By John Stallings
Shipwrecks are fascinating.
Remember the movie, “Titanic?” It was the blockbuster movie of the year all about the ship which was called “unsinkable” hitting an iceberg & going down on her first & only voyage.
What did the Titanic teach us? For one thing the maritime nations of the world changed their policies about ship’s radio rooms after a neighboring ship turned off its radio set for the night because it was bedtime, when the Titanic was starting to sink with hundreds of souls beneath the cold waves.
Shipbuilders learned about lifeboats becoming useless when a ship lists to one side. And they also learned you have to have enough lifeboats for all on board. And maybe they learned from the Titanic not to boast as if she were actually unsinkable because clearly, she wasn’t.
In this article we’ll look at perhaps the most famous shipwreck in history, Paul’s shipwreck in route to Rome & see what spiritual lessons we can learn. That story is dramatically told in Acts 27.
One thing I’ll tell you up front is that the storm Paul encountered has to be one of the most horrendous experiences any man ever endured. It lasted two weeks & much of that time neither the sun nor stars were seen.
I’ve lived in Florida most of my life & can tell you that two days in the grip of a ferocious storm is about all a human can endure, & that’s’ with the provision that you’re on stable ground, not like Paul, aboard a small ship.
We’ll see one thing for absolutely certain, & that is even in the worst of times, God’s redeeming hand can come forth & give us a reason for hope & good cheer.
Secular literary experts & writers have given kudos’ to chapters 27 & 28 of Acts which recount Paul’s shipwreck, saying that for sheer purity of story telling, they are unrivaled in all the history of the literary world.
Luke, who wrote Acts, besides being a physician, was a cracking good writer & storyteller. If it weren’t for Luke we’d not have what has become the classic telling of the Christmas story. If it weren’t for Luke we’d have never heard the line, “There was no room in the end,” nor would we know about the stable, the shepherds or the angels.
Luke alone gives us the memorable parables of the Prodigal Son & the Good Samaritan. Luke introduces us to little Zacchaeus & crafted the post-Easter story about the “Road to Emmaus.”
In the book of Acts Luke tells us about “The day Of Pentecost,” the drama of Ananias & Sapphira, the Ethiopian Eunuch, Saul’s Damascus road conversion, Eutychus falling out the window after a long sermon by Paul, & the missionary journeys of Paul, Peter & the other Apostles.
But nowhere in Luke’s writings are his rich descriptive powers on display better than in the last two chapters of Acts.
Luke’s telling of Paul’s shipwreck has even been studied by scholars as a kind of primer in ancient sea-faring techniques. Luke’s description of the sailors, the ship, the riggings are so detailed as to give us an accurate, technological glimpse into how they used to navigate the seas back then.
But as an evangelist, Luke never wrote only for the artistry of it all. His purpose was always to help the reader to come to a better & stronger faith in The Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world.
As Acts opens, Luke is encouraging Theophilus & his flock to see that there were always struggles in the Christian life & that there was never any “golden-age” of the church during which there were no problems, quarrels among believers, no mistakes & no suffering.
In my opinion nowhere in scripture do you see that message more clearly than in Acts 27. Paul’s shipwreck is an actual historical event but it’s also a kind of parable & metaphor with its high seas, storms that come & winds that howl, for the trials & difficulties in the lives of believers.
Paul had been traveling across the Near East for nine months preaching through Israel & Syria, Turkey & Greece & now he’s headed for the greatest city in the land, the center of military & political might on earth, Rome.
He’s requested an audience with Caesar. He’s been under arrest for a while & has exhausted his legal options in the smaller venues so as a Roman citizen he has this final right to take his case directly to Caesar & it couldn’t be denied. You have to give Paul some credit, he went for it. So now, finally he’s being transported via ship to Italy.
Paul is on a grain-carrying ship, which is also a ship full of prisoners. Against his advice the sailors are going to try a wintertime trip during the stormiest season. During this era, massive amounts of grain were being transported by ship which was a money-maker for the ship owners, thus their willingness to take a risk.
As Paul predicted, the ship & its crew encountered a nightmare of a storm. It didn’t take an experienced sailor to know there’d be no saving of the ship. The sailors did all possible to keep the ship afloat, including throwing grain overboard & finally things that were vital to the ships viability. In the end all that was saved were the souls on board. This brings me to the first important point;
WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER A STORM, DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN YOURSELF.
The sailors worked night & day, under girding the ship, which means they ran cables underneath the ship to keep the planks from separating & twice they lightened the load to keep it afloat. If you & I are in a storm & our boat is sinking, if we don’t do everything we can it will probably sink. While the saying “God helps them who help themselves” isn’t in the Bible, the principle & thought most certainly is.
When I was a kid they used to say, “Work like it all depends on you then pray like it all depends on God.” Good advice.
Ephesians 6:10-17 admonishes us to “put on the whole armor of God,” & it lists all the battle dress for the child of God. God doesn’t put the armor on us, we do that ourselves & though God will help us, we’re expected to put on the armor & be ready to fight the fight of faith. Next;
PRAY AND ASK FOR GOD’S ASSISTANCE—Acts 27:29
The sailors prayed they’d see the light of day.
I remember reading about a woman who worked in a factory & was trained to operate an expensive machine. After her training, her superior told her if the machine ever got jammed, not to try to force it to work, but to call for him.
One day the machine jammed & the woman began to do everything she could to get it working. She cut it off, then cut it back on, pushed & pulled to no avail. She worked frantically with the jammed machine until she smelled smoke & finally cut it off & called her supervisor. When the supervisor came & checked the machine out, he saw that the well intentioned woman had burned up its motor. The woman cried & said, “I did all I could do to get the machine running again.” Her boss said, “Lady, you’ve never done all you can do until you’ve called me.”
After you & I have exhausted all our efforts & seen no success, & we’ve come to the end of our abilities, we can call on our heavenly Father in prayer & be assured of His help.
If however we fail to call on God & our boat hits the bottom, we have to take the responsibility for the calamity.
Have you ever wondered---?
WHAT’S GOD’S GREAT MAN OF FAITH DOING IN A STORM ANYWAY?
Some people believe if you have enough faith you’ll never encounter a storm but in this story, Paul, “God’s man of the hour, -of faith & power” gets into a killer hurricane & it goes on for two weeks.
Faith produces storms!
There’s nothing in the Bible even remotely hinting that a Christian will be exempt from trouble. You very well could come under persecution in your life for being a Christian. Jesus, Job & many of the Bible greats got into trouble not because they were bad but because they were good.
There is more persecution of Christians worldwide at present than there ever has been in history. We should be grateful we’ve not been called on to resist unto blood. In countries like Australia & Canada the pulpit has been declared a public place & ministers have been fined & threatened for things they’ve preached. Things that heretofore could be said freely are now prosecuted under “hate speech laws.”
Though the ship Paul is sailing on is tossed around like a toothpick & he hasn’t seen the sun in days, he doesn’t panic. He stands before the 276 sailors aboard & assures them that God will spare all of their lives, with one provision; they unequivocally must stay with the ship. Here’s another lesson;
WHEN YOU’RE IN A STORM--DON’T JUMP SHIP!
One of the temptations in a storm is to try to get away from the problem.
I’m tempted to laugh when I hear young ladies say things like, “I’m tired of all these house rules & pressures from my parents, & I’m going to leave home & get married.” This young lady doesn’t know much about marriage if she thinks it means liberty to do exactly as she pleases.
