I saw two widows, both lovely ladies whose husbands I helped to bury just a year ago. Neither has any children or a lot of family, and both are just now putting their houses on the market. One is still deep in her grief and we talked about where she could find a good counselor.

The other has a full-time job at a local hospital. As we talked, a lady in the church handed her a grocery bag filled with outdated Sunday School literature. She saw me taking that in and said, “I put this out in the nurses’ lounge at our hospital. And would you believe–they read it and take it. Before long, it all disappears.” What a great ministry, and so simple.

“I’m 85 years old,” a friend said. She’s the wife of a deacon and for many years served the church as wedding coordinator. “And guess what–for the second year in a row, I won first place in the Special Olympics. My area was table tennis.” I was stunned. I mean, think of the dexterity, the quick reactions, and the keen focus that game demands. And at her age.

She continued, “Of the people I beat, the oldest was 72.” She smiled and said, “My goal is to win the gold when I’m 90. Would you pray for me about that?” I promised her I would.

Interim Pastor Mark brought up to the pulpit Mary, who is serving on the church’s pastor search committee. He paid tribute to this terrific woman and her family, then led us all in prayer for her and for the work of the committee. There is no more important assignment anywhere than being charged with the responsibility of finding the next pastor of a church.

Is it possible to take a well-known Scripture and find new insights in it? Mark Tolbert answered that in a clear affirmative Sunday. The text was Acts chapter 10, the story of the Italian centurion Cornelius and how God broke through the Apostle Peter’s preconceptions to be able to minister to Gentiles.

The three points of his message were: 1) Salvation is needed by all. Cornelius is a poster-boy for a good man–militarily he was the best of the best, personally, he was devout, God-fearing, generous, and prayerful–whose goodness was inadequate for salvation. He still needed to be saved, so the chapter tells what God did to bring him into the kingdom.

2) Salvation should be offered to all. And 3) Salvation is available to all.

Mark had a number of wonderful insights in his message. I marked up the margins of my Bible with a fine-point pen. Here are three of them….

Continue reading →

“Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue….'” (II Samuel 23:1-2 KJV)

That’s an interesting three-fold description of this greatest of all Israeli kings. All three are fascinating, but none moreso than “the sweet psalmist of Israel.” The “sweet” song-writer who gave us so many wonderful psalms, many of the 150 in our Old Testament book of Psalms. There is no doubt that some of the songs penned by this man are still being sung every day somewhere on this planet, and have been for most of the 3,000 years since he walked this land.

It’s worth noting that the writer of this line from II Samuel did not refer to David as the writer of the sweet songs, but the sweet songwriter for the nation. (Modern translations say “favorite.”) There was a sweetness in his soul, and had to have been, in order for him to have said some of the blessed things he did.

For a long time I carried an image in my mind of the teenage David keeping his father’s sheep on a green hillside, strumming his lyre, and composing, say, what would become the 23rd Psalm. But I don’t think that’s how it happened. The young David could not have composed such songs as this, as well as the 40th, 46th, and 91st psalms. And I’ll tell you why.

He had not lived enough, sinned enough, suffered enough, and been forgiven enough to know the incredible depths of God’s love, the infinite extent of His mercy, the healing balm of His tenderness, and the satisfying comfort of His faithfulness.

The Apostle Paul put it like this: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Romans 5:20) That set off a howling among his detractors. The very idea of implying that the more one sins, the more of God’s favor he receives. No wonder they bitterly retaliated, “Well, let us continue in sin that grace may really, really be showered upon us!” (Romans 6:1) They weren’t serious, but were simply taking his argument to what they saw as its logical conclusion.

You’re missing the point, Paul responded. In order to fully appreciate the forgiving, merciful side of our Lord, one has to have deserved His censure, earned His judgment, and justified His wrath, and then instead of receiving these, to have been shown only His kindness.

Only penitent sinners see this side of His nature.

And only “big” penitent sinners see the greatness of His grace, the scope of His mercy, and the bottomless supply of His lovingkindness.

Never fear, friend. You have sinned quite enough to qualify. No need to return to what Scripture calls “the flesh-pots of Egypt” (Exodus 16:3).

Continue reading →

The letters column on the editorial page of our newspaper regularly features gripes and complaints from redlight runners who got caught on candid camera.

What happened was that our leaders have contracted with a company that installs these high speed cameras at selected intersections around town, and they’ve been nabbing quite a few impatient drivers speeding through intersections after the light had turned crimson. Some of them are real unhappy about it, too.

What gets me is they complain about their constitutional rights being violated. Invasion of privacy, they call it, which is rather ridiculous. Hey friend, you’re on the street; nothing is private here. You are driving under the control of traffic laws with a state-issued license; your rights do not apply here. You gave them up when you pulled out of the driveway.

You have to wonder why some people think they have a right to run a traffic light.

Ron Mehl is a pastor in Portland, Oregon. In his outstanding book “The Ten(der) Commandments,” he tells a story you will enjoy.

Golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was traveling with a friend who noticed that he was driving much too fast. As they approached an intersection, Chi Chi sped right through the red light.

The friend said, “Chi Chi! Man, what are you doing? You ran that red light!”

Rodriguez said, “My brother taught me to drive, and my brother never stops at red lights, so I don’t stop at red lights.”

A couple of blocks later, the light was red and again, they drove through the intersection at a high rate of speed. The rider said, “Chi Chi! You’re going to get us killed! What are you doing!”

