Laura's Challenge

 

On Sunday May 5, 2024, Rev. Dr. Laura Harbert delivered a sermon from her heart titled “We Become What We Behold!” I have found that when I write from the heart, that is when I am at my best and I appreciate when others do the same. Laura brought God’s word to us through her cornerstone verse:

2 Corinthians 3: 17-18 – “¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (NIV)

We are being transformed from what are into something we are not now. This is always the case throughout life and the transformative power comes from that which we behold, what we consume, what we take into ourselves. If we consume hate and falsehood, we become the purveyors of hatred, loathing, and lies. If we come to the Lord’s Table with repentance in our hearts and consume the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5: 22) – then this is what we will become.

To achieve this, to become more like Christ, I need to humbly and in repentance, keep myself on the Potter’s Wheel so that he can continue to transform this lump of clay more clearly into his image.

Reverend Laura’s challenge to me is to make a list of where I behold God’s Glory and to reflect on those things. Okay, she didn’t phrase it as a challenge but instead said, “This would be one homework assignment I would love to give each one of you. Make a list of where you behold God’s Glory. Who are the people who show you God’s Glory? What are the places that stir up God’s Glory? What are the things, where do you behold God’s Glory?” Me, being a recovering jock, have taken this as a challenge and my reply follows this link to her sermon if you would like to be touched and transformed:

Sermon 5–5-2024 “We Become What We Behold!” by Rev. Laura Harbert (youtube.com)

These are some of the places, things, and people that allow me to behold God’s Glory:

V I see Jesus in the smile of my children and their children and in the trust in their eyes. That is the spiritual fruit of love.

V I see God’s hand in a failed project that touches someone’s heart despite my failure. This is God’s grace and the spiritual fruit of faithfulness.
V My Lord speaks to me when a young teen, covered in dust, concrete, paint, and sweat smiles and can’t wait to do it again. This is faithfulness and joy in His goodness.
V He whispers to me when I hear the symphony played by nature’s orchestra – the rustling of leaves, gurgling of the brook, calling birds, and solitude. This fruit of the spirit is peace.

V I sense his presence while being part of a well ridden series of ess-turns by a group of expert riders. That is the spiritual fruit of joy.
V I feel God near me when I see the bonds of an old grudge against man or God broken. This is the faithfulness of the Great Healer.
V Seeing someone deep into solitude touches my heart with Jesus’ kindness.
V I hear God’s voice in Cindy’s laughter as it drifts into the office or upstairs while she’s on the phone or with friends or family. This one thing is the fruit of joy, love, and goodness.
V My kids in love show me God’s love for us all, for God is love.
V Cynene. She is all the fruits of the Spirit…
V I am transformed by the flight of a red-tailed hawk, my every-man bird, and hearing its call of joy and exhilaration. When I look at the intarsia hawk my dad me and read his inscription, “Together in His grip”, I am reminded of God’s goodness and mercy.
V I see God presence in Jim’s laughter, Michael’s wit, and Doug’s indominable loyalty – the love of friends of the past, present, and future are all the fruits of the spirit.
V Any chance encounter with one of God’s creatures speaks of himself.

V The unsolicited ‘good morning’ from a fellow walker, hitherto unknown to each other, reminds me of Jesus oneness. Perhaps the response to the smile and look of wonder on my own face as I think on this list is what inspired them to offer up the ‘good morning’.
V The turn of a good phrase like, “Fear not, for I am with you” (Isaiah 41:10) excites me to write. That is faithfulness.
V Seeing a scraped knee tended to by a parent, sibling, teacher, or even a stranger screams of Jesus’ gentleness and kindness.

For as long as I live, I won’t be able to list them all and, as you can see by my collage, there is room for more and blanks have been left in anticipation.

Make your own list, create your own collage, and dwell on those things where you behold His Glory.

In His grip,

jerry

Gun Lap

 

In track and field, a bell-lap is the last lap of a race during which a bell is rung to signify the start of the final lap. Bell-laps are typically used on longer races on oval tracks, 1500 meters or 1 mile and longer. Gun-lap is another term and method and is defined by my friend Webster as, “the final lap of a race in track signaled by the firing of a gun as the leader begins the lap.” In auto racing, a white flag is waved at each racer as they cross the start/finish line for their final lap. At Golden Gate Porsche Club driver education weekends, the track Starter (or the preferred King God Flag Guy) points at each driver with the index finger and then down to the track as they enter the last lap of their run.