I smile when I hear young men say, “I’m sick of people telling me what to do & having to live with curfews & all that stuff, I’m going to join the Marines.” This young man will get a surprise when he arrives at boot-camp.
Here’s a question for all of us; --how are we ever going to see God perform a miracle if we leave the place where the miracle is needed?
The most important thing a person could possess to be successful, outside of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, is stickability. Staying power; the ability not to run when the going gets tough. You may need a vacation, but don’t jump ship. You may have to fast & pray but don’t jump ship.
LIGHTEN YOUR LOAD DURING A STORM.
Luke tells us after a few days rolling around in this killer of a storm that the sailors started lightening the ship. To show you how desperate they were, they even threw overboard the grain which could have been eaten.
Then things got so desperate they threw overboard the tackling of the ship.
If I knew exactly what tackling was I’d share it with you but for the life of me I can’t tell you. It must have been masking & sails & other paraphernalia but I know they had tackling on the ship. They probably went out & bought tackling before they shoved off. I can hear two sailors talking a day or two before the ship was to sail, “Hey Sam, we’ve got to get some tackling for the ship before we sail you know?” “Right Joe,” Sam retorts, “we have to get that tackling.” Hey Sam, what’s tackling?” Sam probably said, “Well, I don’t rightly know what tackling is either but they told me to go buy some & there’s a tackling store down on Main Street.”
TACKLING IS ANYTHING WE DON’T ACTUALLY NEED TO SURVIVE.
I don’t know what the tackling is in your life. It would probably be different than my tackling but we all have tackling. I think a good rule of thumb would be; --tackling is whatever we don’t really need to survive when things start getting stormy in our lives.
We’re entering choppy waters in America economically & politically. Sadly we’re seeing unprecedented home foreclosures, high energy costs & people of all strata’s are feeling the squeeze. We’re entering an era now where things that we’ve always had in abundance will be harder & harder to come by.
Yet our culture is a consumer oriented culture geared toward always showing us things we need to “be happy.” I have a car an older car but it’s a great car. However now & then I get itchy, wanting to buy a new car with that new car smell & look. The advertisements tell me there are 48 easy payments. I know that’s a lie. There may be two easy payments, the first & last ones, but those other 46 payments are hard.
In America we strive for bigger houses, better cars, more money & power. Jesus never taught us to directly condemn wealth but He spoke often about the danger that wealth could cause.
IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER- MONEY HAS ITS PERILS
What would drive a person to sell their body? Why would someone risk prison by selling illegal drugs? What drives people to cheat on their taxes or break into homes & steal? M.O.N.E.Y.
Jesus taught that there only two masters, not God & the devil, but God & money. Mammon is a Syrian God of money & people bowed down to it & worshipped it. They prayed for its success in their lives. In short there was a demonic stronghold & it held sway over people. When Jesus spoke of the God/mammon, people knew what He was talking about.
Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:10—For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness & pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
MONEY ALSO HAS A SPIRITUAL DIMENSION.
In Luke 19:11-27 Jesus told us about 3 men who were entrusted with money & then God basically stood back to see how they’d handle the money that He deposited into their care. When we stand before God He will ask us how we spent the time & talent He invested in us while on earth.
When Jesus went to church, He didn’t sit on the front seat or the back seat. Believe it or not, He sat over by the offering plate actually watching what the people were dropping in. What if your preacher did that?—Matt.12:41
GIVING IS THE STRONGEST ANTIDOTE THAT EXISTS AGAINST "GOD MAMMON! "
I don’t have space to drill down into the true nature of tithing in this writing but suffice to say it’s a weekly reminder of who’s in charge of our lives, God or God-mammon.
After Paul & the other passengers on board this ship had struggled for two weeks, the ship they were sailing on splintered into pieces & all of them made it safely to shore on a little island called Melita, or modern day Malta.
GOD CAN BRING US SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES WHEN WE’RE STRUGGLING TO KEEP OUR HEADS ABOVE WATER.
Here’s something amazing; while Paul was fighting for his life & the lives of others aboard a ship that was just about to disintegrate, with all kinds of violent wind, an out of control steering gear & steady pounding by huge waves, Paul had a dream or a vision.
Isn’t that something? This dream didn’t come when things were going smoothly, this appearance of an angel from God. There was no mood music playing & pastel lights turned low. No, thanks be to God He spoke to Paul when things were in chaos, when there was trouble on the left, disaster on the right, problems up ahead & tragedy right behind. That’s when God chose to speak to Paul.
When things get a little crazy, maybe God knows He has our attention. God speaks to us through thoughts, dreams, visions, instincts & a multitude of other ways. Many times He’ll speak when we are full of adrenaline trying to meet the clear & present danger that we face. God can & does often speak when we are so exhausted we don’t think we can do another thing productive to keep things afloat.
Are you going through a storm? It won’t be all bad if God uses that time to let you see things in a different light.
SOMETIMES, AFTER ALL OUR PRAYERS & EFFORTS-- THE BOAT WILL SINK ANYWAY.
Sometimes in spite of all your efforts & all your tears & all your prayers & all the love you've invested , all of it will die right before your eyes. Just like the destruction of the boat Paul was traveling on, after the victory he saw in the salvaging of every soul on board, his boat sank anyway. In these times it's important to remember that God is still in control & His children will be rescued no matter what.
Most of us are familiar with the eccentric [I almost wrote crazy man] cable television billionaire Ted Turner. At an American Humanist Association banquet when he received an award for his work on the environment & world peace, he openly criticized Christianity.
He said, “Jesus would be sick at His stomach over the way His ideas have been twisted. I’ve been saved seven or eight times but I gave it up when despite my prayers my sister died. The more I strayed from the faith the better I felt.”
Ted Turner is dead wrong but his attitude isn’t much different than many, especially people who’ve been around as long as Turner. It’s interesting at least to me that Turner & I, give or take a few days, are exactly the same age.
Like Ted Turner, I’ve seen my share of “boats” sink & hit the bottom. Some of my greatest heartaches have come because of the failure of people I’ve loved.
I know I’m not alone in this but I’ve helped people in my life & have been shocked & disappointed when they turned against me & did everything in their power to destroy me. I’ve lived to see [not believe] that seemingly “no good deed goes unpunished.”
If God had put me together differently I’d have long ago sworn-off helping anyone ever again. But something in my heart has demanded that I keep reaching out to others as much as is in my power.
I’ve had friendships but certain things have happened which broke the friendship & the wreckage blights the landscape of my life.
Like Turner I also have had prayers that so far have seemed unanswered but the difference is, I truly believe that God’s at work in every detail of my life & the only reason He didn’t give me what I asked for is so that He may, in His own time, give me something better.
No matter what happens to you today it will be better tomorrow.
I believe that if you just live, you’ll outlive many of your problems. I’ve learned that people love the human touch, a warm hug or just a pat on the back. I believe that even when I’m in pain I don’t have to be one.
I’ve learned that no matter how many “ships” I see sink God will put others in my life if I refuse to get bitter & keep an open heart.
I have learned, I truly have learned, that I still have a lot to learn.
Paul understood that even in the midst of life’s storms, God proclaims, God performs & God provides,- in your storm, or in mine, ---in a private storm or a public one,
In the life of an individual ---or a church or a nation.
Blessings,
John
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Letting Go For Dear Life
By John Stallings
The other evening when we were watching the election returns, I witnessed a sad sight.
