Lessons from Liam

On July 25, 2011, Joshua Liam Davison was born.  That little guy has made some big changes in our family.  My daughter and son-in-law are now parents.  My boys are uncles.  My mom is a great grandmother.  My camera is about to burn up from taking so many pictures.  The poor little boy believes that he’s been born into a world where a bright flash of light occurs every five seconds.  The two hour drive from Travelers Rest to Monetta is suddenly no problem.  My wife and I have changed our preferred names from “Dee” and “Linda” to “Papa Dee” and “Nama.” 

I wasn’t surprised that little Liam changed our family, but I was surprised by how much he changed my heart.  Liam’s birth, and these two weeks that we’ve shared with him, has been a time when God has spoken to me as He has at very few times in my Christian journey.  That very little boy has taught me some big lessons.  He’s been like a little angel bringing messages from God for me. 

This morning, I want to share with you a few of the lessons I’ve learned from Liam, ways that God has taught me and touched me through him. 

You Are a Miracle

I’ve heard many people say that they believe in miracles.  I’ve heard a good number say that they’ve seen a miracle.  But the experience of Liam coming into this world took me beyond believing in or seeing miraculous things.  His birth taught me that every person can look into the mirror and say, “You are a miracle.” 

Psalm 139 is a song through which the singer praises God for the miracle of his life. 

(Psalm 139:13-14) For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

During her pregnancy, Elizabeth would send me updates on what was happening to Liam as he grew and got closer and closer to birth.  As I read what science has learned about the growth of a child before birth, I thought of those words again and again, “you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” 

Where do you see the glory of God, the evidence of His power and His purpose?  You might see the glory of a sunrise.  You may look into a cloudless night sky and see the countless stars He calls by name.  You may gaze upon the mountains, dressed up in fall colors by countless leaves changing at His time.  Or you may, like a friend of mine, say that he no longer says that there are no atheists in the fox holes of a battlefield.  When he became a father, he said, “There are no atheists in delivery rooms.” 

But little Liam reminded me that every human being, wonderfully made by God, knit together by His hand, can look into the mirror and say, “I am a miracle.”  You are not merely the result of a process.  You’re not an accident.  In God’s mind, you weren’t a surprise.  You are a mighty act of His power, His creative purpose, and His love.  And the same God who did a mighty thing in creating you can do mighty things through you.  You can live in the confidence and purpose that come from knowing, “I am a miracle.” 

Liam taught me something else the night he came into this world…

Pain is the Price of New Life

The day that Liam was born, Linda and I arrived at the hospital and went to her room to visit with her and Josh.  Every two or three minutes, Elizabeth would have a contraction, a passing moment of tension and discomfort, but between those contractions, she visited with us and talked about many things, posed for pictures, and even joked about becoming a mother.  But in a few hours, the hurt she was feeling became far more intense and came more often.  I saw the look of pain written on her face and the fear that comes from hurting like you’ve never hurt before.  The time came for all of us to leave the room, leaving Elizabeth with her husband, her nurse, and the challenge of enduring the pain she was feeling. 

As excited as I was about becoming a grandfather, I spent the next several hours pacing up and down hallways, questioning anyone who came out of Elizabeth’s room, and even putting my ear up against the door to hear any clue that could tell me how my girl was holding up in her battle with pain.  A few times, a doctor or nurse would open the door to leave, only to find me in the doorway with my ear turned toward the door.  I didn’t care.  I was worried about my daughter.  Everything inside me wanted her pain to end.  For hours, we heard the voices of doctors and nurses coaching her, we heard her voice as she fought the good fight, and then, at 7:21 p.m., almost 14 hours after she had begun, my daughter’s pain turned to joy, the joy of a new life.  Outside in the hallway, we who had been listening to Elizabeth’s struggle heard something new, a little voice crying out to announce his entrance into the world.  I hugged Linda and we remembered three such days in our own marriage.  But now we felt the joy of knowing our daughter’s pain led to the miracle of a new life. 

Childbirth is one of the most painful and dangerous experiences a woman can know.  I wish that it were different.  I wished it a hundred times that night.  But in God’s plan, pain is the price of new life.  It’s true for a woman giving birth.  It’s also true for any person asking God for a new beginning. 

