Category: Devotions

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I don’t mind progress; if progress is actually an effort to move forward. I don’t mind the past. I love history. I don’t mind being stuck in a rut, although if it’s a muddy rut I would prefer to get out sooner than a dry rut. It’s being caught in the middle that bothers me. I grew up a child of the 60’s. I grew up in a church that sang. We used the piano, if we had a piano player, and we used the hymnbook. Sunday nights we sang out of the Stamps and Baxter book. By my words, “we sang”, I meant we sang. All four verses, all the parts and we sang for half an hour. I learned to sing alto by sitting with my Grandma and Maribel Hunt. I learned to sing tenor when Grandma’s voice changed. I played the piano, I turned pages and I loved that part of church. I’m not sure why, maybe because music was a part of my heart. School music and choir did not move me although I could listen to Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins for hours lying on the carpet by the old phonograph. We didn’t have TV; I listened to music. My first live concert was going to see Andre’ Crouch in Hartford. Music was a way God spoke.

Things have changed. Music doesn’t take over the hearts of people at church as much anymore because we have diluted it’s presence. The clock is ticking and the approach to modern singing in church doesn’t give us room for music to minister. We used to have preludes, postludes, special music, live music, real musicians and lots of harmony. It’s all canned now. Not many live musicians and special music adorn the stage. There are now click tracks, and drone sounding music that is produced electronically. It all sounds the same. It’s slower, it’s moodier and doesn’t give the chance to get up and dance, clap and harmony is out of the question if you don’t naturally hear it. There is no music to learn, watch the notes, see the harmonious structure and join in as you read through the staffs. The songbooks have been replaced by words projected on the screen with video’s behind them and lights and fog machines. And for many of us, we feel caught between the chords. We were on a G and now everything is diminished. When we change to the diminished chord, it’s suddenly augmented. Music ministry in the church is four songs Sunday morning. We have lost the creativity, the choirs, the quartets and the chorus. There are no other options during the week to be with others creating music and letting it creatively move within the heart.

I am not against progression but it seems that we have gone backwards. I listened to the prelude music the other day and it wasn’t even a song: just a bunch of droned chords and sounded like elevator music. I couldn’t recognize the song, couldn’t relate to it lyrics that had meaning to me and it was all electronically produced. There was no instrument I could name or identify in a line up of the orchestra.

I am not against progression, but let’s progress. I haven’t forgotten the time when the praise songs came about. “Pass it on” was all we heard. Then it was the 7/11 songs. We sang seven words eleven times and then repeated that. Lord I lift your name on high and Shout to the Lord seemed “edgy” and now we would give anything to have a bit of that edgy to get us back on a chord we recognize.

Sunday night Cowboy church wound up. It was a bit obvious that people wanted to get out and play and the stage was packed with musicians; acoustic instruments. Harmony, pickin and grinnin’, old familiar, new “old” western songs but what I noticed was the chord structures were where we all felt comfortable. We were on a chord we knew. We could play along. We could sing along and we let the music take over our hearts and emotions.

I am not against progression but most of the time I feel caught between the chords.

Pitch black wasn’t really the description. I could easily see lights across the lake. The faint glimmer of solar lights still hanging on the dock were like tea lights. Looking up I could see the stars- like Christmas lights scattered across the sky. I stood in the silence and listened to my thoughts. Who am I? The stars so far away, the patterns they have created across the sky that I still remember from 6th grade. Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper and many bright stars that I know now are satellites. The beauty of the dark. I stand at the dock and if it were not so cold I would have stood much longer. The dog reminded me that he is done with his ritual and we can go back in. I, however, will never get weary of the beauty of darkness and stars. I marvel at their dancing across the ceiling of heaven. I wonder how I could be so blessed as to have eyes to see them and a mind to ask how they are designed. I watch them as they dance across the sky. And for me- God puts on a show just for me. No one else seems to be out by their dock watching the sky show. Then I am reminded of a few years ago while in Africa looking up at the sky and seeing the moon. That same moon that would be visible in Minnesota later that day. What a God to give us the beauty of things so remarkable that can only be seen in the night skies. What a God!

It wasn’t me. It really wasn’t me, although it could have been. Two places I wasn’t at today. One was at a funeral in Indiana. I kind of wanted to go. I thought very highly of the gentleman: He had helped me out years ago when I needed some advice. But it wasn’t me that was at the celebration service in Indiana.