Eighty year old Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter was defeated by Joe Sestak. I don’t mention this from a political, but rather a human perspective.
Specter’s loss will be endlessly examined in the days & weeks to come, as will other losses. As for me, Specter’s situation had to do with the perils of switching parties in an anti-incumbent national environment. He was a living, breathing embodiment of the traits the voters seem to be fed up with these days.
I mention Specter only because of the look he & his wife had on their faces at their concession appearance & speech. There will be many more of these expressions on faces of individuals from both parties in the coming months. This elderly couple looked & acted as if they’d been forced to pass by the coffin of their only child who’d been held for millions of dollars in ransom & then killed. As they walked away it seemed as if their legs would hardly carry them.
Specter had been a Washington insider/elected official for thirty years & he had been an elected official, counting local office for forty years- all tolled. This is just one man’s opinion but the reality may be that after the smoke clears & they have time to process the verdict of the voters, this couple will be happier & possibly healthier.
Still I wondered about them as I saw defeat slip its cold arms round about their shoulders. I felt for them as I’m sure many others did. It has to be tough to let go after all the years in public office. Many of us know what it’s like to be forced, for one reason or another to let go. To let go when it’s not exactly our choice & walk away isn’t’ all that easy, but it’s one of life’s “required courses.”
LETTING GO
A father takes his five year old son to the bus stop for the first day of school. His hair has been trimmed. His shirt has been tucked in one final time. He has a new jacket & a brand-new back pack. Just over the hill a big yellow bus appears. “Now don’t be afraid,” Dad says, trying not to show his own fear. They hug. They exchange goodbyes. He climbs up the steps. They wave again. And then Dad gets in the car to follow the bus. Have to make sure my son gets to school alright. It’s hard to let go.
I remember when my wife left to drive our oldest daughter to Louisiana to go to college. When the car pulled out of sight, I went into my daughter’s room & lay down on her water-bed. I looked on the walls of her room & saw memento’s she had framed. One was a souvenir I brought her from a ministry trip to Hawaii. The thought hit me that my daughter was so proud of her father’s trip to Hawaii, that she cherished it as much as if she’d gone on the trip with me. I was deeply touched.
You guessed it; I started mopping tears from my eyes as I lay there on her bed. Then the worst thing that could have happen, happened. The phone rang. That was before the days of “caller I.D” so we just answered every time the phone rang. I shouldn’t have answered, because I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t talk. It was a local pastor’s wife who wanted to ask about a coming city-wide meeting our church was co-operating with. She said, “Oh, brother Stallings, what’s wrong?” I apologized to the dear lady. In the interest of full disclosure, I told her the whole story, whereupon she began to talk about how sweet it was for a father to feel that way about his daughter. I’m sure you know how it is, if not you will someday. It’s so hard to let go.
We had a case here in Florida that was publicized globally. A family was divided because a young woman was on a feeding tube & had been since her brain stopped functioning fifteen years ago. The son-in-law said unplug it but her parents said leave it in. It gave the politicians an opportunity to preen for votes. The Supreme Court sided with the son-in-law. The son-in-law is made to look like another Scott Peterson for wanting to let her go but a bunch of people who never met the wife were having a hard time letting her go.
In so many ways you & I can dwell in the drama of loss. We lose a job; a friend moves away, a relationship dies. A place that holds a lot of fond memories gets torn down. A co-worker retires & doesn’t come back. There may be no more difficult task for us as human beings than letting go. To be perfectly candid I never did “letting go” very well but I always had to let go anyway. We all do. How can we pull that off? How can we maintain our composure while letting go of someone or something we love? If you & I are really honest we have to admit that most of the things that have been taken away left covered with our claw marks.
Turning loose can be as big an ordeal as most of us will ever face. We all will have to turn loose at some point in our lives although what we’re turning loose of will be different for each one of us. My point is-we have to wrestle with letting go of something or someone at some point in our journeys. And letting go can be hard. However, unless we come to grips with it, we will not be able to grow.
There is a freedom that comes from accepting that the best we can do for the moment is to roll with life’s punches. Many times it’s fear that enters the equation when trouble comes to us. Experience has taught me that people tend to cope better at times when it seems their whole world is falling apart than they do when something small has gone wrong in their lives. The reason for this is that we don’t blame ourselves when something of tremendous magnitude happens to us. Consequently, we don’t have the fear factor that others will blame us. In times of crisis we let go for dear life- in order to move on, holding on to the things we can & letting go of the things we must.
Many of us have stood beside dying parents. It takes a lot of courage although in another manner of speaking we have no choice at a time like this. The process requires letting go, ceding control that was never ours but God’s to exercise in the first place. We can do this begrudgingly, regretfully & plaintively or we can do it with grace. When it comes our time to go, we have the same choice.
The other night Juda & I watched a television special about the life & career of pianist & comedian Victor Borge. He was a multi-talented entertainer & raconteur. Something he said in an interview struck me. He said, “I sometimes think about death & it makes me terribly uncomfortable to think I’ll lie down & die someday & the world will go right on without me. This to me is unacceptable.” He said it partly in jest but you could see he was speaking from his heart about letting go of life & all the things about it he so cherished.
The hour ended with his death at 91. He died in his sleep after returning from a successful foreign tour. His son spoke about his father & explained how his dad was in those last years. He’d lost his much adored wife to cancer & frankly had never gotten over it. He wanted to go be with her. A lot could be said right here- but suffice to say, life had conditioned the old man to really want to let go. It seems that the very old are protected that way. They become as oblivious to the fact of their leaving as babies are of their arriving.
Most of the things we are anxious about indeed most of the things we fear in life lose their power over us when we simply let go of our fears, & trust in God. To learn this lesson is the beginning of real freedom.
I have read that when people were placed in prison camps during World War 11, when they’d lost everything except their lives; there was a joy & acceptance & even good humor among the prisoners that was hard to explain. Fear trades in comparisons,–Who has what? Who has more? But when all the markers of distinction have been swept away & everyone is in the same boat, there’s no guilt, comparison or social climbing. The only thing people have is their lives & one another, of all else they’ve had to let go.
KARL WALENDA
I witnessed Walenda’s death on T.V in the mid-seventies. Karl Walenda, the patriarch of the famous family of acrobats called “The flying Walenda’s” was killed because he couldn’t let go. It happened in Puerto Rico where Karl tried to walk across a wire stretched between two tall buildings. He’d done such feats many times before but on this particular day there was some disagreement in the family about whether he should go ahead with the show.
It was a gusty windy day & swirling gusts of wind were clocked at more than thirty knots between the high rise towers that Karl intended to cross. Though it was stretched tightly between the city’s two tallest buildings, you could see the high wire vibrating in the wind. Still, Walenda had never canceled a show before so he decided to go ahead.
As he inched along the wire, holding tightly the long balancing pole, a sudden gust hit his body & tilted him sideways. He struggled for balance & it was clear he was in trouble. Onlookers saw him fight for control then plunge to the street below, smashing into the roof of a car. When his body was examined it was discovered that his fingers were still tightly clutched around the balancing pole. He had carried it with him to his destruction.