Liam’s birth taught me that, for any of us, pain is the price of new life.  So many people want a new start, a new beginning, a deeper faith, a greater faithfulness, victory over a struggle, joy on the other side of weeping.  But what we must realize is that we won’t hear the sweet sound of a new life unless we are willing to endure the pain that new life demands; the pain of honesty, the pain of confession, of heart-broken repentance, of letting go of the old in order to make room for the new, of enduring a night of darkness in order to see the glory of a new day. 

The Apostle Paul tells the Galatians that he is bearing great pain with the purpose of seeing Christ more alive in their hearts and in their church.  He writes, in Galatians 4:19,

(Galatians 4:19) My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…

Many times, over the past few months, I have asked God why I’ve had to hurt so badly—why the people I love have hurt so badly.  I don’t know that I’ll ever understand the reason for this pain, not on this side of heaven, but I can find hope in the result of this pain.  By God’s grace and power, my pain and your pain, can be the beginning of a new life. 

When Elizabeth’s time of hurting was over, when we heard Liam’s voice and then got to hold him and see him, he taught me another great spiritual lesson. 

We’ll Understand When We See Him Face to Face

Several times during Elizabeth’s pregnancy, she sent me ultrasound images of Liam.  I don’t know how well you interpret an ultrasound image.  I find most of them to be like a two-year-old’s picture that they draw in Sunday School.  I look at it and say, “Wow, that’s amazing!  Tell me about it.  (Which is a nice way of saying, “What in the world am I looking at?”)   

Sometimes I could be guided to see Liam in the picture, other times I had to trust that others saw things I just couldn’t see.  But all of that changed the first time I held him in my arms and looked into his little face.  That face-to-face moment revealed more to me that I had seen in all of the moments before.  Later, I returned to those ultrasound pictures and, now, some of them made perfect sense, especially one in which I could trace the features of his face and see that those hazy images were, in fact, my Liam all along. 

In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul says that our journey through life is that very same way.  He writes,

(1 Corinthians 13:12) Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

In Paul’s day a mirror was nothing more than a shiny piece of metal.  The reflection it gave was often dark and distorted.  We don’t see life so clearly while we’re living it.  We want to see the plan, the purpose, the meaning; we want to see Christ working in the joys and challenges we face each day.  Sometimes we catch a glimpse of him in that poor reflection our human hearts can perceive.  Other times we don’t what we’re seeing or what it means.  We just have to live by faith. 

But one day, we will see Jesus face to face.  When we do, all of those poor reflections, all of those small glimpses of His grace and His glory, will make perfect sense.  We will look back and see that He was there, in every step we took, every tear we shed, every burden we bore, even every question we asked. 

When our faith becomes sight, we will see that Jesus was with us every step of the way.  

One more lesson my Liam has written on my heart;

God Wants You to Know How Much He Loves You

I had held little Liam for the briefest moment when I heard myself telling him how much I love him.  Even though he’s a genius baby, as we call him, I don’t think that he could see me clearly or understand the meaning of the sounds my voice was making.  But I didn’t give up.  I’ll never give up.  I’ll always tell him and, hopefully, show him that he has someone in his life, one of many, who look upon him and feel nothing but love.  And though I don’t want to rush him in growing up—he’ll change too quickly, I know—I look forward to the day that he knows, truly knows that I love him and he, in his own childlike way, can love me back. 

Paul wanted the Ephesians to have that same kind of experience with God.  Listen to his prayer for them in Ephesians 3:17b-19,

(Ephesians 3:17b-19)  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I want you to know how much Christ loves you.  I want you to build your life upon that confidence, “being rooted and established in love.”  I want you to see how big his love for you truly is, “how wide and long and high and deep.”  And I want you to know His love, not just as an idea in your head, or the right answer to a question someone asks you in church, but as an experience that changes you from the inside out, that fills you with the presence and power and peace of God. 

As long as you have been in this world, God has been telling you how much He loves you.  For a long time, you didn’t recognize His voice, much less understand what He was saying.  But God wants this to be the day when you know His love, when you experience the love that gives you life, eternal life; the love that fills you with God’s spirit. 

            Have you heard His voice?

            Have you understood how much He loves you?

He’s shown you most clearly in Jesus, the One who died to take away the sin that stands between you and God, the One who rose from the dead to say, “Love has won.” 

This can be your day to know how much He loves you. 

Do You See?

I wrote this devotional the first Easter after my father's death and shared it with the Chaplain's Department at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.  

