Wow!

Tuesday!

Hello Tuesday! I like you. For some reason you are one of my favorite days of the week.

Did you survive all the rain? I know you know that I'm nuts, but I really like rainy days like yesterday. Not totally sure why, but I do. I like being inside watching it rain, but I like being out in it also. Yesterday morning I helped my Dad and Ben load out some calves, which was fun. The truck and trailer got slightly stuck only once, so that wasn't bad.

Seems like I was out and about in the rain a fair amount during the day. I went here and there seeing people and doing things, splashing in puddles along the way. Last night I went for a run with a bunch of other crazies (I know that's what most of you are thinking, so I beat you to the punch - ha ha!). I had a really good run; I felt good and picked up the pace for the last 2-3 miles, going 7.30 for the last mile. My 26.2 plan is really going to help my training. I'm getting rid of a lot of the impurities in my body, making it more efficient.

Today is another day packed with good things. Gonna run 7 miles, see a bunch of people, email & text others, have lunch with another former student, hang out at the food pantry, and generally do what I do. I try to model my life and ministry on the words that Peter used to describe Jesus (Acts 10):

He went around doing good.

Some days I simply try to do no harm - ha ha! Don't always succeed. Most days I try to be aware of simply doing good, even in the smallest simplest of ways; nothing flashy, fancy or really worth talking about. It may be just a smile or a pleasant word to a cashier, maybe a nice tip to a waitress at lunch, or maybe some notes of encouragement. I am aware of the bigger things too -- things like being faithful in following God's lead with the ReGeneration Store, or being conscious of preaching well by studying well. You get the picture. I don't talk a lot about it; just do it. I think it's important to see Kingdom significance in all we do. It all matters.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The exciting news of the day for us is that Lester and Maddie are coming to dinner tonight! I don't know if I have mentioned this or not, but Lester has a pharmacist job waiting for him at a pharmacy in Bloomington. What a blessing to have a job lined up before you graduate! They are coming down this afternoon with some work related things and to pick up Lester's truck. He left it here at Thanksgiving to get our local mechanic to work on it.

OK, off to do the day!

Silence

Do you like silence? The older I get the more I seem to enjoy it. I drive without the radio on a lot anymore, which is a big change, because I used to listen to the radio all the time. The silence in a car provides a great time to pray. I leave my eyes open, just in case you were wondering.

I enjoy silence – most silence but not all. I don’t enjoy the silence of relationships gone bad, and I don’t enjoy the silence of (seemingly) unanswered prayers. That kind of silence leads to lots of sighs. I think Zachariah and Elizabeth could relate to this one. You can read their story in Luke 1. Go ahead if you want. I’ll wait here.

Something else isn’t it? You may not realize the backdrop for this story is 400 years of God’s silence. His people are waiting, anticipating a day when a Messiah will come and restore them to a position of freedom and prominence. They’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting. Generation after generation, anticipating and anticipating and waiting some more.

That’s been the story of Zachariah and Elizabeth as well. When they got married, everyone said they were the perfect couple. They both came from good church families and their immediate families were both involved in the priesthood. It was a match seemingly made in Heaven. They got married, and like most everyone else, they hoped to share the love they enjoyed by bringing new life into the world. They prayed to have a baby.

They prayed and prayed and prayed. Each month they waited and waited and waited. They anticipated that God would answer their prayers. They sighed at God's silence. The fervency of their prayers died down as the months changed into years and into a decade and beyond. One day they stopped praying for a baby. Life changes. They finally admitted what they had known for a long time. Elizabeth was barren, and God was not going to answer their prayer. Silence. The silence of unanswered prayer. A silence stretched out over a lifetime of possible conception, echoing 400 years of God’s silence. Silence with lots of tearful sighs.

Then one day Zechariah is serving in the Temple, doing literally a once in a lifetime task: offering incense in The Holy Place. The angel Gabriel shows up and nearly scares Zechariah to death. Gabriel calms him down and tells him that his prayers have been answered. "You’re going to be a dad!" Gabriel goes on to explain the special nature of this child and what he will do. Turns out he’ll turn out to be John the Baptist.

Zechariah takes it all in but is not so sure it’s really true. "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years."  A very good question and an excellent point, in my opinion. Gabriel doesn’t like the answer and strikes poor old Zechariah with silence. There it is again! Silence. Turns out it will be nine plus months of silence. Nine plus months of "be quiet and watch this." Nine plus months of "be still and know that I am God." Nine plus months of "be still and trust me."