High wire experts rely on the balancing pole for their survival. As Karl Walenda once put it himself, “The pole is your safe guard; you can almost always keep your balance with the pole.” Yet experts also say there are times on rare occasions when it’s necessary to let go of the pole & grab the wire. Of course when an acrobat lets the pole fall & grabs the wire it’s an admission of failure. So for a famed acrobat letting go even if it means saving your life can be exceedingly difficult. In his split second decision to hold on to that balancing pole in the wind, Karl Walenda made a fatal mistake. He held on to the pole all the way down, falling with it clutched in both hands, all the way to the ground. I’m sure his gravestone was in scripted with more uplifting words but it could have honestly read, “He just wouldn’t let go…. of the pole.”
MINISTERS WHO CAN’T LET GO
Sad to say, many pastors don’t know how to let go when they step down as the pastor of a congregation, much to the peril of all involved. Now I’m sure there have been cases when a pastor stops being the pastor & remains in or around the church & the results have been just fine. But this is an exception to the rule.
In over 50 years I can scarcely think of a single case I’ve witnessed where a pastor remained in a church after stepping down when a mess wasn’t made of things. IMHO, his work there is finished & if he’s not careful he’ll undo the good he’s done. This happens too often. There should be a “stay away” period for an extended length of time & there shouldn’t be “face to face” involvement with the church for a season so that they can all move on emotionally. After that there are ways a former pastor could still be a blessing to his former congregation, in returning for previously arranged funerals or weddings, revival meetings as well as former pastor appreciation days.
Many times a preacher will leave a church after several fruitful years there & destroy all the good he did by meddling in the church’s business, even from hundreds of miles away. A man who’ll do this in my view is very immature. Can we say, “Control freak?” There’s no law against it but a God called man should have more wisdom. You might wonder why a former pastor even if he’s retired shouldn’t just hang around the church even if he’s otherwise not meddling. I can think of several reasons.
It would be extremely difficult for the man & his former congregation to make the transition to his no longer being pastor. His very presence would make change very difficult as it would reflect on him if & when one of his programs was changed. It would also be very intimidating for the new pastor. The temptation for the former pastor to meddle would be huge especially if certain changes were not to the pastors liking, something that would almost inevitably be the case. When a pastor leaves a church he should say his goodbyes, move on, cut ties with the congregation & let go. God has other work for him which should be the reason he left in the first place. If he left under pressure, then it makes all the more sense for him to “get outta Dodge.” To do otherwise is usually a problem & has a detrimental affect on the church.
Since I’ve opened this Pandora’s Box, let me say that none of this means a pastor doesn’t still care for the church, & vice versa. It also doesn’t mean he can’t maintain friendships but they should be just that, only friendships & not cross the line to pastor/parishioner relationships. Certainly neither the former pastor nor the congregation should do anything to make the pastoral transitional period more complicated. Wouldn’t be prudent.
HANNAH-THE MOTHER WHO LET GO.
Centuries ago, Hannah prayed desperately for a son, then when he was three, took him to the Temple & gave him to God. Talk about letting go!! In Samuel’s case he stayed there in the care of Eli & went on to become a prophet in Israel. Think about this; Hannah entrusted her son to the care of a man who had clearly failed in raising his own sons to be faithful to God. I can imagine she sometimes wished she could take back control of her son’s development. But she let him go because she’d given him to God so she had to content herself with making clothes for him & an annual visit.
Letting go is a part of life. Loss, separation & giving away are themes that run through the biblical narrative. One of the first actions of man was that he was to leave his father & mother & cleave to his wife. God called upon Abram to leave his father’s country & house. When Paul, writing to the Philippians speaks of how Christ emptied Himself, He said, -Though He was in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself & became obedient to the point of death-even the death on a cross.
Jesus said to His disciples, If I go not away, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.
TWO OF THE MOST BELOVED VERSES IN ALL THE BIBLE
The mission of this message is to help us with the challenge of letting go. I’ve pointed out the problem, now under God I’m going to share two verses that will be extremely helpful in getting to the answer.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not to thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Many of us memorized these two verses in Sunday School years ago. In any list of favorite verses they would rank at the top. These verses are striking in their simplicity. There is nothing difficult about them. They can be understood by the youngest Christian yet comforting to the oldest saint of God. They have been the hope & encouragement of countless multitudes of God’s people across the centuries. These words cling to the soul because they speak to a great need we all feel for strength & guidance.
These verses tell us the basis on which God’s peace & guidance will come. I’d like to stress five words & each of them gives tremendous help in “letting go & letting God.”
1. Trust.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Trust is a Hebrew word that carries the sense of putting your full weight on something. To trust in the Lord is to lay your whole weight on Him. When a Christian experiences loss, they are still in good hands.
2. Lean.
“Lean not to your own understanding.” Leaning is what you do when you walk with a cane or a walker because you’re unsteady. It’s used in the Old Testament for leaning against a tree or large stone. You lean on something when you’re not strong enough to stand alone. A lot of trust is involved in leaning. We find encouragement here to “let go.”
3. Understanding.
“Lean not on your own understanding.” This word refers to the mental powers you bring to a problem. It’s simply the decision-making ability that God has given you. This word is telling us not to lean exclusively on our ability to figure things out. Lean instead on the Lord. Rest you weight on Him! It’s this struggle to figure things out that drives men to drink or drugs. Place the hurts & disappointments of life in God’s hands where they belong. Trying to figure out what went wrong in a relationship can be crazy-making. Don’t go there. Trust in God’s wisdom.
4. Acknowledge.
“In all thy ways acknowledge Him & He will direct your paths.” Factor God into every thing you do. Bring God into every equation where your life is concerned.
5. Direct.
“…He will direct your paths.” There are multitudes of multiplicities of saints living & dead that can testify to the fact that God will lead the way if we’ll trust him.
Let’s look at the word “He.” Who is the “He” of Proverbs 3:6? The “He” is the God of the Bible. The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. The God of Moses. The God of Israel. The God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God who spoke & a thousand million galaxies sprang into being. The God who has numbered the grains of sand. The God who knows the hairs on our head. The God who sees the sparrow when it falls. The God who holds the universe in His hands. That God, the Almighty, Transcendent God of the universe. He will direct your paths.
The God who says, “If you will but trust me I will take care of the details. Trust me. Rest your full weight on me. Acknowledge me in everything. And I, the God of the universe, will direct your paths.”
It may not be easy. It may not always be the way you want to go. It may not seem to be the shortest way.
But He will direct your paths. He promised—He will not fail! Rather than “hanging on for dear life,” lean on Him and,
LET GO FOR DEAR LIFE!
Blessings,
John
The other evening when we were watching the election returns, I witnessed a sad sight.
Eighty year old Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter was defeated by Joe Sestak. I don’t mention this from a political, but rather a human perspective.
Specter’s loss will be endlessly examined in the days & weeks to come, as will other losses. As for me, Specter’s situation had to do with the perils of switching parties in an anti-incumbent national environment. He was a living, breathing embodiment of the traits the voters seem to be fed up with these days.
I mention Specter only because of the look he & his wife had on their faces at their concession appearance & speech. There will be many more of these expressions on faces of individuals from both parties in the coming months. This elderly couple looked & acted as if they’d been forced to pass by the coffin of their only child who’d been held for millions of dollars in ransom & then killed. As they walked away it seemed as if their legs would hardly carry them.
Specter had been a Washington insider/elected official for thirty years & he had been an elected official, counting local office for forty years- all tolled. This is just one man’s opinion but the reality may be that after the smoke clears & they have time to process the verdict of the voters, this couple will be happier & possibly healthier.