It was Sunday.  My mother and I were driving home after church discussing all of the usual after-service matters.  We caught ourselves voicing several criticisms of the worship service we’d just attended.  I quickly realized that behind our criticism was the pain that worship holds for both of us in the wake of my father's death.  Church and family overlap a great deal in my memories and feelings. Daddy was so much a part of what church life is to me that I swear I can still hear his voice in the choir. As the car turned into the driveway of our home, mother and I were met by a deluge of color from the blooming azaleas in front of the house. Though I recognized their beauty with a passing glance, mother specifically called my attention to them asking, "Son, do you see the azaleas that Orin and I planted?"  As I heard the awed tone of her voice and looked more intently at the blossoming plants, I was not so sure that I really had seen them. When I looked at the flower boxes more closely, I saw that in place of the numerous flowers which usually formed their border, these azaleas were flanked only by weeds.  The meticulous pruning and careful cultivation daddy gave those plants was missing as their shape was rather spindly and the dirt around them was hard and full of clods.

Seeing this state of disrepair brought me pain because I realized that the hands which had cared for these plants only a year ago were gone.      But while I was still in the grip of the pain of loss I looked again and saw the beautiful blooms that had blossomed, seemingly in spite of everything. The purple, pink and white were so full of life. I experienced a profound joy knowing that even in death my father's work continues to bring joy and beauty into my world. That strange mixture of pain and joy was my experience as I took the time to really look at the blossoming azaleas.

The Easter season is upon us and everywhere we look we see the cross of Christ, but I wonder if we really see it?  If we can look closely enough to see the rough wood and the nails, we come face to face with the pain that self-giving love requires, the hurt that shook the very heart of God as His own Son laid down his life because of the hard-heartedness and hard-headedness of humanity. Seeing how far perfect love has to go to reach mankind silences our every claim to self-sufficiency. It is only with eyes stained by the tears of that loss that we can rightly see the resurrected Christ and experience the joy of the redemption which burst forth from the tomb like living blossoms from azaleas stained by neglect.

See, from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down;

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown.

                           Isaac Watts

It is that paradoxical mixture of agonizing pain and profound joy which is the Easter experience and the Easter message. Amen.

Ronald D. Vaughan

April 6, 1982

The Many Ways We Call Her Blessed

The Many Ways We Call Her Blessed

You are blessed if you have someone in your life who looks upon you and sees someone beautiful.  But how rare and how special is a person everyone sees as beautiful?  Donna Taylor Mayes was one of those people.  Everyone who knew her experienced her as a beautiful lady, a wonderful human being, a shining witness for Jesus Christ.  

 How do you express your gratitude for knowing and loving such a person?  As it so often does, the Bible gives us a great place to begin.  In Proverbs 31, in the description of a godly woman, we’re given a picture of how we can best respond to such a life. 

(Prov. 31:28-29) Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ²⁹ "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."

All of us have many reasons to rise today and call Donna blessed, to remember the loving impact she’s had upon our lives and to praise God for the blessing of knowing and loving her.  And as we call her blessed, we can call Donna by many names, many titles, that reflect the multitude of ways we give thanks for her today. 

Donna’s siblings can give thanks for Donna by calling her “Mokey Mae.” 

Mokey Mae was a nickname Donna received from her brothers and sisters in their growing up years.  No one seems to know exactly how it started, but all of them know how it stuck.  They remember how six siblings grew up together in the Winnsboro community.  In that circle of brothers and sisters, Donna sometimes described herself as the “favorite sister,” far preferable to being called the “middle child.”  In response, her loving brothers and sisters would insist that Donna was adopted. 

They remember Christmases when brother Steve would like across the foot of Donna’s bed while the kids discussed whether Santa had yet made his appearance. 

They cherish memories of family trips to the beach in the days when Myrtle Beach was a place to rent a house for a week for your family, meet other vacationing families and become friends. 

They remember school days when, in one breath, they’d blame each other for any trouble in which they found themselves but, then, in the next breath, would stand up for each other against all foes. 

Donna and her brothers and sisters didn’t leave those family ties behind in childhood.  Ann says her sister grew up to be her best friend.  Steve says you didn’t have to be around them long to feel the bond of family.  What a blessing sharing those early years of Donna’s life was to you all. 

We can also bless Donna’s life by calling her Cheerleader.