I wonder what Zechariah did during all the time Elizabeth carried John the Baptist in her old womb? I think he was deaf also, so there wasn't much communication with anyone, maybe except God. He had nine months to think, to pray, to adjust, to wait, and to trust. Once the baby was born, Zechariah took the opportunity to show that he learned the lesson. "His name is John," Zechariah announces to the stunned crowd. Then old Zechariah, with his rusty vocal cords,  sings an amazing song about his son.

Let’s go back to silence in this story for a moment; it's all through it. Is God trying to tell us something? Do we hear echoes of "Be still and know?" We should, if we don’t.

The silence of God, as it often does, led to disappointment for Zachariah and Elizabeth and even disgrace for Elizabeth, but even in the silence, even in the disappointment, they kept trusting and obeying and didn’t grow bitter. They trusted God with the unanswered questions. They trusted him with the silence. They trusted him.

I'm working on doing the same.

Monday Morning

Yes, it's Monday again! And raining again! I hope you had a good weekend. Saturday was unbelievably beautiful, and, for me, full of activity.

The weekend started with a fairly busy Friday. I finished up all my stuff for Sunday, spent an hour on my bike trainer, did my 3rd core workout for the week, ran a few errands for the coat giveaway and the toy sale, and then drove a bus to the Crawford County basketball game. I got home sooner than I thought from the game, around 10 p.m., so I was happy about that.

I got up early on Saturday, read some, and then took off for my weekly long run with friends in Bedford. I wanted 12 miles, and I knew that most were running either 5 or 10. I got there early enough to get a couple of miles in before the 8 a.m. start. A rather large group gathered to do 5 together, then a smaller group, including me, continued on to do another 5. The weather was perfect and the pace was comfortable. I ended up with 35 miles for the week - just what I wanted.

After the run I went straight to the coat giveaway and toy sale at church. Wow! I got there right after both had started, and it was crazy! Crazy in the good sort of way - lots of people everywhere. People were getting coats, and people were buying toys. We had tons of people helping with both projects. It was so encouraging, on so many levels, to see. 

We ended up giving away more than 300 coats, and a few of those will be delivered this week. We ran out of a few sizes, so we will buy the coats and take them to the people who need them. About midday I left to go home to change clothes. As I was leaving I saw a family of 5-6 walking up the street, coming to get coats. None of them had coats on. It made me feel really good about what we were doing.

The toy sale was amazing also. When we tallied up the money on Saturday evening, we had right around $3500! Keep in mind that most things were sold for less than $5, many things a lot less than that. The amount of toys we had was simply amazing, almost overwhelming. These all were donated over the course of the year. Around 1.30 we still had so many that we decided that we would allow people to fill up a garbage bag full of whatever they wanted and we would charge them $5. This really helped us, because a lot things got taken away, which lessened our clean-up task.

The toy sale benefits in at least two way. First, it allows people to buy toys for very low prices. We had people of all kinds shopping, but we had a lot of poor people. This made me feel good, because it means that they will be able to provide some Christmas presents that otherwise they might not have been able to afford. Second, the revenue we receive will be used to help people in need in various ways. Everybody wins!

Here we start another week! Only God knows what will happen this week as the days unfold. Right now it looks to be a fairly uneventful week, which is bit of a change. Of course that could change rather quickly. This is my second week of my 26.2 plan. It's going great! No slip-ups and no problems so far.

I may post some more later...

Christmas Carols

This is our banner for our sermon series, considering the 4 "Christmas Carols" in Luke's Gospel.

Mary’s song - Luke 1:46-55 Magnificat

Zechariah’s song - Luke 1:67-79 Benedictus

Angels’ song - Luke 2:13,14 Gloria in excelsis

Simeon’s song - Luke 2:28-32 Nunc dimittis

Friday!

Here's what my son, Luke, says about this photo:

Despite individually stating all 10 letters of my name, the worker (of Oriental descent) managed to get one letter wrong.

I will say one thing and then leave it. I don't mean this as a racist thing. I love all people, but sometimes you just gotta laugh, especially at yourself.

So how's it going? Yesterday was another one of those non-stop days. Got up early and got on my sermon prep, then I went for a nice run with Tim the Elder and Time the Strunk (not to be confused with Tim the Younger and Tim the Elite, although I could make a case that the Elder is also Elite. I mean he won his age group at Monumental!), then arrived at my lunch meeting with the ethics committee. Let me say this: the hospital food at St. Vincent Dunn is good! At least what I've had each month has been.