Using some crude math and a 1-Mile race in my analogy, I am in the Gun Lap. My parents passed away just shy of 90-years old, I’m just shy of 70 which is .77777 percent of their ages which puts me in lap four of a four-lap race. The gun has sounded, the bell has wrung, and the King God Flag Guy has pointed to me and the track letting me know I need to finish strong. The whisperings of the Holy Spirit confirm it.

If life is a marathon, and mine has been anything but a sprint, I have either come through the wall or am about to. ‘The Wall’ in long distance running is a point where the body’s glycogen stores have been depleted and the body no longer has the fuel to continue running. One source puts the wall at about 18.64 miles and another simply says, ‘around the 20-mile mark’. Using my .77777 percent figure, I would be at 20.3574 miles in my marathon. There are days I slog through and others are over before I’ve done a lick. I need to find an alternative fuel source if I want to finish my marathon well.

Hebrews 12: 1-2a: ¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ^2aLet us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (an alternative fuel source if ever there was one).

Years ago, maybe a lifetime gone by, my dad gave me a copy of the book, Finishing Well by Bob Buford. The men’s group Dad met with in Grants Pass, Oregon was going through the book and he wanted me to keep pace with them. If I was there on a Thursday during a visit, I would go with him. Good men all around the table. I’ve regretted not keeping pace and engaging with him through this study and have begun reading it on my own to get myself back in the race.

What do I mean when I say, “finish well”? Ken Blanchard, Coauthor of The Servant Leader and The One Minute Manager, wrote the forward to Buford’s book. In his forward, he talks about asking people, “Would you like the world to be a better place for your having been here?” “What’s your plan?” Goodness yes. As a Christian, oh God yes but what does this mean? I imagine that a large portion of finishing well is finding and doing the Will of the Father. On September 6, 2022, I published a post entitled Off the Bench. That was the start of me finding my answer to what finishing well means.

1/4 Mile Track Layout

There is a problem with all my math and analogies – I don’t know and can’t know where I am is this last lap. Look at the diagram above. Have I just entered the Clubhouse Turn? Am I coming out at the ¾ Pole? Am I cruising the backstretch, diving into the Far Turn, or making my last sprint down the Homestretch? How do I know if I have even one stride left?

James 4: 13-15: ¹³Now Listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵Intead, you ought to say, “if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

My first step in finishing well is to determine to do so. This is followed closely by figuring out what it will look like for me. Have I hit the wall? If so, I must find the supernatural source of energy to replace everything I’ve exhausted. I must fix my eyes on Jesus who is not only the author and perfector of my faith but is the tape at the finish line. To finish well I need to exhaust everything that is me, there is no need for it once the finish line is crossed.

One of the greatest depictions of finishing well is a scene from Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddell, played by Ian Charleson, is running “to the Glory of God” and has trained for the 100-meter sprint but must withdraw because of the race is being held on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. He was given a spot in the 400-meter race, a much longer race by far and demands pacing. In the Clubhouse Turn he is knocked to the ground but gets up to finish and win the race. Upon hitting the tape, he collapses and eventually must be carried off the field by friends. This is finishing well. If you’ve a mind to, catch the YouTube clip from the link below.

Get up and finish the race from Chariots of Fire: Get up and finish the race 

Can I get up when knocked down and how then can I truly finish well? By doing my very best to make every stride glorify God, take every breath in the knowledge that Jesus has authored the finish.

Go now, train for your race, practice finishing well each day.

In His grip,

jerry

Psst...Trust Me

  

She'll run like a charm, trust me.

Psst…Trust Me

Early in 2021, I was one of nine individuals who were asked and accepted a nomination to be elected to a select committee of the La Crescenta Presbyterian Church, our home church. We were elected unanimously by the congregation without receiving nominations from the floor, volunteers from those present, and without debate. Apparently, no one else was clamoring to be on the Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) charged with finding the replacement for our longtime and beloved pastor who had announced his and his wife’s intention to move on to a new call, this one in the missionary field, a place where their hearts lay as well as the heart of the congregation.

