Scripture

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

~Isaiah 41:10, NLT

Quote

There are some things in which we must persevere even when we don’t feel like it, simply because it is the right thing to do.

~Donald Whitney {Spiritual Disciplines, p.109}

There are days when after reading my Psalm, I think to myself, “Son, you needed this…this passage is for you.” Some times that happens when I am reading a book, and it happened yesterday evening in my study. I was preparing for the discussion group that meets on Monday. Our assignemnt this week was chapter V of Donald Whitney’s SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES. About midway through the chapter, I came upon these thoughts which I paraphrase…

Some times we Christians attempt to offer a sacrifice of worship only to discover there is no fire on the altar of our hearts {we feel spiritless}. We endure periods of spiritual dryness where practically every supposed worship service seems like an exercise of hypocrisy. This does not mean that we are to cease from worship. To the contrary, our need for worship is greater than ever. We have all attended a worship service when we did not feel like going, but we went because we knew this was the Christ honoring thing to do, and we were refreshed, or blessed, maybe even revived. Donald Whitney says, “Every believer must cross a few spirituals deserts in his or her Christian pilgrimage. Some of these dry places may be traversed in a few hours or days. Occassionally, however, we may be required to travel for weeks with an almost withered soul. Press on, cry out to God for renewal but don’t stop worshipping. Never give up in the desert. You don’t know how wide it is, and you may be almost across.”

I like that analogy and I believe he is right. So my advice is don’t quit. If you know someone who is discouraged, you encourage them not to quit.

Extra

We were down in number yesterday: Josh says it was the time change. He may be right because we had entire families missing. Christy Clark got to come home late Saturday evening but did not feel up to coming to church as she had hoped. Continue to pray for Christy and remember Lincoln. He has three surgeries scheduled and the first is in April. Lincoln is a warrior and he needs our prayer support. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago and he told me he was doing fine and gave me that big smile. The young man is tough, and he has a great spirit.

I think we have some warm weather coming which will probably mean storms before the week’s end, but me and my house are ready for spring which is only 11 days away. I hope you have a good day and a great week. Thanks for reading the blog.

Extra/Extra

As I prepared for yesterday’s message, I began to recall old stories that I could use as illustrations on forgiving those who have hurt us. As it turned out, I did not have time to use any of them, but several came to mind. The one I am about to tell may be in the SOAPBOX or MY STORIES, but no one ever reads either so I will put it in the blog.

My second year in Seminary, I was called to pastor a little congregation in East New Orleans. We probably had forty on a good Sunday. The former pastor, a graduating seminary student, told me, “All you have to do to pastor this church is have coffee with Mrs. Lang every Monday morning and run everything by her before you do anything. She is the matriarch of the church.” I am not sure I knew what a matriarch was but I found out. It is a female who is running the church. In those days, practically every small baptist church has a patriarch or a matriarch. Well, needless to say, I did not go drink coffee with Mrs. Lang {Hattie, and not from Cinncinatti}, and I told the former pastor that I was not going to check with her on anything. To make a long story short, we started reaching people almost immediately. One of our first converts was a 16 year old girl who had a baby and no husband. She had a huge circle of friends: she invited them and they came. It was a wild bunch. Most of them had motorcycles. It could have been a branch of the Hell’s Angels. We didn’t baptize them all but we did reach some and they were excited to serve. I made some of them greeters and they would stand out in front of the church welcoming people as they came in on Sunday morning.

Of course Hattie was not thrilled with the growth or the quality of people we were bringing in so she made herself a greeter and she would tell people as they came in on Sunday…“You don’t want to come here. The pastor is a dictator.” She said more but that is all I remember. Of course my folks came in and told me what she was doing and I told them I would take care of it. The next day {Monday} I did pay Hattie a visit, but not for coffee. I rebuked her. I told her she could not continue to do what she was doing. So she hugged my neck and apologized! No, she got mad as an old wet hen and had no intention of abiding by my wishes so I called a business meeting. The meeting got ugly. Hattie showed up and showed out. I could have survived the storm. The majority were behind me but she controlled the one deacon and the treasurer and she was determined to make life miserable for me. After a few weeks, I decided I should focus on Seminary and let Mrs. Hattie have her church back. I guess what I did was selfish. It disappointed a lot of people. I am glad to say that some of those dear people became friends for life.

One more part to the story: Hattie gets the last laugh. Hattie’s hen pecked husband liked me. I guess he admired me for standing up to the beast. He told her that when he died, he wanted me to do his service. He died a few months later. We were in Athens; home for a short visit. We had not been in Athens long until Hattie called or had someone call for her. I don’t know how Hattie got Mother’s phone number but she called. I did not talk to her directly, but they gave me the message. Clarance had passed and they wanted me to do the service. I don’t think I had ever flown to that point, and I wanted to be a big time evangelist in the day and so I decided to fly to New Orleans. Round trip was 90$ but I knew Hattie was loaded and could afford it. Friends picked me up at the Airport in New Orleans and carried me to the cemetery just north of the lake. I did the service and was expecting Hattie to at least say thank you, and was hoping she would offer to pay my expenses: she did neither. It taught me a valuable lesson: never expect anything, not even gratitude.