Month: October 2014

This past week my old friend Epaphras stopped by the office for a chat. (And I mean old friend. He’s the 2,000-year-old founder of the church at Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis.)

“Say, isn’t that a new donkey Ep?” I asked watching his burro nibbling on the grass in the courtyard.

He smiled, “Why yes it is. Customs wouldn’t let me bring the old one across the border.” Epaphras offered me a falafel as we sat in the shade. “So how are things going at Canyon View John?”

“Great! We had nearly 500 people here last Sunday night for Trunk or Treat*.”

“That’s wonderful. I would have stopped by but my burro doesn’t have a trunk,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye. “Now if I rode an elephant like Thomas, that would be a different story.”

I had to think about that for a minute and then I laughed. “Seriously Ep, it’s great to see all the kids coming to Canyon View, but I worry. So many of them leave the church when they go off to college. I don’t know what to do or say.”

He thought for a moment, then leaned forward and answered. “That’s the challenge John. There is a critical moment when children must decide whether they truly believe or not. They need to discover if their faith is honestly theirs or if it is just something they inherited from their parents.”

“But think about all the things we are doing as a congregation! We have a children’s minister and a youth minister and Children’s Bible Hour, Bible Classes, Bible Bowl and all kinds of activities too.” I objected wiping the crumbs off my shirt. “Isn’t there something we can do?”

The old man raised his eyebrows. “Those are all fine programs I’m sure. I wish we could have done some of those things twenty centuries ago, but it would be hard to have Children’s Bible Hour in a catacomb.” He thought for a minute and then continued. “But John some things – the most important things – don’t change. If you want your children to have faith, you have to have faith. If the church isn’t important to you, don’t be surprised if it’s not important to your children.”

Then, as usual, he got on his donkey and rode away leaving me with something to think about.

 

* Trunk or Treat is a wonderful program for all the children in the neighborhood. Members (and neighbors) decorate their cars and trucks and provide a safe activity for kids. We have games and prizes and dinner and a costume parade the last Sunday of every October.

It had been a tough week. It was one of those weeks when I dreaded getting the mail or answering the phone. It seemed like all of the news was just bad. Jan looked at me, ran her fingers through my hair and packed me off to the boat. “Somebody needs some quiet time,” she said. “Why don’t you go out to the boat and unwind?” Jan packed me some snacks and pulled my wool watch cap down around my ears.

A short time later, I dragged the dinghy down the beach and waded out into the bay. Soon the water was doing it’s magic. With each stroke of the oars, I could feel my body and, more importantly, my soul beginning to relax. The sun was setting behind Coronado: a ball of red fire. As I climbed up the side of our old wooden boat, the stars were beginning to “pop.” Sirius, the “dog star,” appeared above the Coronado bridge quickly followed by Jupiter and Orion. There was an unusual chill in the air and the heat from the oil lamps felt good. Wrapped in my sleeping bag, sipping a mug of steaming tomato soup, I started reading the Sermon on the Mount:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble,” (Jesus, Matthew 6:25-34).

Those were the words I needed to hear. Do you? Isn’t our Father wonderful?

 

 

Have you ever lied to God? People are often dishonest in prayer: “Lord, thank you for the wonderful day” but inside it doesn’t feel all that wonderful.

How can we be dishonest in prayer? It’s human nature to think some matters are too trivial to pray about. “The Creator of the Universe isn’t interested in my frustrations with the phone company.” That’s not true. God has invited us to share our whole life with Him. He is interested in our growth and that requires transparency on our part.

Likewise there are some things we’d rather not talk about. That’s true in marriage (or any relationship for that matter) and it’s true in prayer. A man came home drunk one night. He staggered into the house and his sweet wife helped him into bed. As she pulled the covers up and kissed his head she asked, “Charles, would you like me to say a prayer?”

In his drunken stupor he mumbled something she took to be a “Yes” and so she began, “Heavenly Father, please forgive my drunken husband…” The startled man opened his eyes and objected, “Don’t tell him I’m drunk! Tell him I’m sick!”

There are also times when we are angry with God but we are afraid to admit it. “Why did this have to happen to me?” Still we say our prayers and pretend everything is fine. Job had the courage (or the maturity) to ask the tough questions. He was honest with God and we call Job blessed.

The point of all this is growth. Before we can be honest with God, we must be honest with ourselves and so the discipline of prayer calls us into a totally transparent relationship with God. It calls us to be honest to God.