Are any of you surprised that Donna was a cheerleader?  Not at all, I’m sure.  If anyone had the gift of cheering others on to do and be their best, it was Donna.  She did it for her high school teams, serving as the Head Cheerleader.  But Donna never stopped being a cheerleader.  She cheered on her Tigers through good seasons and bad.  She watched many games while shooting group texts back and forth with her siblings, play by play.  But more importantly, Donna was an enthusiastic encourager of everyone she met.  When you knew she was in your corner, you had the inner confidence you could do great things.  She did that for her family, each of you through your times of victory and the times you had to pick yourselves up and try again.  She cheered on this church, its life and its mission.  And, I’m thankful to say, she cheered on her staff, including me.  She always had a good word to say about her ministers.  I know pastors are to seek God’s approval, not the praise of people, but having a few cheerleaders in your life, like Donna, certainly made the work more joyful. 

We bless Donna’s life today as we think of her as Vern’s Leading Lady

Vern and Donna met when she was 15 ½ years old (I haven’t counted half years in a long time).  They met at the beach and were soulmates and sweethearts for 51 years.  I loved to be around Donna and Vern because they were so crazy about each other.  I love to be around people in love.  Donna often bragged on Vern, saying he treated her like a queen.  He was always the gentleman, always the romantic, always the helper, the fixer, the provider.  He saw the value of opening the door for her and sliding her chair to the table when you ate together. 

Of the many tender memories Donna shared with me about her love for Vern and his for her, this one, I believe, is my favorite.  On many evenings, Vern would crank up some of his favorite music and the two of them would dance until long after midnight.  I’ve never known anyone to regret dancing with the one you love.  I’ve known many who regretted they didn’t seize the moment to celebrate their love for each other. 

Donna’s love for Vern was tender, but it was also strong.  We all saw that during the long days and nights of Vern’s illness—the trips to the doctor, the treatments, the endless hours she spent by his side in the hospital.  She held him in her loving arms until God took Vern in His arms and took him home. 

At Vern’s funeral, almost four years ago now, I told Donna this: 

Donna, you haven’t danced your last dance with Vern. 

You haven’t heard him sing for the last time. 

Your love story has paused, but hasn’t ended. 

And I believe those words have now come true.  My confidence in that happy reunion comes from another reason we have to bless Donna’s life. 

Donna was a Contagious Christian

Donna loved and lived for Jesus.  She was one of those people you watched and would say, “If that’s what following Jesus looks like, I want to follow Jesus too!”  She was a winsome witness to everyone, but she also knew that she would do her most important work for Christ at home. 

Her boys, Blake and Brandon, remember that their mom insisted that they go with her to church and that they do so, “with their shirts tucked in.”  They participated in the many youth ministries, trips and retreats this church offered them. 

More than that, Donna’s boys grew up knowing that the church met at their house, not just God’s house.  For many years, they shared morning devotions with their mom over the breakfast she cooked.  She fed their bodies and their souls before sending them out into the world to face the day. 

Blake and Brandon bless their sweet mom because she helped them build a personal faith, a faith to follow and, at times, a faith to come home to.  Guys, the greatest way you can honor your mother is to do what she asked you to in the obituary she wrote, “Live your life to honor God.”  

Donna’s Christianity was also contagious in her marriage.  There was a time when Vern wasn’t deeply involved in the faith or the church.  Donna, for a time, had to practice her faith and lead her sons in the faith, almost alone.  What do you do when your spouse doesn’t share your deep love for your Lord?  Donna didn’t lecture Vern.  She didn’t try to argue him to Jesus.  She lived the faith while loving her husband and Vern caught a bad case of Christianity from her.  She loved him into a deep love for and devotion to Christ.  He may be thanking her for that right now. 

We bless Donna’s life as a Homemaker

Donna loved her family through many expressions of caring and provision. 

The boys remember special dishes like crockpot macaroni and cheese and broccoli casserole. 

They remember their friends coming home with them because the food was so good and Donna extended hospitality to everyone.  Those same friends learned to check out the cookie jar when they visited because some homemade cookies were always waiting to be enjoyed. 

Donna planned the family menu primarily around what Vern liked to eat because he had worked hard all day and deserved a meal he enjoyed.  This left the boys with the “take it” or “leave it” option and the duty to say “I enjoyed my dinner” even if it was stewed tomatoes and rice. 

Donna provided for the people she loved in many ways, but perhaps the best gift she offered was her wisdom. 