Chi Chi said, “My brother taught me to drive and my brother doesn’t stop for red lights, so I don’t stop for red lights.”

A few blocks down the street, they came to an intersection where the light was green. This time, Chi Chi put on the brakes and came to a stop. “Now what are you doing?” said the friend. “The light is green.”

Chi Chi said, “I know it. But my brother might be coming.”

Your brother is always coming, friend. Slow down and let him go on living.

Continue reading →

We throw those terms around so much, you’d think one was godly and the other evil. Which is which depends on where you stand and what you believe.

We may have found the perfect litmus test to determine which you are.

This week, police in a community just west of New Orleans arrested a woman for killing her newborn baby. She had hid her pregnancy from the family and her boyfriend, given birth by herself, and then–sorry, but this is what happened–buried the just-born baby in the backyard. Wait, it gets worse, if you can believe it.

It appeared she had pulled it off without anyone being the wiser until the family dog dug up the remains in the backyard and–again, sorry–began chewing on the body. The boyfriend found the dog and what was left of the child and, clueless concerning the facts of the situation, called the police.

The police came out, studied the situation, and arrested the woman. They charged her with two crimes: murder of her baby (she said she thought it was dead when it was born) and cruelty to her dog. The animal, it turns out, was malnourished and that’s why he was digging up and eating the poorly buried body.

Sordid tale, I grant you, and I apologize for even telling it. However, we needed to tell the story in order to pose a question.

“Which charge concerns you more–killing the baby or neglecting the dog?”

Your answer tells volumes about you.

If ending the life of the child concerns you more, you are a conservative. If neglecting to feed and care for the dog bothers you more, you are a liberal.

Diane Sawyer once spoke to the chamber of commerce’s annual banquet in the city where we were living. She gave us a memorable distinction between liberals and conservatives.

Continue reading →

Saturday, Northrop-Grumman’s New Orleans Shipyards dedicated the “New York,” the one billion dollar amphibious transport ship that will belong to the Marines. The front of the ship, the bow, the section that parts the waters and leads the way, is made up of 65 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. A number of New Yorkers were on hand Saturday for the dedication.

My son Neil who works for Northrop-Grumman in Human Resources was assigned to one of the buses moving dignitaries around the area. He stood at the front, held a mike, and gave explanations and answered questions for the guests. Later, when asked if he had seen any celebrities, he said, “Charlie Daniels.”

I love the “in your face-ness” of this gesture, taking steel from the twisted girders of the collapsed skyscrapers and recycling them into a mighty vessel that will defend this nation against the Osama bin-Ladens of this world. I applaud whoever first thought of doing this, and doff my hat to everyone responsible for pulling this off.

In the crest–not sure what they call those things–on the side of the ship, its motto clearly proclaims: “Never Forget.”

Godspeed, New York, and all who go with you.

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep…. He bringeth them into their desired haven.” (Psalm 107:23-24,30)

This business of taking the ruins of life’s failures/disasters and recycling them into mighty forces for good has a long and honorable tradition. In fact, Scripture teaches us that God is always at work in our lives pulling off the same trick, turning our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” That’s Psalm 118:22 and it’s quoted again and again throughout the New Testament. The various writers of Scripture thought it summed up this divine transaction in a way that was uniquely God-like.

Divine alchemy, we might call it. Taking the mundane and turning it into precious.

Continue reading →

Some four or five years ago, the Sunday “Parade” magazine ran a cover article on the actress Sandra Bullock in which they quoted her with a wonderful line. “What makes you different,” she said in huge letters on the front cover, “makes you beautiful.” I thought it was a maxim for the ages and eagerly devoured the article, only to discover that the writer included the line in the final paragraph of the story and it was never elaborated on. I was disappointed, because it’s one of those lines which, if original with Sandra, surely carries a history.

A couple of times every year, I find myself talking with teenagers about their self-esteem. No segment of our society struggles more with issues of personal acceptance than American teenagers, particularly in their early teen years, and most especially, the girls. Somewhere in the presentation I never fail to drop in that line, assuring them that they should not try to look like everyone else, that “what makes you different makes you beautiful.”

Now comes a movie which uses that line in its advertisements. My wife and I took our eleven-year-old granddaughters Abby and Erin to see “Penelope” Saturday afternoon. Margaret said the girls chose the movie; I was drawn to it by the desire to see what the movie did with this truism which had imbedded itself in my mind ever since Sandra Bullock coined it. Assuming she did.

“Penelope” is the story of a girl born with a pig’s snout and ears, the result, we’re told, of a curse on the family by a witch from a couple of centuries back. Only when the child thus cursed is successfully wed to a blue-blood “for better or for worse, til death do they part,” will the curse be lifted. When the child is born, the parents are mortified and hide her inside their mansion until she is of marriageable age. They are revolted by her appearance and so is every suitor whom they parade by her as a possible mate. We the viewers never quite see what all the excitement is about. She has a wide turned-up nose, but is not the monster they all make her out to be.

Eventually, the curse disappears–not as a result of a wedding, but simply when Penelope quits hiding and says, “I like myself the way I am”–and she becomes “normal,” whatever that means. In this case, it means she gets the nose of actress Christina Ricci who plays her. A child in a class Penelope tells the story to suggests that the moral of the story is that a curse has only the power we grant it. It’s true, but too profound to come from the mouth of a seven-year-old.

Continue reading →