Still I wondered about them as I saw defeat slip its cold arms round about their shoulders. I felt for them as I’m sure many others did. It has to be tough to let go after all the years in public office. Many of us know what it’s like to be forced, for one reason or another to let go. To let go when it’s not exactly our choice & walk away isn’t’ all that easy, but it’s one of life’s “required courses.”
LETTING GO
A father takes his five year old son to the bus stop for the first day of school. His hair has been trimmed. His shirt has been tucked in one final time. He has a new jacket & a brand-new back pack. Just over the hill a big yellow bus appears. “Now don’t be afraid,” Dad says, trying not to show his own fear. They hug. They exchange goodbyes. He climbs up the steps. They wave again. And then Dad gets in the car to follow the bus. Have to make sure my son gets to school alright. It’s hard to let go.
I remember when my wife left to drive our oldest daughter to Louisiana to go to college. When the car pulled out of sight, I went into my daughter’s room & lay down on her water-bed. I looked on the walls of her room & saw memento’s she had framed. One was a souvenir I brought her from a ministry trip to Hawaii. The thought hit me that my daughter was so proud of her father’s trip to Hawaii, that she cherished it as much as if she’d gone on the trip with me. I was deeply touched.
You guessed it; I started mopping tears from my eyes as I lay there on her bed. Then the worst thing that could have happen, happened. The phone rang. That was before the days of “caller I.D” so we just answered every time the phone rang. I shouldn’t have answered, because I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t talk. It was a local pastor’s wife who wanted to ask about a coming city-wide meeting our church was co-operating with. She said, “Oh, brother Stallings, what’s wrong?” I apologized to the dear lady. In the interest of full disclosure, I told her the whole story, whereupon she began to talk about how sweet it was for a father to feel that way about his daughter. I’m sure you know how it is, if not you will someday. It’s so hard to let go.
We had a case here in Florida that was publicized globally. A family was divided because a young woman was on a feeding tube & had been since her brain stopped functioning fifteen years ago. The son-in-law said unplug it but her parents said leave it in. It gave the politicians an opportunity to preen for votes. The Supreme Court sided with the son-in-law. The son-in-law is made to look like another Scott Peterson for wanting to let her go but a bunch of people who never met the wife were having a hard time letting her go.
In so many ways you & I can dwell in the drama of loss. We lose a job; a friend moves away, a relationship dies. A place that holds a lot of fond memories gets torn down. A co-worker retires & doesn’t come back. There may be no more difficult task for us as human beings than letting go. To be perfectly candid I never did “letting go” very well but I always had to let go anyway. We all do. How can we pull that off? How can we maintain our composure while letting go of someone or something we love? If you & I are really honest we have to admit that most of the things that have been taken away left covered with our claw marks.
Turning loose can be as big an ordeal as most of us will ever face. We all will have to turn loose at some point in our lives although what we’re turning loose of will be different for each one of us. My point is-we have to wrestle with letting go of something or someone at some point in our journeys. And letting go can be hard. However, unless we come to grips with it, we will not be able to grow.
There is a freedom that comes from accepting that the best we can do for the moment is to roll with life’s punches. Many times it’s fear that enters the equation when trouble comes to us. Experience has taught me that people tend to cope better at times when it seems their whole world is falling apart than they do when something small has gone wrong in their lives. The reason for this is that we don’t blame ourselves when something of tremendous magnitude happens to us. Consequently, we don’t have the fear factor that others will blame us. In times of crisis we let go for dear life- in order to move on, holding on to the things we can & letting go of the things we must.
Many of us have stood beside dying parents. It takes a lot of courage although in another manner of speaking we have no choice at a time like this. The process requires letting go, ceding control that was never ours but God’s to exercise in the first place. We can do this begrudgingly, regretfully & plaintively or we can do it with grace. When it comes our time to go, we have the same choice.
The other night Juda & I watched a television special about the life & career of pianist & comedian Victor Borge. He was a multi-talented entertainer & raconteur. Something he said in an interview struck me. He said, “I sometimes think about death & it makes me terribly uncomfortable to think I’ll lie down & die someday & the world will go right on without me. This to me is unacceptable.” He said it partly in jest but you could see he was speaking from his heart about letting go of life & all the things about it he so cherished.
The hour ended with his death at 91. He died in his sleep after returning from a successful foreign tour. His son spoke about his father & explained how his dad was in those last years. He’d lost his much adored wife to cancer & frankly had never gotten over it. He wanted to go be with her. A lot could be said right here- but suffice to say, life had conditioned the old man to really want to let go. It seems that the very old are protected that way. They become as oblivious to the fact of their leaving as babies are of their arriving.
Most of the things we are anxious about indeed most of the things we fear in life lose their power over us when we simply let go of our fears, & trust in God. To learn this lesson is the beginning of real freedom.
I have read that when people were placed in prison camps during World War 11, when they’d lost everything except their lives; there was a joy & acceptance & even good humor among the prisoners that was hard to explain. Fear trades in comparisons,–Who has what? Who has more? But when all the markers of distinction have been swept away & everyone is in the same boat, there’s no guilt, comparison or social climbing. The only thing people have is their lives & one another, of all else they’ve had to let go.
KARL WALENDA
I witnessed Walenda’s death on T.V in the mid-seventies. Karl Walenda, the patriarch of the famous family of acrobats called “The flying Walenda’s” was killed because he couldn’t let go. It happened in Puerto Rico where Karl tried to walk across a wire stretched between two tall buildings. He’d done such feats many times before but on this particular day there was some disagreement in the family about whether he should go ahead with the show.
It was a gusty windy day & swirling gusts of wind were clocked at more than thirty knots between the high rise towers that Karl intended to cross. Though it was stretched tightly between the city’s two tallest buildings, you could see the high wire vibrating in the wind. Still, Walenda had never canceled a show before so he decided to go ahead.
As he inched along the wire, holding tightly the long balancing pole, a sudden gust hit his body & tilted him sideways. He struggled for balance & it was clear he was in trouble. Onlookers saw him fight for control then plunge to the street below, smashing into the roof of a car. When his body was examined it was discovered that his fingers were still tightly clutched around the balancing pole. He had carried it with him to his destruction.
High wire experts rely on the balancing pole for their survival. As Karl Walenda once put it himself, “The pole is your safe guard; you can almost always keep your balance with the pole.” Yet experts also say there are times on rare occasions when it’s necessary to let go of the pole & grab the wire. Of course when an acrobat lets the pole fall & grabs the wire it’s an admission of failure. So for a famed acrobat letting go even if it means saving your life can be exceedingly difficult. In his split second decision to hold on to that balancing pole in the wind, Karl Walenda made a fatal mistake. He held on to the pole all the way down, falling with it clutched in both hands, all the way to the ground. I’m sure his gravestone was in scripted with more uplifting words but it could have honestly read, “He just wouldn’t let go…. of the pole.”
MINISTERS WHO CAN’T LET GO
Sad to say, many pastors don’t know how to let go when they step down as the pastor of a congregation, much to the peril of all involved. Now I’m sure there have been cases when a pastor stops being the pastor & remains in or around the church & the results have been just fine. But this is an exception to the rule.