We bless Donna for being a faithful Life Coach

Donna was a teacher of the art of living.  She had many students because she had the gift of connecting with any person she met.  She could share conversation with royalty and with the down and out. 

She knew how to listen.  So many people are ready to dump advice on you, if it’s what you need or not, but Donna knew that loving begins with listening.  She’s let you vent your frustrations and disappointments if you needed to, knowing that getting such pain out in the open in a safe place is good medicine. 

But even as she knew that was a time to listen, there was a time to speak.  And as the Proverbs say, “She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. (Prov. 31:26 NIV)

When her boys were young, they helped themselves to some chocolate coins at the Romain Drive Zippy Mart.  When Vern arrived home with the boys and the crime was revealed, Donna sent them back to the store with the very specific assignment of returning what they had taken and apologizing to the store owner.  A tough day for a little boy, but a big lesson in owning up to your mistakes and making things right. 

As the boys grew and Donna would hear them speak of their friends, she would sometimes ask, “I hear you speak of him often.  Why haven’t I met him yet?”  If she wasn’t satisfied with the answer, without judging her sons’ friends, she’d say, “If there’s a reason you don’t want me to meet this friend, there may be a reason why you shouldn’t be spending time with him.”  Wow.  What a teacher.

You’re going to miss your mom’s wisdom.  You’re going to pick up the phone to call her and put it down in tears.  But I think you’ll find that much of her lives on in you.  You’ll often know what she would say.  You’ll understand what she’d ask you to do.  And she will continue to bless your life. 

I want to name one more way in which we bless Donna’s life today. 

We praise her because we can now call her “Victorious”

We’re grateful that Donna lived until she died.  We’ll remember her as being full of life and love.  But her sudden passing leaves us in shock, with the reality of our loss sinking into our numb hearts a little at a time.  But as her death becomes more and more real to you, may her hope, her confidence in Christ, her assurance of her eternal destiny also become real to your hearts.  Donna belonged to Jesus.  And so, for her, death is not defeat.  Death is not the end.  Death doesn’t have the final word.  Donna can now shout on heaven’s shore, in the words of scripture,

(1 Corinthians 15:54) "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

We can share that victory with Donna one day. 

We can face today and every tomorrow with courage and hope. 

We can know that our lives are worth the living because we know Jesus lives. 

Thankfulness is a Key to Happiness

The year before Linda and I married, I lived in a tiny second-floor apartment near the hospital where I was working.  My downstairs neighbor was an elderly gentleman, Lloyd Wood, who lived there by himself.  I would see him sometimes as I was leaving for work or returning home.  I’d see him take walks on days when the weather permitted.  What struck me most about Lloyd was the sweetness of his spirit.  He seemed to see life and all that was in it as beautiful.  He didn’t have to see life that way.  He lived alone.  His wife had passed away years earlier.  He had no children.  He didn’t have many visitors.  But when I crossed paths with Lloyd, I would think, “I want to see life that way.  I wonder how that happened for him.” 

Then, early one morning, I found out.  I was still in bed, somewhere between dreamland and reality.  The building was very quiet, but in the stillness of those waking up moments, I heard something.  I heard a voice which, of course, concerned me, at least a little.  After listening in stillness a while longer, I realized I was hearing my downstairs neighbor’s voice.  Lloyd was praying.  I couldn’t understand many of the words, but I could hear the melody of his voice.  He was giving thanks.  Lloyd was praising God.  He began his day by blessing the Lord and remembering his many benefits.  I believe the way Lloyd practiced gratitude was the source of his happy life.  The scriptures challenge us to…

(1 Thessalonians 5:18) Give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Don’t misunderstand.  Paul isn’t saying that you are supposed to enjoy all circumstances or do nothing to change bad circumstances.  He’s not even saying that every circumstance in which you find yourself is what God wants for you.  What he’s saying is that because you belong to Jesus, because you have the strength and security of being God’s beloved child, find a reason to thank God in every situation.  That holy habit, that spiritual discipline, that cultivated attitude of thankfulness will bring you happiness. 

If you use a computer, you’ve probably faced the challenge of remembering passwords.  You have this powerful machine ready to do amazing things for you, but you can’t remember which of your pets or grandchildren or favorite sports teams you used to create that password you just knew you could never forget.  The password opens the door (or the Windows) for great things to happen. 