NCAA Basketball fans will get this analogy without blinking and most will understand it. Imagine taking over for Coach John Wooden (Wizard of Westwood) upon his retirement as the UCLA Men’s Basketball coach. It took Coach Wooden several years to build his program to the point where they won 10 NCAA championships over a 12-year period, with a string of seven in a row. Only one other college program has more than seven in their history - Kentucky has eight over a 64-year period. How do you follow an act like that? How do you find a person to establish a culture of excellence of their own when expectations run so high? No wonder we didn’t have a line out the door of smiling people eager for the task of finding the next pastor.

I should not have said yes. My parents had passed away ten weeks apart only two or three months previous, I was steeped in managing their estate based in Oregon, and due to the pandemic, hadn’t been able to mourn properly or celebrate their life with family and friends, and I was a wreck. I had no right to nod my head and accept this blessing but God was at work and I desperately needed to see His hand in action, to be met by Him in ways as he so often has over my life. I cannot say that I did not look back once I put my hand to the plow (see Luke 9:62). I was days away from bowing out but knew one of us needed to exit the task more than I as her husband was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Even though I knew I was not fit for this service, I knew this – that God’s Grace is sufficient.

In somewhat typical fashion for our church, we didn’t go strictly by the book for this process. If you know much about Presbyterians, you should know we have a book for anything we do. Our outgoing pastor stayed on in an interim capacity while the search went on and our committee was tasked to complete our Mission Information Form (MIF) which is typically done by a separate and specific committee before handing the work over to the PNC.

I struggled here to find the right word for our task, to call it a journey is to belittle what we went through. Journeys are simply defined as ‘A going from one place to another usually of some distance’. I had to scroll down the list of related words my friend Webster was giving me and rejected hop, jaunt, cruise, walkabout to settle on quest, closely followed by odyssey, hike, slog and tramp. We did all those things in our search for the person called by God from time immemorial to be our next pastor.

Make no mistake about this, we knew what we were called to and what was placed in our hands – a Sacred Trust. To a person, we approached our job as a Sacred Trust, entrusted by our congregation to find someone to lead us, guide us deeper into discipleship, closer to Jesus and we were trusted by Jesus to find his Will. We opened every meeting (at least weekly for two years plus interviews and special weekends) with scripture and prayer. Each of us committed ourselves to prayer and fasting in our own fashion. We slogged, trodged (sic), and waded our way through close to 100 Pastor Information Forms (PIFs), dozens of interviews, four neutral pulpit weekends, two, yes two invitations to the call, and one Candidating Weekend that culminated in the vote of the congregation with the landslide ‘Yes’ result. Praise God!

As an aside, let me ask you a quick rhetorical question here, would you have clicked on the link if I correctly named this post A Sacred Trust? Or would you have read this far? Rhetoric aside, we all have a sacred trust to complete.

We laughed, cried, cajoled, rolled our eyes, and wondered at God’s wisdom to put us in such a place. We were humbled by the enormity of the task, heartened by the quality of men and women we interviewed, and amazed at the wisdom of each of the other people on our committee. We were likely sacrilegious from time to time. My suggestion to use my ‘Daily Decision’ app to make the choice from our short list comes to mind. Hey, the 11 Apostles cast lots to find Judas’ replacement, didn’t they? And they’d been in Jesus’ presence for three and half years. Fortunately, nobody took me seriously.

Even with all that going on, the Sacred Trust and Task proceeded as God willed. My choice of the photo I used to draw you in is apt. We were not looking for a shiny new pastor right off the Seminary showroom floor. We knew, or at least trusted, that the used model wouldn’t be a clunker nobody else wanted. The reality is, we didn’t know what make or model we would find or how many miles they had traveled. We placed our own sacred trust in God chiming our spiritual bells and letting us know which one to call.

Our congregation showed us grace, patience, and unwavering support. We would not have succeeded without it. Our Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry (COM) assigned us a pastor to support and guide us on our quest, a man who we could easily have picked to pastor the church. This man and his wife, also an ordained pastor, then came alongside the congregation to take over as interim pastor and have brought us through a period of healing and focused intention to prepare the way for our new pastor. As our interim pastor, his own Sacred Trust, he has made big asks of our PNC, the individuals on the committee and in the congregation, and the entire congregation. We needed the wake-up call to be intentional in our desire for God’s Will with this new direction.