In over 50 years I can scarcely think of a single case I’ve witnessed where a pastor remained in a church after stepping down when a mess wasn’t made of things. IMHO, his work there is finished & if he’s not careful he’ll undo the good he’s done. This happens too often. There should be a “stay away” period for an extended length of time & there shouldn’t be “face to face” involvement with the church for a season so that they can all move on emotionally. After that there are ways a former pastor could still be a blessing to his former congregation, in returning for previously arranged funerals or weddings, revival meetings as well as former pastor appreciation days.
Many times a preacher will leave a church after several fruitful years there & destroy all the good he did by meddling in the church’s business, even from hundreds of miles away. A man who’ll do this in my view is very immature. Can we say, “Control freak?” There’s no law against it but a God called man should have more wisdom. You might wonder why a former pastor even if he’s retired shouldn’t just hang around the church even if he’s otherwise not meddling. I can think of several reasons.
It would be extremely difficult for the man & his former congregation to make the transition to his no longer being pastor. His very presence would make change very difficult as it would reflect on him if & when one of his programs was changed. It would also be very intimidating for the new pastor. The temptation for the former pastor to meddle would be huge especially if certain changes were not to the pastors liking, something that would almost inevitably be the case. When a pastor leaves a church he should say his goodbyes, move on, cut ties with the congregation & let go. God has other work for him which should be the reason he left in the first place. If he left under pressure, then it makes all the more sense for him to “get outta Dodge.” To do otherwise is usually a problem & has a detrimental affect on the church.
Since I’ve opened this Pandora’s Box, let me say that none of this means a pastor doesn’t still care for the church, & vice versa. It also doesn’t mean he can’t maintain friendships but they should be just that, only friendships & not cross the line to pastor/parishioner relationships. Certainly neither the former pastor nor the congregation should do anything to make the pastoral transitional period more complicated. Wouldn’t be prudent.
HANNAH-THE MOTHER WHO LET GO.
Centuries ago, Hannah prayed desperately for a son, then when he was three, took him to the Temple & gave him to God. Talk about letting go!! In Samuel’s case he stayed there in the care of Eli & went on to become a prophet in Israel. Think about this; Hannah entrusted her son to the care of a man who had clearly failed in raising his own sons to be faithful to God. I can imagine she sometimes wished she could take back control of her son’s development. But she let him go because she’d given him to God so she had to content herself with making clothes for him & an annual visit.
Letting go is a part of life. Loss, separation & giving away are themes that run through the biblical narrative. One of the first actions of man was that he was to leave his father & mother & cleave to his wife. God called upon Abram to leave his father’s country & house. When Paul, writing to the Philippians speaks of how Christ emptied Himself, He said, -Though He was in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself & became obedient to the point of death-even the death on a cross.
Jesus said to His disciples, If I go not away, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.
TWO OF THE MOST BELOVED VERSES IN ALL THE BIBLE
The mission of this message is to help us with the challenge of letting go. I’ve pointed out the problem, now under God I’m going to share two verses that will be extremely helpful in getting to the answer.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not to thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Many of us memorized these two verses in Sunday School years ago. In any list of favorite verses they would rank at the top. These verses are striking in their simplicity. There is nothing difficult about them. They can be understood by the youngest Christian yet comforting to the oldest saint of God. They have been the hope & encouragement of countless multitudes of God’s people across the centuries. These words cling to the soul because they speak to a great need we all feel for strength & guidance.
These verses tell us the basis on which God’s peace & guidance will come. I’d like to stress five words & each of them gives tremendous help in “letting go & letting God.”
1. Trust.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Trust is a Hebrew word that carries the sense of putting your full weight on something. To trust in the Lord is to lay your whole weight on Him. When a Christian experiences loss, they are still in good hands.
2. Lean.
“Lean not to your own understanding.” Leaning is what you do when you walk with a cane or a walker because you’re unsteady. It’s used in the Old Testament for leaning against a tree or large stone. You lean on something when you’re not strong enough to stand alone. A lot of trust is involved in leaning. We find encouragement here to “let go.”
3. Understanding.
“Lean not on your own understanding.” This word refers to the mental powers you bring to a problem. It’s simply the decision-making ability that God has given you. This word is telling us not to lean exclusively on our ability to figure things out. Lean instead on the Lord. Rest you weight on Him! It’s this struggle to figure things out that drives men to drink or drugs. Place the hurts & disappointments of life in God’s hands where they belong. Trying to figure out what went wrong in a relationship can be crazy-making. Don’t go there. Trust in God’s wisdom.
4. Acknowledge.
“In all thy ways acknowledge Him & He will direct your paths.” Factor God into every thing you do. Bring God into every equation where your life is concerned.
5. Direct.
“…He will direct your paths.” There are multitudes of multiplicities of saints living & dead that can testify to the fact that God will lead the way if we’ll trust him.
Let’s look at the word “He.” Who is the “He” of Proverbs 3:6? The “He” is the God of the Bible. The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. The God of Moses. The God of Israel. The God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God who spoke & a thousand million galaxies sprang into being. The God who has numbered the grains of sand. The God who knows the hairs on our head. The God who sees the sparrow when it falls. The God who holds the universe in His hands. That God, the Almighty, Transcendent God of the universe. He will direct your paths.
The God who says, “If you will but trust me I will take care of the details. Trust me. Rest your full weight on me. Acknowledge me in everything. And I, the God of the universe, will direct your paths.”
It may not be easy. It may not always be the way you want to go. It may not seem to be the shortest way.
But He will direct your paths. He promised—He will not fail! Rather than “hanging on for dear life,” lean on Him and,
LET GO FOR DEAR LIFE!
Blessings,
John
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Two Verses That Shook The World
By John Stallings
Certain verses in the Bible are so familiar to Christians that they require no introduction.
We know them, we love them & their words are etched in our hearts.
They are called “The great texts of the Bible.” Here are a few;
John 3:16
Romans 8:28
Psalm 23
Roman 3:23
Romans 6:23
Psalm 103:1
Now let’s include- “The two verses that shook the world.”
Here they are;
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.-Romans 1:16-17
These two verses describe the most transforming truth ever to grace the ears of mankind. Martin Luther was so shaken by them that he said,
“When by the Spirit I understood this passage-the just shall live by faith- then I felt born again like a new man. I entered through the open doors into the very paradise of God.”
These two verses shook him to the very marrow of his bones & turned his life upside down. It’s no wonder that he could no longer remain a monk at the monastery in Erfurt. Once the blazing truth of justification by faith set a fire in Luther’s soul, it burned so hot that it ignited a fire that eventually spread across Europe & to the ends of the earth.
Indeed these verses were the catalyst for birthing the Protestant Reformation. It was sparked by Romans 1:16-17. If there were no other reason than what these words did to & for Luther, they would be worthy of careful consideration. But wholly apart from Martin Luther, these verses demand our attention because they form the theme of the book of Romans.
If we don’t understand these verses we’ll have a problem understanding the rest of Romans. They constitute the quintessence of Paul’s theology. It is the reason he wants to go to Rome. More than that- the verses epitomize the heart of evangelical theology. As we’ve said, these two verses of scripture launched the Protestant Reformation & most clearly explain the difference between evangelical Christianity & the Roman Catholic Church.
NOT ASHAMED
Paul begins by making the amazing statement…. “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.”
A synonym for ashamed is -embarrassed. Some folk are happy to be a Christian as long as they can be “Secret Service” Christians. They don’t want to be embarrassed by coming out with a clear-cut testimony for Jesus Christ.