When Eugene Petersen translated Psalm 100 for The Message paraphrase, listen to how he rendered verse 4,

(Psalm 100:4, Msg) Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
         Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him.

 Worship him.

The password for entering into God’s presence, the place where you know you’re loved, where you find forgiveness, where you remember what matters, where you renew your strength, the password to that place is “Thank you!”

You build happiness on the inside with an attitude of thankfulness. 

Not Everyone Gets to Vote on Who You Are

When I served as a hospital chaplain, I made friends with a mental health counselor named Bomar Edmonds who worked just across the parking lot from the hospital and was a consultant to the chaplain’s department.  One day, Bomar and I sat down to eat lunch together.  He asked, “How’s your morning been?” then probably regretted he asked.  I’d just come out of my hour-long quarterly evaluation, a gathering of helping professionals who review your written summary of your work, then question you about any and everything related to your ministry.  The process can be grueling, especially when members of the evaluation committee try to outdo each other.  I didn’t think my time with the committee had gone very well.  I didn’t like some of the things they said.  I didn’t appreciate the tone of some questions they asked.  You may find this difficult to believe, but , with a “Remember the Alamo” attitude, I dug in my heels and took on the whole lot of them.  When I finished telling my friend, Bomar, about the inquisition I’d survived, he looked at me as he slowly took another bite or two, then added his own evaluation to brighten my day even more. 

“Vaughan, do you know what your problem is?”

“No, Bomar, but I think I’m about to find out.”

“Yes, you are.  Your problem is, you put a judge’s robe on everyone.”

“What in the world does that mean?”

“Apparently, you took what each of those people said about your work as some kind of final verdict about the kind of chaplain and the kind of person you are.  Don’t you think that’s too much power to give a group of people, some of whom you’ve never met before today?” 

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.  You may be right.”

“Of course I’m right.  Everyone has an opinion.  Some opinions are worth listening to and learning from.  Others aren’t.  But you can’t give every person you meet the power to decide who you are.  Most people don’t get a vote in that decision. So stop giving everyone you meet a judge’s robe.  Most of them aren’t qualified to wear it.” 

That’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received.  If he knew it or not, my friend Bomar agreed with the Apostle Paul.  You can’t let just anyone decide who you are.  In fact, for the Christian, only one person makes that decision.  In Romans 8:31-34, Paul explains the key to the internal security of the Christian’s identity. 

I am who God says I am.

Listen to Paul’s argument for that truth. 

If God is for us, who can be against us?  No one has the authority to veto what God has decided about us. 

We are so precious to God that He gave up His own son for us.

If God has declared we are right with Him, who is qualified to condemn us?  No one.

The resurrected Son of God represents us to God.  Who can challenge what He says about us?  No one. 

Not your coworkers

Not your neighbors

Not that circle of friends who don’t seem to accept you

Not your ex. 

Not the weak side of your family. 

And, perhaps, most amazingly, not even you. 

The love of Christ gives you an identity that nothing or no one can take away.  That identity gives you the inner security to live an abundant life.  

God is Greater than Our Hearts

God is Greater Than Our Hearts

I once owned a car with a broken gas gauge.  When the tank was empty, the needle pointed to “E.”  When the tank was half-full, the gauge still read empty.  When the gas tank was filled to overflowing, the needle budged just a little, moving slightly to the right of the empty mark.  No matter how much fuel was in that car’s tank, the gauge gave me the same message, “Your tank is empty.” 

    I learned that gauge was not a reliable indicator of how much fuel was in my gas tank.  I learned to disregard its message.  I also devised another way to assess how much fuel was in the tank.  I found a long stick I could slide through the nozzle into the tank, then pull it out to see how much of the stick was wet with gasoline.  You could call it a literal “dipstick” for my gas tank.  It wasn’t fancy or stylish, but it worked and helped me work around the false message of a broken gauge. 

   Human emotions are a kind of gauge of the heart, an indicator of the fullness or emptiness of our lives and relationships.  When feelings are working well, they help us experience life fully and warn us when some aspect of our lives are running low.  The problem with feelings is that they are a gauge that sometimes gets broken.  When you are in a season of depression, your feelings can give you all the wrong feedback.  Like my broken gas gauge, feelings hijacked by depression can give you a constant message of emptiness.  You may read that flawed feeling as:

     My life is a total wreck.

     No one loves or respects me.