Our trust was rewarded. The trust of the congregation was rewarded. The Sacred Trust has been fulfilled and our new pastor will be in our pulpit on July 2.

Thank you for reading and sharing a little bit of what our quest was like, our Sacred Trust. Now, go out and find a spiritual walkabout of your own, a Sacred Trust you can undertake. Our Lord will be by your side and the value is measureless.

In His grip,

jerry

My Heart Held Hostage

 

My Heart Held Hostage

I am rarely without my friend Webster except for those rare occasions when I am off the grid or phoneless, like when I take a shower. Webster doesn’t go there with me. He and I were discussing something that has been on my heart now for weeks and he says this regarding the word ‘Hostage’:

1a - person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement. 1b – a person taken by force to secure the taker’s demands. (Merriam-Webster smartphone ap)

I must confess. The reason ‘hostage’ has been on my heart is because I am holding my heart hostage, as I frequently do. It looks sort of like this: ‘If the Dodgers win, I’ll do this; if they lose, I get to do that.’, ‘If they call, I’ll do this for them.’, ‘If that guy signals to get into my lane, I’ll let him in with a smile; if they don’t signal, to darn bad for them!’, ‘If this happens, then I’ll serve God today.’ – and so on.

When I am in that mode of operation, even if the outcome is what I want, I won’t really get all the benefits that I could have. In fact, my heart will be marred and not truly free. Just like hostages in a bank takeover need therapy for PTSD when they are released, so will my heart therapy. It is a no-win situation. The minute I chain up my heart, I’ve lost.

Rather than go to God and put demands on him for the Dodgers to win for him to get what he wants from me, I need to enjoy the game for what it is and give in to the Lord and be his servant. Except for maybe today when they lose 0-13, there is no joy in a game like that, so I should just turn it off and write something that might touch someone and meet them where they need to be met or when on the road I need to be gracious and not be surly and even if they don’t call, I need to be there for them.

It gets more serious when my heart is held hostage over my walk of faith. If I hold back because our worship isn’t the way I like it or even go so far as to think I’ll change churches if it’s not my favorite way and at the time I want it to be, then I have lost and however I worship will not be all that pleasing to the Lord. I cannot say to myself that I will reject my church if the church does not take a particular stand, then I have lost and even the service I do give the church will gain me little and my effectiveness will be limited.

It is not until I raise my hands in surrender that raising my hands in worship hits the mark.

1 Corinthians 12: 17b – “But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.”

I confess that over the years, and there have been many for me, I have on occasion been flummoxed enough to pray about moving on. Thankfully, that verse in 1 Corinthians is etched on my heart and I’ve sought the Lord rather than let my emotions get the best of me and ride out of town. I’m too simple a person to understand the whole purpose of God for me, I must listen.

It is not until I take a knee and swear fealty to God that my heart will be unchained.

The writer in me thinks of it like this – when I go through life writing my story and working to fit God into it, the plot ultimately falls apart and the story makes no sense. What I need to do is figure out how to chronical God’s story and my place it. Then the plot works itself out and makes sense.

As I am encouraging myself to unchain my heart from being a hostage against my own desires, I encourage you to do so as well.

In His grip,

jj white

Gear Up!

 

All-The-Gear-All-The-Time

Judging by the title of this post one might think I have put it up on the wrong blog and that it belongs on Iron Side Up rather than here at Calvary’s Thread. While I have posted about gear in my biker/travel blog, I have this post in its correct space.

As a motorcyclist, I subscribe to ATGATT – All-The-Gear-All-The-Time. For the bridge from biker reference to my Christian faith I refer to Ephesians 6:10-18:

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

My church, La Crescenta Presbyterian Church, adopted the following as part of our mission statement:

“We are a community of imperfect people, united by God’s Spirit, discovering new life in Christ. Our mission is to love God with all our heart, love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and grow as disciples of Jesus, as we make new disciples.”

There is an idiom that comes to mind, “Be careful what you wish for.”

One of my favorite westerns is “Tombstone” staring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. In a pivotal scene, Marshall Earp is standing over Ike Clanton with a double-barreled shotgun as he says, “All right, Clanton…you called down the thunder, well now you’ve got it!”

