classroom instruction.

Meantime, injustices are often accompanied by adjustments. In Russia, the underground church developed as a result of religious persecution. The Jesus Who was told to take a hike was still a resident in the hearts and minds of His followers.

African Americans adjusted to the injustices of racial oppression by expecting it and protesting in non-violent ways about it. The images of people being beaten and churches being bombed gained a hearing from those who were appalled by the inhumanity.

I sympathize with the loss of TikTok, at least temporarily, for those who have come to use it on a daily basis. Like our expectations that the flight we booked a few months in advance will be on time and then we’re told at the airport that it has been cancelled, the inconvenience and frustration we experience makes one want to bang his head against the wall.

Head-banging and having your head banged are two different plot lines. In a way, one is self-inflicted, and the other is inflicted on us. There’s a difference. Just read what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11. Now, there was some serious injustice and persecution!