     I am a complete failure.

     I cannot be right with God and feel this way.

      What do you do when you realize that your emotional gauges are broken?  First, you must learn to question the meaning of what you feel.  When you know your emotions are depressed, you must fight the tendency to accept that empty feeling as an accurate appraisal of your life.  Second, you must find another way to measure the fullness or emptiness of your life, a kind of emotional and spiritual dipstick to help you work around feelings that aren’t giving you a true reading. The letter of 1 John offers you and me a tool that can help us get beyond our broken emotional gauges. 

There is a sure way for us to know that we belong to the truth. Even though our inner thoughts may condemn us with storms of guilt and constant reminders of our failures, we can know in our hearts that in His presence God Himself is greater than any accusation. He knows all things.

                     1 John 3:19-20, The Voice

     God is greater than our hearts.  What God says about who we are and our standing with Him is a faithful measure of the truth.  God knows everything about why our feelings are giving us false messages.  He also knows that His love for us and faithfulness to us do not depend on our feelings. 

      This passage also means that God is a higher authority than our hearts in determining where we stand with Him.  When feelings are broken, we may feel far from God, unable to pray, far short of the purpose we believe God has for our lives.  But our feelings are not the final authority.  They do not have the last word.  God is greater than our hearts.  We are who God says we are, no matter what we feel. 

Prayer

Loving Father, my feelings are so broken right now.  They tell me I’m far from You and useless to the people around me.  Teach me that You are greater than my heart.  Help me to trust Your Word and Your promises about who I am as Your beloved child.  I praise You that You are greater than my heart.  Amen. 

This is an excerpt from my book, Seeing in the Dark: Biblical Meditations for People Dealing with Depression.  

Opie's Charity: The Problem of Pride

This is an excerpt from my new book
Messages from Mayberry:
Spiritual Life Lessons from
My Favorite Episodes of 
The Andy Griffith Show
You can click on the image on the right to learn more. 

Opie’s Charity:

The Problem of Pride

This episode tells us the story of a community event that makes some people in Mayberry face a very profound issue.  The event is The Underprivileged Children’s Charity Drive.  The issue this event brings to the surface is pride. 

The character who first embodies this spirit of pride is Annabelle Silby.  Annabelle stops by the courthouse to talk to Andy about the charity drive and the part he will play in it.  Their conversation drifts into the subject of Annabelle’s late husband, Tom.  As we will soon learn, pride has led Annabelle to do some pretty peculiar things where her husband is concerned.  The same can happen to us.  Pride leads us to pretend instead of being real.  Annabelle isn’t really a grieving widow, as we will soon learn.  Pride leads us to deny what so obviously exists, like Annabelle’s husband Tom’s drinking problem. Pride leads us to live for what others think.  Annabelle put on an elaborate funeral to bury an empty casket, because she couldn’t stand the thought of people knowing Tom had run away.  Pride will use people, even the people we claim to love, to keep up good appearances.  Annabelle buried Tom, and any effort to find him and be reconciled to him, because of what people might think. 

            As the story develops a bit further, we learn even more bad things pride can do.  We meet Tom Silby, Annabelle’s supposedly deceased husband.  He’s not dead, as Annabelle has claimed.  Tom felt so pressured and controlled by Annabelle’s pride that, on a business trip to Charlottesville, he took off and was gone for two years.  Now he returns to Mayberry, missing his wife, and wondering how she’s doing.  What Tom doesn’t know is that his Annabelle, unable to face the public with the truth that her husband had run away, told everyone that Tom had been killed, run over by a street car in Charlottesville.  Andy is flabbergasted to see Tom because he hasn’t laid eyes on him, or at least his casket, since his funeral.  As Andy tries to figure out how someone can be “back” after being “gone,” he gets his best laugh of all at the thought that Annabelle had to pretend that Tom was dead in order to avoid the truth that her obsession with pride had driven her husband away. 

            How many Tom Silby’s have been driven away by someone else’s pride, sacrificed on the altar of what others might think, crushed by the pressure to be perfect?

            Annabelle’s grand deception, Tom’s “last party,” as he calls it, gives Andy a very unusual opportunity: to give a man a detailed review of his own funeral.  As we hear Tom Silby react to what was good and not so good about his funeral, we have the chance to do something very important for ourselves.  We need to step back from our lives and ask:

            What would my funeral be like?

            What would my family say?