We have put up our mission statement on our website for billions of people with internet access to see and read. We have called down the thunder and we had best gear up.

I am a part of the Pastor Nominating Committee now searching for a new pastor for our church. Almost without exception of the dozens of pastors we have interviewed, they have pointed to our mission statement as something that attracts them to us. There is more to the mission statement than I quoted here but this is the piece they point out and tell us that this is what the church, any church, should be all about.

Invariably, the pastor God has called to us and for whom we search for will be passionate about growing disciples who will make new disciples and they will “call down the thunder” for us to rise to the challenge. Speaking for myself, I had better gear up and put aside any qualms I have about sharing my faith or teaching others and helping them grow in Christ. I cannot go out and buy this armor at my local Christian Book Store – it is ‘the full armor of God’. It’s His, and by grace, He offers it to me.

A pastor so ardent for the Gospel, for the deepening of discipleship in their church, and for making disciples in a broken world will want a community of faith which knows this requires a total commitment on a 24X7 basis; nothing half-hearted, half-lived, or half-baked. And because ‘we are a community of imperfect people’ we will need the great blessing of His Grace ‘in good measure, pressed down and overflowing’ (Luke 6:38, KJV).

Be alert and gear up people!

In His grip and in His armor,

jerry

 Note: On March 25, 2020 I posted on Iron Side Up “ATGATT”. Just so y’all know.

Dear Santa, Thank You

 

Dear Santa, Thank You

I am currently serving on La Crescenta Presbyterian Church’s Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC). The church placed a Santa Claus mailbox out front. On a lark, I wrote a quick note to Santa that read as follows: “Dear Santa, Please send us a new pastor. Preferably a shepherd after God’s own heart” and signed it with my name with a little PNC under it.

It is a miracle, Santa replied. He wrote a most welcome letter, heartfelt and hopeful, full of gratitude and humility toward the Greatest Gift Giver.

I will let the letter speak for itself:

Rest assured, though our journey as a committee has been long and arduous and seasoned with a little heartbreak, we are hopeful. We know God has for us a pastor after His own heart and he will be here in God’s own timing. And, the Lord meets us on the way…

My dad crafted a piece of intarsia, a work of art made from various types and colors of wood and using little, if any, stains. The piece he made is of a Red-tailed Hawk, my favorite bird. He signed it “For ‘Stick’ Together in His grip”.

So I will sign off on this post in the same way…Together in His grip.

jj white

Build Your Trellis

 

jj's trellis

Peter Scazzero from his book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS) while writing about a ‘Rule of Life’: “Please don’t be intimidated by the word rule. The word comes from the Greek for ‘trellis.’ A trellis is tool that enables a grapevine to get off the ground and grow upward, becoming more fruitful and productive.”

Under the direction of our interim Pastor Mike Harbert, La Crescenta Presbyterian Church trekked through EHS where we learned that a Rule of Life acts as a trellis helping us to be more intentional and live in Christ and to be more fruitful. Our trellis is a structure that takes into consideration our unique set of gifts and spiritual practices and helps us to focus on God in all we do.

There were eight sessions where we first met as a large group divided into table groups for shared prayer, periods of silence, viewing video materials, and continuing through work sessions. Upon completion of the series many table groups opted to continue for two or three weeks for a deeper look into the material. Our table opted to delve into creating our own ‘Rule of Life’ by sharing our experiences and plans for our own Rule.

Craig, a co-leader of our table-group of six men, brought a package of materials he’d gleaned from his personal study and research on the topic, one for each of us. Between what Craig brought us and the information from EHS we had and have plenty of tools and materials to construct and maintain our own trellis.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a visual person relying on circuit diagrams, stick maps of microwave systems, sketches of basketball plays, timelines, and stuff like that. For my work to build a trellis I went to PowerPoint, thus the diagram shown above. Over the last few years I’ve grown into a person who has increasingly relied on writing to grapple with subjects and my thoughts about them, thus this post.