There are a lot of things that we can be ashamed of. We all have things in our past we’re not exactly proud of. We are often ashamed of our bodies. Our bodies are too fat, too skinny, too wrinkled, too many freckles, too dark or too light. And don’t those pimples know just when to show up to cause the most embarrassment?
We can be ashamed of our behavior. Most of us have had the experience of being a dinner guest & accidentally knocking over a glass of water on a nice clean table cloth. Or you reach for the gravy & it dribbles all over the table. Or maybe you spill coffee on a recently cleaned carpet. All of us have social experiences where we have felt embarrassed by our behavior.
I went to pastor a church one time in a very prestigious city. As a matter of fact the city was the capital of the state & the church was quite an old church with a rich history. We were invited to have dinner one evening in the home of one of the main families of the church. We expected to be graciously welcomed & treated royalty. We weren’t disappointed. The atmosphere was on the formal side & everything was done “to the nines.”
After a time of fellowship we all sat around a splendidly set table & the sumptuous meal began, served in courses. Half-way through the meal I did something I’d never done before, nor have I done it since. As the meal progressed everyone relaxed & we began to share “funny” stories. Well, something was said that struck me funny. Unfortunately I had food in my mouth at the time & in an uncontrollable spasm, I spat it out on to that magnificent table. There are no words to explain how ashamed, embarrassed, & humiliated I was. The damage was thankfully minimal. I excused myself & cleaned up as best I could, our host graciously cleaned up the mess & the evening progressed undaunted. My wife & three young daughters were sitting at that table & I know they would have loved to disappear if that had been possible. I had recurring nightmares about that incident for years. Oh the burning shame of it all.
Maybe we’re embarrassed by certain aspects of our personalities. Maybe we cry too easily, or laugh too loudly or we can’t remember jokes, or we feel we’re too bland & tend to blend in with the wallpaper. We can be ashamed of our families & families can be ashamed of us.
You may remember a few years back when actor Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. Gibson was belligerent with the police, made anti-Semitic remarks saying things he didn’t mean & acted like a complete jerk. I heard him say some time after this that he’d finally gotten some help for his alcoholism after this incident. He continued; “everyone has their threshold for embarrassment & loss of dignity. Mine happened to be, - to be humiliated on a global scale.”
I’m ashamed that my country who declares “In God we trust” won’t allow prayer in school.
I’m ashamed that most any religion can get a fair hearing in America, but Christianity is constantly minimized, dismissed & derided. I’m ashamed of leaders who seem to be ashamed of this great country. I’m embarrassed by a Speaker of the House who this week told people; “now that we have health-care, they could leave their jobs & pursue their dreams knowing that the government was providing health care.” My question to the Speaker is—“Don’t people have to eat too & pay their bills as well as deal with the tax tsunami that’s coming?” I guess she’d answer that the government also has some other very fine give-away programs to feed those who don’t prefer to work. All I can say is - this woman has a very bright future behind her.
There’s a commercial on television getting a lot of airplay lately sponsored by iamnotashamed.org. It features young & old, black & white, American & International, who joyfully proclaim, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” It’s one of the few commercials that I don’t tune out but instead give it my full attention from beginning to end. It puts a smile on my face each time I hear the Gospel proclaimed right down to hearing the Scripture reference from Romans 1:16.
As much as I love this, realistically, the world as a whole is & has always been hostile to the truth that is in Christ Jesus. I was watching Fox News recently & a panel of folk, most of whom I like very much was discussing the latest Obama pick for The Supreme Court. I believe her name is Kagan. I have no idea what the sexual orientation of the women is, but the panel was discussing it. The conventional wisdom seemed to be that Americans didn’t have the right to ask that question of the woman who will be a lifetime appointee. Even Obama has to answer to people every day of his administration but if this woman is elected, she’ll answer to no one until the day she dies. It’s very likely that someday before long this court will be asked for a ruling on “Gay marriage.” If this happens, in all probability the definition of marriage will be changed for the first time in our history.
It’s interesting that we who hold to the historic, traditional, Biblical position on morality in regard to the homosexual agenda are quickly labeled “Homophobic.” Franklin Graham who has courageously addressed the issue of violence as the means to a goal in the Islamic religion has been called “Islamophobic.” If you want to know the truth, the problem with our nation is - people are “Truthophobic.”
Paul’s pride in the gospel he preached is even more amazing when you think what the gospel had done to him. Paul had been imprisoned in Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica, smuggled out of Berea, ignored in Athens, laughed at in Corinth, & stoned & left for dead in Lystra. Paul, how can you even dare to come to Rome with a record like that?
Rome! The heart of the empire.
Rome! City of philosophers & poets.
Rome! Home to every conceivable idol.
Rome! Seat of emperor-worship.
Rome! Center of intellectual arrogance.
Rome! City built on war.
Rome! The Greatest city in the world.
Paul, what makes you think you can survive in such a place? The answer to that question is wrapped up in these two verses. When we get through with this piece, hopefully we’ll have a better insight into why Christianity is so feared in our time.
THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
PAUL SAID, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for Salvation….
I’m reminded of a story of a vacuum cleaner salesman who went to a farm house to demonstrate his cleaner. A lady met him at the door but was hesitant to allow him to come in. The confidant salesman brushed by her, talking a mile a minute. The lady said….well, wait a minute…but the man was determined to demonstrate his cleaner. He dumped ashes out of his bag in the middle of the floor, & garbage & junk & everything. He said- “mam, if this vacuum cleaner doesn’t suck this all up in two minutes I’ll eat this trash with a spoon.” Finally the lady got a chance to speak & she said— “Well, you’d better start eating, we ain’t got no electricity.” No power!
The Apostle Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel because he knew it had power. After all, look what it did to him on the Damascus turnpike.
What does this powerful gospel do? It saves sinners. What else will save sinners? Not science, not education, not moral reformation, not fame & fortune or money. Think about it; the gospel & only the gospel saves sinners.
We sometimes think of salvation as past tense but here Paul is thinking of salvation in all three tenses—past—present & future. The Greek word salvation is SOZO, translated “saved.” SOZO means “to save, to make whole, to preserve, or make safe. Thus the word salvation is an all-comprehensive word & it includes all the benefits of the cross & the operations of God’s grace.
The gospel has the power to;
FORGIVE SINS [past]
IMPART NEW LIFE [present]
ADMIT INTO HEAVEN [future]
THOSE WHO BELIEVE
Now Paul tells us how salvation saves sinners;
….the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who BELIEVES!
The word –BELIEVE- means to make a personal commitment, to trust by an act of the will. It’s never enough to just hear the gospel; eventually you have to respond to it one way or the other.
Let’s suppose you weren’t feeling good & went to the doctor to find you had a rare disease with only one cure. The doc was very clear that the disease was absolutely fatal & there was only one medicine that could cure you. So you got your prescription filled & took it home, placed it on the table & forgot about it.
What will happen to you? If you don’t take the medicine you’ll surely die. The bottle of medicine can stay close to you on the table but that won’t help you. The medicine is yours because it was especially prescribed for you & has your name right on the bottle, but that won’t help you either. If you don’t ingest the medicine they’ll be having your funeral in a few days.
The gospel of Christ is the only medicine that can cure what ails us but if we don’t ‘take” the medicine there’s no hope for us. It’s no wonder Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel. No wonder he felt so honored to be able to preach about it & write about it.
THIS GOSPEL HAS THE POWER TO SAVE ANYONE & EVERYONE!