After the ethics meeting, I chatted with the chaplain for a while about his work and about his adventures. His name is Wally, and he is getting ready to leave for a few weeks to climb Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. It has an elevation of 22,841 feet and is the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas. He has climbed several of the world's highest mountains. If I were younger, one of my goals would be to climb Mount Everest. I made that decision after watching a series about it on the Discovery Channel a couple of years ago. Wally has the same dream, and he has already climbed to Everest base camp.

After the ethics meeting, I made my way to Heaven's Garden, a little cafe at the Lighthouse Christian bookstore. It's a great place to work: free WiFi and all the stuff you would expect at a cafe. I met Pat there and we work on our sermons for Sunday. Working with another person really helps me to stay focused on the task at hand. It was very enjoyable time well spent.

Then it was off to the Family Life Center to check on the set-up for the huge toy sale. The amount of toys we have is unbelievable! Seriously! Penny and crew have done a great job in getting set up. They will work all day today as well. I left the FLC and went to the Store for a little while. While there I got a truck load of coats for the Coat Give Away on Saturday. We have more coats than we can sell at the Store. It's all the Lord's work... Darrin came by and we had a great talk about life.

I got home in time for supper and the nightly battle to stay awake until bedtime! I like to read in the evenings, but I cannot read serious stuff. I finished a book about running last night, Once a Runner. I only dozed off once last night.

OK, here we go today. Finish up Sunday stuff, help with the Toy Sale, lunch with my lovely and beloved wife, and then I am helping out the desperate transportation director by driving a basketball bus to Crawford County. That'll be fine, but it means a late night.

Tomorrow a 12 mile run, followed by Coats and Toys...

Thursday

This cartoon cracks me up! I'm not sure we could handle the truth of what people really think at times. That's an interesting thing to think about, isn't it?

Yesterday was one of the longest days I've had in a while. I was up at 5, doing what I do -- reading, praying, getting ready for the day. I ran Ben into football condition a little after 6 and came back home for breakfast with Kedra. I saw her off, read a little bit more, and then went for hilly chilly 6 mile run. The sun was so nice! After the run, it was off to the office for a meeting, followed by some more study of Zechariah. Then I went to a funeral in Livonia, followed by a visit to couple, followed by a meeting, followed by a brief trip home to change clothes, followed by a meal at church, followed by a class, followed by some Toy Sale stuff. Yesterday was a rare day with little to no down time. Of course, scattered amongst all that were several phone calls, texts, and emails with various people needing various things.

Today will be a little quieter, I think. This morning I will work on preparing for Sunday: sermon, slides, life group discussion guide, and Sunday a.m. class. I will run late morning, when the sun has warmed things up a bit. I have a St. Vincent Dunn Ethics Committee meeting today. I really enjoy those. We talk about the new policies being adopted, do case studies, and problem solving. I think I would really enjoy being a hospital chaplain. Today's meeting is considering that piece.

This afternoon I am getting with Pat A to work on our sermons. We are doing a collaborative effort on the Christmas Carol series. He met with his church last night regarding the text, and I had my class which did the same. We'll bring all of our individual study, coupled with what we learned in class, plus what we work on this morning, to the table this afternoon to see how that influences what we say on Sunday. The sermon belongs to the church, not the preacher alone. They should help prepare it, in the sense of helping the preacher see what the text says. I've been doing this for about 8 years, I think. That's what my doctoral thesis was about.

My 26.2 effort is going exceedingly well. I am staying right on track and doing well. The eating is not too hard and the core work is coming along nicely. Tomorrow will be my bike day, along with my last core session of the week. Saturday I plan to run 12 miles, which will put me at 35 for the week.  I did this 26.2 type thing about 2 years ago and lost 12 pounds and got my body fat down to 10% or less.

Jay Eubanks and I were talking last night and we stumbled upon the fact that we both love the TV show Amazing Race. Long story short: we think we should apply to participate! I think we are serious (ha ha). If you have seen the show, then you know that each couple has some interesting angle. Ours would be: black/white, short/tall, preacher/former pro basketball player, etc. Every time I watch the show, I tell Kedra that I would love to do it. It involves world travel, physical challenges, problem solving, and other things that I would enjoy. We'll see...

OK, here we go...!