If you look at my sketch you might notice there are stakes and cross members that are blank. Mine is a work in progress and likely will be for the foreseeable future. I’ve set my stakes in the soil where the seeds of my grapevine will be planted, or roses, if you prefer. I’ve enriched the soil with a phrase I cling to, “His grace is enough because His sacrifice is complete.” Without grace I have no hope in having a healthy vine or a sound trellis. I am using the stakes to show the various Spiritual Disciplines upon which I will hang my cross members and I have noted in blue the activities I hope to engage in under those disciplines. The cross members I am putting up are the more detailed activities I plan to pursue and that incorporate the basic elements of a Rule.

Build a trellis for yourself.

As noted above, my trellis is a work in progress. I will add stakes and cross members as needed and may, at times, remove some as the focus of my life changes through the seasons. I will be tending my trellis and the vines that grow on it. I’ll need to shore up the connections between the stakes and cross members and make sure my stakes are well grounded and not coming loose. I will aerate the soil, add nutrients, and weed out the harmful plants that crop up so that the vines produce their best fruits and blooms. Ongoing maintenance of the trellis and its dependent vines is critical for my effectiveness and the peace of knowing I make a difference.

I am the oldest member of our table-group and feeling an increasing urgency to finish well the race in front of me -> to have a trellis full of grapes or lovely blooms of roses. As happens in vineyards, we are not always the people who reap the fruits, press the grapes into juice, or age the wine. We are not the only ones who walk among the trellises and enjoy the roses and still others might pick them to display and share. I am content with that.

This urgency of mine to finish well, assuming I can follow through (this is where grace is required for me), is the impetus to build and maintain a trellis, my Rule of Life, and to tend the vines growing on them.

Mind and maintain your trellis.

I believe we all have a Rule of Life, intentional and well-built or not. If not, then it is likely a heap of stakes and cross members with vines choked out with weeds and laying in rot on the ground.

Therefore, I urge you to take stock, build a trellis, plant some vines, and mind the whole thing. I believe you will be healthier and happier for it.

In His grip,

jerry

Author’s Note: Trellises (or might that be trellisi?) come in various shapes and sizes. The photo below is of Ashley’s Trellis, my daughter. She recently completed it and I have every hope of seeing it festooned with sweet peas, some I believe that are descendants from sweet peas at Bass Lake that my Grandma Matt kept. Her trellis is well designed and built with a vision for beauty and bounty and is a reflection of her own Rule of Life. I love it.

Ashley's Trellis

Off the Bench

 

So nice and comfy here, just give me a few more minutes...

Spiritually speaking, I have been sitting on the bench now for quite some time. I hesitate to estimate how long I’ve been picking pine because I would probably underestimate the length I’ve have been sitting on the bench or standing on the sidelines. Some would say I am mistaken with comments like, “Look at the eighteen months you’ve been on the Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC)”, “You are active with the CFC Committee”, and things of that nature. True as those things might be and as deep as the trenches are for a PNC, my heart has been missing in action. If I’m honest with myself, my inaction goes well before taking care of my folks during their end-of-life journey and the pandemic so I can hardly pin this on them.

Truth be told, I have been setting myself up for a ‘well-deserved’ sabbatical and officially withdrawing from all committees, all services – who knows how many alls I could string together with this. It is embarrassing.

I played competitive High School (CVHS Falcons) and Junior College (Glendale Junior College Vaqueros, now known as Glendale Community College) basketball. With the exception of a loosely regulated (by the CIF) Junior Varsity Season in 1971, I came off the bench, though I should have started my sophomore year at GCC, but that’s another long and sad story. The point is, I know what sitting on the bench is and can be and what my responsibilities are. Until I put myself on the spiritual bench, I never took myself out of a game and on the bench - but I knew how to come off it.

Along comes our interim pastor, Mike Harbert, with the notion of putting our congregation though a program called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality which is a mouthful to say so we are calling it EHS. Pastor Mike has also been riding alongside our PNC since the beginning so he is familiar with me and he approached me as EHS planning was underway and told me that a certain elder on our Session told him that I would be a good table leader. Now, I am familiar with this young elder and have been watching her grow as a Christian since she was a wee lass coming into Junior High and going on Mission Arizonas with me. I couldn’t very well out rightly say so no this and thus decided to give it some thought and prayer.

The prayer part is what snagged me because when I mentioned it to the Boss I heard a still small voice that has been absent for some time now and He clearly said, “Get off the bench and into the game.” Okay, the still small voice hasn’t actually been absent, I have had my ears plugged and I've focused on feeling sorry for myself. There was no condemnation in the order, simply an urging to come in and make a difference, grow, and open myself to a new way of living. Again.