            What would my friends remember?

            What am I living for?

            Am I living for what I believe will really matter when the chaff is blown away and the essence of my life is revealed?  

            There is great value in, as Andy says, “paying respects to ourselves.”

            Now, let’s walk out of the cemetery with Andy and Tom and get back to the Underprivileged Children's Fund and the problem of pride.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us a very strong warning about giving in order to be seen and applauded by others,

(Matthew 6:1-4)"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

If you and I do good things in order to be seen, in order to be applauded, in order to prop up our pride, in order to calm our fears of what others think, then that is all that our giving will accomplish.  God marks it “paid in full.”  We receive no reward from Him and do little good for others. 

Andy has no trouble laughing at Annabelle and seeing that her only problem is too much pride and worrying about what other people think.  What he cannot see is how this same overbearing concern for public praise is damaging his relationship to Opie. 

The moment Andy hears that the school children are giving to the Underprivileged Children’s Fund, he asks Annabelle if Opie is among the top givers. There’s nothing wrong with wanting Opie to share with others.  But what is wrong is why Andy wants Opie to give. He wants to be sure he has bragging rights to one of the most generous children in town.

Do you notice that, in many ways, the more Andy loves the praise of others, the less he loves Opie? 

            He jumps to conclusions about what Opie’s doing with his money.  He assumes that because he doesn’t want to give publicly to this fund, Opie is spending his money selfishly. 

            Andy doesn’t listen to Opie.  The name “Charlotte” comes up several times in the episode, but Andy never explores who this little girl is, what her life is like or why others are making fun of her.  How ironic that, in his zeal for the Underprivileged Children's Fund, Andy totally overlooks one of the children in need, a child and a need Opie saw so clearly.

            He even loses faith in Opie.  He decides that he is just selfish and indulgent, a “playboy,” because he wants to follow his plan to buy something for Charlotte. 

            So Opie ends up in his room, banished from the supper table and far from his father’s heart.  Such is the bitter fruit of the spirit of pride. 

            Aunt Bee sees what has happened and names the “spirit of Annabelle” at work in Andy.  She calls him to make a big discovery.  What he sees so well in others, he can’t see in himself—he’s showing more love for the praise of others than he’s showing his own son.  When Andy sees the error of his ways, he calls Opie to the table for supper.  When Opie asks, “Do you like me again?” Andy begins to see how wrong he has been. 

            Then comes the moment of revelation.  Andy finally hears the truth about his son’s financial priorities.  Opie is saving his money, not to take Charlotte to the movies or buy her a toy, but to buy her a winter coat.  Hers is worn out and the other children make fun of her.  What Andy has just learned leads to a great exchange between father and son:

            “Opie, you never told me what the money was for.”

            “You never asked.”

            Andy didn’t ask because he wasn’t listening to Opie.  He was straining his ears to hear the applause of the town.  What mattered to Andy was the public’s perception of him and his family.  Opie didn’t care about being a celebrity in the Underprivileged Children's Fund.  He just wanted to meet the need of the one he loved, quietly buying a coat for Charlotte. 

            Jesus says that there will come a day when all of us will stand before Him as the judge of our lives.  To some he will say, “I needed clothes and you gave them to me.”  To others he will say, “I needed clothes and you didn’t help me.”  Neither group will realize that they ever bought a coat for Jesus.  But He will say to them, as He would say to all of us who struggle to keep the flies of pride out of the ointment of our giving,

            (Matthew 25:40, The Message) I’m telling you the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.

            The epilogue of this episode gives us one more powerful truth to ponder.  As Andy and Tom sit on the bench in front of the court house and whittle, Andy points out that Tom Silby talks as though he really is buried in the town cemetery, just as Annabelle had pretended for two years.  Tom says that, in one way, he is.  The old Tom, who felt pressured by his wife and dealt with his pain through drinking, is dead and buried.  The one who’s walking around is a new man.  Paul writes to the Romans,

          (Romans 6:4) We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in            order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the

         Father, we too may live a new life.

Neither Andy nor Annabelle could overcome a spirit of pride on their own.  Neither can we.  We need a new beginning.  We need a new way of living.  We need, through the power of God’s grace, which we know through faith in Jesus, to bury our old nature and rise to live a new kind of life; a life that gives a coat to a little girl with no need of public praise, a life that lives, not for the applause of people, but only for the applause of heaven.