It also wasn’t me standing in the medium on Hwy 63 in handcuffs. We just happened to come up on the scene too late to witness what happened. Four squad cars and policeman, a pair of handcuffs and an officer putting a gun in a zip lock baggie. It wasn’t me, although it could have been. Either one could have been me. I could have lived my life and went on to eternity. I could have been running from the law and met my match by being cornered at the corner of Hwy 63 and Hwy 14. Either situation has its challenges. If I am in the casket, my life is over. If I am standing in handcuffs, my life as I knew it is over.

There are some things I cannot control in life. As much as I would like to think I can control life, there are some things I just don’t have any power over. Death is one. When my time here is over, I won’t have an option. I do have a choice how to live the life I have here. That decision making process is how I have so far in my life avoided being in cuffs at the corner of a busy intersection. God gives me many moments in life to redeem myself. George, the man who passed, helped me do that many many years ago. As I think back on the man standing surrounded by officers, I wondered if he had someone in his life like George to help redeem his decision making process, would he have been in a different place in time at 1 p.m. today in Rochester?

George helped many people redeem their decision making process. It wasn’t just me. Later this afternoon I listened to the celebration service, live streamed from Indiana and was thankful that for one day many years ago, I called George. A few hundred miles later, we connected for a day and talked. When the one son talked about his driving, I could agree it was a bit different than the way I was used to. When they referred to the places he liked to eat, we ate at two of them that day. I seldom had two meals when I was on the road. I had two meals within 7 hours time spent with George.

What if we, would redeem someone’s decision making process and took the time to listen, to take to lunch, to listen, to take to supper and listen some more? That’s what George did for me. Listened, reworded, is this what you meant, have you looked at it this way, and by the end of the night, two meals, Wednesday night church and a sermon later, I had been blessed because George took the time to listen and cared about where I was in my life at that moment. What if that young man had a George? Perhaps he did. Perhaps he had opportunities to change the projection of his life? Perhaps he did, but just maybe he needed two meals, and a lot of questions?

Be a George to someone. There are plenty of people who just need a friend. George could have said when I called him and asked if we could talk, he was too busy. He could have said he was a preacher and had to study. He could have, but he didn’t. I had to make the phone call. I had to make the effort, but something I had seen in him, knew that he would be willing to be there. The rest would take care of itself. George called last year. We talked a couple times. An honor and a blessing to go back in the years of memories and enjoy catching up.

The young man at the corner of Hwy 63 and Hwy 14? I hope he has a George he can call to help him walk through some decisions he may be facing.

It’s not my issue but it always seems to affect me. People in leadership who don’t know how to lead, who can’t accept others gifts and then because of their low self esteem do not allow anyone more gifted than themselves to be a part of “their church “. I love the illustration he uses about the body in chapter 12 but then again I know many who use only half their body or certain parts don’t work. I

like to think of a house. We have had issues with our roof for years. Jim tried many different ways to solve it including shingling. Finally it was tear it off and put a new one on. That solved the problem very well. In the meantime it ruined part of the floor, rotten the beams where the water made a trail through the insulation and worked its way out to drop in pails we set our. What we did to the roof was different what what we did to replace the floor. Each of the building materials met a need. The flooring will rot if left on top of the shingles. The shingles would be rough to walk on if we laid it on the floor. Sheet rock instead of windows? No go!

So why do leaders in the church put people in places they don’t fit or keep others from working in their areas of expertise? I think it’s because they have made an idol of themselves, or as one pastor told me “ you won’t serve in my church- you are too organized “. “ no women’s ministry allowed where I preach.” One church I was in the women’s ministry ran the church.”

That’s like saying I won’t put shingles on my house because the roof leaked and it must have been the shingles. 1 Cor 12 reminds us that there are diversities. There has to be. They can unite or they can divide. A knife can carve or a knife can cut. Carving is intentional and then cutting happens when we aren’t careful or have an accident and the knife slips. Does that mean we throw all knives away? Nope! Even with the many stitches I have had when the knife slipped, I need to use knives in life. “ that God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it.” Part of that honor, or recognition is knowing who has a need around you and helping them be honorable. I see someone who needs encouraging, I encourage- that’s my gift. Someone sees me struggling to lift something above my head, please help me out- my torn rotator cuff doesn’t work anymore. We honor those we walk along side and they honor us by their strengths which means Gods church is made to look good because of the unity in diversity. I am different than you and you add strength to my weakness WHEN we do it together. Sometimes that together is sitting around a campfire. Other times it’s delivering fun things to others. And then, there are times when you will give me greater honor by praying for me. So go about your day being you! If you are a nail, a 2×4, a beam a piece of flooring or a rug and be who you are. Don’t let someone tell you that you don’t belong in their building! You belong in Gods so be what God made you to be. And be the best nail or rug you are. And when you see someone being the best they can be, do it together!!! Be different together!