I know what I’ve done to myself here with this post. I put myself in a position to be held accountable. It nearly made me run the other way but that is not how I acted when on the bench in the olden days. I’m in the game.

In His grip,

jerry

Put me in coach, I'm ready to play.

Confessions of a Wayward Writer

 

What do you do when you believe God has called you to a vocation and you engage in all manner of ‘good’ things instead of that which you are called to? 'Good', as in necessary everyday activities like three sets of tax returns, including your recently deceased parents’ final return, and any number of things – wash dishes, cook, do yard work, work on estate processes, spend time with family… What do we do when we know we should be spending time and energy on activities we are beckoned to do by that quiet voice we have come to trust as God’s?

Confess with a sincere heart, move on, and get down to it. And so I confess:

I am a writer. I believe God has called me to it and He did so after I searched for the creativity that exists in each of us. We who are created in the image of God have a spark of The Creator in us. I searched for mine after giving up on the notion that I was creative on the basketball court. While that may have been so, if the divine creativity for me was that of an athlete I would be writing this as a former NBA player, or at least that is how I see it.

I did a lot of business writing for the phone factory and was well thought of for my efforts. White papers, business cases, reports, and all sorts of communications that paved the way for me to have a nice little career.

I hadn’t started my search for the creative spark at the time but when a student ministries director asked me to do the writing for the church’s monthly newsletter, I took to it and enjoyed the outlet. I wrote about our youth activities and what was coming up and did some pieces about the depth of our mission trips and camps. What I really loved doing was zeroing in on a particular person and writing a story about him or her and what I found special about them. I could and did write from the heart on those occasions and they were the ones that touched people. My mom and mother-in-law were my biggest supporters in this and they carried it over once I heard the call to write creatively.

I am not a good writer and I feel this way for several reasons. I do not do it consistently enough to say I have a writer’s life but I wish that I could claim that I have such a life. My work needs a lot of editing and I need to learn the craft more completely. I write some good pieces here and there but nothing that has been published outside of my own blogs or social media outlets. Some of that has to do with me lacking the confidence to believe the piece is worthy of printing and some of it has to do with me lacking a tough inner shell to withstand the common practice of writers to collect rejection letters.

I completed a novel a couple years ago but it has been left idol. It is the book I believed I was urged to write by the Author of our Faith and yet I cannot bring myself to rewrite it as it desperately needs. The book needs to be cut it in half if there is any hope in having a publisher even look at it. The story is mortally out of date due to my delays and I need to refigure the timeline and at least bring it up to the point where it touches on the pandemic.

All of this falls short of a legitimate excuse for falling short of having a writer’s life, one meant to touch the hearts of at least one person with each piece I publish. For all of this, I am sorry and will rekindle my efforts.

I am a writer. My best of friends Mike and Jim say so. Mike even puts ‘Writer’ as my occupation when he uses me as a reference when he is job seeking. Mike is a professional editor so it must be true that I am a writer. Jim is my coach and he tells me how touched he is when he reads my work. He was key in showing me the error in a short story I have now submitted several times to start my collection of rejections, so it must be true that I am a writer.

Ani is a published writer, has a master’s in fine arts (MFA) Degree, and is an entrepreneur. She took a short story I wrote almost on a whim for the family and put it in a picture book for us. My mom had me autograph her copy, so it must be true. I guess this means I need to retract my earlier statement that I have not be published outside of my own media resources.

What led to me writing this confession was Phil talking to the men on our Zoomeeting the other morning and telling the group what a good writer I am and how he appreciates the works that I put up. Having spent that morning in the presence of the Holy Spirit, I was uplifted, touched, and convicted all at the same time. Phil is a published writer himself, so it must be true.

Thus, I must confess that I fall short of God’s call to me.

I looked on the back of a piece of intarsia my late father did for me and he said, “Together in His grip, love Dad”. And so I’ll sign off on this confession as I frequently sign off on my Calvary's Thread posts.

In His grip,

jerry

How Long?

Photo courtesy of my StoryBlocks subscription

How Long?

How long must we wear these chains and mute the songs of our hearts? Songs meant for praise and love and meant to extol the Kingdom of God. Our hearts are breaking for our neighbors and for a broken world consumed by a focus on self.

Turn our heats to you, Lord. Let us go to our knees in humility rather than stomping in protest. Let us cry out for your Kingdom coming. Who can stop it? And who can stop praises from entering your throne room? None. There are none that can do this. Our hearts pour out worship in spirit and truth and we are those you seek and call to yourself.

I heard it in the quiet of Your sanctuary.

I was free not to sing.

I tell you that I found a deep well of untapped love and adoration for our King dammed up for the need to sound out words and notes in precise and harmonic ways. When that need for the mechanics of song was broken by the command not to sing, worship gushed forth and broke chains. The logjam has moved downstream. Lord, let the force of your rushing waters take it down to the ocean and leave me free.

The Lord was good to me, he broke through my reticence and allowed me to move, clap, raise my hands in praise, and punch out emphasis to the prayers and worship during the service. I felt liberated, likely more so than I have in the years since returning to my home church.

I am thankful. It is not too much to ask that the fires to remain hot and that our ardor continue for the King.

In His grip,

jerry

A Believer’s Quarantine Protocol

In our home we are easily five weeks into shelter-at-home as we adopted those initiatives early on so that we could be the safest possible when we went out to Ely, Nevada to help with our daughter’s family during the time she delivered her second child via C-section. I haven’t met friends in person with the exception of blessed happenstance and on provisioning runs in all that time. But I have attended several Zoom meetings with various committees of the church and held an online class for our communicants. I have listened and watched a few online bible studies and worship services. Today was the first live Zoom meeting with a group of believers in order to read scripture, pray, and share. I’ve missed the men of our Wednesday morning gatherings and this was a much-needed time for me; in fact, I’d say it was priceless and won’t go so far as to put a value to it.

Phil opened our time by calling for our traditional third man prayer and a reading of selected segments from the Gospel of John. Then we checked in with each other buy going around the Zoom and briefly talking about how we and our loved ones are fairing with the virus and its widespread impacts. Our central discussion was regarding how and what we, as Christians, need to be doing during this traumatic time. I’ll share some of what I gleaned from our talk in amplified bullet format.

My Believer’s Quarantine Protocol:

U  Remember that God is in control

V  Pray with that foremost in your mind.

V  Look for ways to express His control of things

V  Be wise in how, where, and when to express it – aka – be considerate of others

This one may be the hardest one to live by and project to a world that will shout back at us, “What God would visit covid-19 on people? If He is in control why is this happening?”

Isaiah 41:10 – “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

U  Limit social media, news, and generally negative input and filter everything through a Kingdom Perspective

Colossians 3:1-4 – “¹So if you been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

U  Connect with your brothers and sisters in the faith

V  Stay in tune with your families

V  Talk it out

V  Be open and genuine with both your faith and your fears

V  Let others help with your burdens

V  Do this in such a way as to be a responsible member of the community and don’t limit Jesus to meeting with us as believers only when we are physically together

Hebrew 10:24-25 – “²⁴And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, ²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

U  Stay in touch with your ministry area

V  If you lead, connect with those who you shepherd

V  If you serve under another’s leadership, connect with and pray for the leader

I believe the Hebrews verse above applies here but let’s try a little Ephesians 6:18-19 – “¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication for all the saints. ¹⁹Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel…”

U  Stretch – body, mind/soul, and spirit

V  This is how you will increase your talents, don’t burry them and expect that to suffice

V  Reach for something new, it’s likely you have more time for a new field – go for it

V  How and what you exercise with is what will grow and what you will end up doing better at the end of the day

Check out the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30

U  Worship. Find ways to lift praise and adoration to the Father

V  Find a source online to worship with. So many of the churches are embracing this, find some that work with you

V  Sing out loud God’s praises as you listen to songs on the radio or online

V  Be creative in your worship – take time to be quiet and let your love rise like incense to the Father

V  Be one whom the Father seeks

John 4:21-23 – “²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.”

U  Pray. It’s part of worship. Intercede on others behalf.

Phil left us this morning with a charge and I’ll extend it you anyone reading – reach out to one of the brothers or sisters that have been on your heart and mind and take action on what the Holy Spirit has placed within you.

In His grip,

jerry