This marvelous gospel works on everyone who’ll believe it. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone regardless of, race, education, age, income, skin color, family background, religious preference, or moral standing.
This is the set of verses that turned Martin Luther’s life around, & in the process turned the world upside down. Let’s go further. In the gospel, a righteousness of God is revealed to us, a righteousness which comes only by faith.
If we study this closely, we see that Paul is using legal terms here that come right out of the courtrooms of the ancient world. Righteousness means “not guilty, innocent of all charges.” If we are righteous in God’s eyes we can stand before Him & be declared “not guilty.” Do you see how great the gospel is? It provides for us what we could never provide for ourselves. Nothing or anyone else could provide it either.
FAITH ALONE
When Paul wrote, -The just shall live by faith, he’s saying this great gospel will save if an individual places their faith in it.
Faith alone! Not by works of the law.
Faith alone! Not by keeping a list of rules.
Faith alone! Not by baptism.
Faith alone! Not by good intentions.
Faith alone! Not by sacraments.
Faith alone! Not by penance or almsgiving.
Faith alone! Plus nothing -& minus nothing.
I grew up in a religious environment that stressed the “does & don’ts” of the Christian life. Even as a young preacher, if I preached a sermon that seemed to lean toward grace rather than legalism, I’d be looked at with a somewhat jaundiced eye. The thought was— “if a preacher talks too much about grace that meant he was hiding something in his life. If you as a preacher are really right with God then you can “stand & deliver” & preach it straight.”
They would get off onto an extreme now & again but for the most part I still believe most of what the old-timers believed. Most of it had to do with personal modesty & integrity & walking out the biblical principles of holiness. Nothing wrong with that, as a matter of fact, we need more teaching like that these days. Yes, there’s our part in this salvation. There are things we must do & must not do.
Listen to Titus;
Who gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity & purify unto Himself a peculiar people Zealous of Good Works.- Titus 2:14
Does the above verse contradict Paul’s statement? If salvation comes by faith alone, don’t we still have to bring forth good fruit? Don’t we have to have some works to show that we’ve truly been born again? Yes we do!
However, IMHO, here’s where some get off the reservation - “getting the cart before the horse.” Listen to Revelation 14:13;
….Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth; yea saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: and their works do follow them.
Our good works follow us to heaven; they don’t lead us to heaven.
BAD NEWS-GOOD NEWS
You & I have no hope of heaven outside of Jesus Christ. Good works cannot save us. That’s not the plan. Church membership cannot save us. Baptism cannot save us. Nothing you & I could do would make the slightest bit of difference concerning our eternal salvation. If we are trusting in a good life or a good religion to get us to heaven, someday we’ll be sadly & eternally disappointed.
The good news is; those who put their trust in Jesus Christ have been saved are being saved, & will be saved. Christ’s sacrifice in blood, received by faith, brings salvation to the believing heart, for it alone makes us recipients of the righteousness of God.
Never be ashamed of the gospel. Don’t be ashamed to teach it & share it with those you meet.
The gospel alone has the power to meet the deepest needs of mankind.
It alone has the power to wipe away the darkest stain of sin.
Praise the Lord!
Blessings,
John
Certain verses in the Bible are so familiar to Christians that they require no introduction.
We know them, we love them & their words are etched in our hearts.
They are called “The great texts of the Bible.” Here are a few;
John 3:16
Romans 8:28
Psalm 23
Roman 3:23
Romans 6:23
Psalm 103:1
Now let’s include- “The two verses that shook the world.”
Here they are;
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.-Romans 1:16-17
These two verses describe the most transforming truth ever to grace the ears of mankind. Martin Luther was so shaken by them that he said,
“When by the Spirit I understood this passage-the just shall live by faith- then I felt born again like a new man. I entered through the open doors into the very paradise of God.”
These two verses shook him to the very marrow of his bones & turned his life upside down. It’s no wonder that he could no longer remain a monk at the monastery in Erfurt. Once the blazing truth of justification by faith set a fire in Luther’s soul, it burned so hot that it ignited a fire that eventually spread across Europe & to the ends of the earth.
Indeed these verses were the catalyst for birthing the Protestant Reformation. It was sparked by Romans 1:16-17. If there were no other reason than what these words did to & for Luther, they would be worthy of careful consideration. But wholly apart from Martin Luther, these verses demand our attention because they form the theme of the book of Romans.
If we don’t understand these verses we’ll have a problem understanding the rest of Romans. They constitute the quintessence of Paul’s theology. It is the reason he wants to go to Rome. More than that- the verses epitomize the heart of evangelical theology. As we’ve said, these two verses of scripture launched the Protestant Reformation & most clearly explain the difference between evangelical Christianity & the Roman Catholic Church.
NOT ASHAMED
Paul begins by making the amazing statement…. “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.”
A synonym for ashamed is -embarrassed. Some folk are happy to be a Christian as long as they can be “Secret Service” Christians. They don’t want to be embarrassed by coming out with a clear-cut testimony for Jesus Christ.
There are a lot of things that we can be ashamed of. We all have things in our past we’re not exactly proud of. We are often ashamed of our bodies. Our bodies are too fat, too skinny, too wrinkled, too many freckles, too dark or too light. And don’t those pimples know just when to show up to cause the most embarrassment?
We can be ashamed of our behavior. Most of us have had the experience of being a dinner guest & accidentally knocking over a glass of water on a nice clean table cloth. Or you reach for the gravy & it dribbles all over the table. Or maybe you spill coffee on a recently cleaned carpet. All of us have social experiences where we have felt embarrassed by our behavior.
I went to pastor a church one time in a very prestigious city. As a matter of fact the city was the capital of the state & the church was quite an old church with a rich history. We were invited to have dinner one evening in the home of one of the main families of the church. We expected to be graciously welcomed & treated royalty. We weren’t disappointed. The atmosphere was on the formal side & everything was done “to the nines.”
After a time of fellowship we all sat around a splendidly set table & the sumptuous meal began, served in courses. Half-way through the meal I did something I’d never done before, nor have I done it since. As the meal progressed everyone relaxed & we began to share “funny” stories. Well, something was said that struck me funny. Unfortunately I had food in my mouth at the time & in an uncontrollable spasm, I spat it out on to that magnificent table. There are no words to explain how ashamed, embarrassed, & humiliated I was. The damage was thankfully minimal. I excused myself & cleaned up as best I could, our host graciously cleaned up the mess & the evening progressed undaunted. My wife & three young daughters were sitting at that table & I know they would have loved to disappear if that had been possible. I had recurring nightmares about that incident for years. Oh the burning shame of it all.
Maybe we’re embarrassed by certain aspects of our personalities. Maybe we cry too easily, or laugh too loudly or we can’t remember jokes, or we feel we’re too bland & tend to blend in with the wallpaper. We can be ashamed of our families & families can be ashamed of us.
You may remember a few years back when actor Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving. Gibson was belligerent with the police, made anti-Semitic remarks saying things he didn’t mean & acted like a complete jerk. I heard him say some time after this that he’d finally gotten some help for his alcoholism after this incident. He continued; “everyone has their threshold for embarrassment & loss of dignity. Mine happened to be, - to be humiliated on a global scale.”
I’m ashamed that my country who declares “In God we trust” won’t allow prayer in school.
I’m ashamed that most any religion can get a fair hearing in America, but Christianity is constantly minimized, dismissed & derided. I’m ashamed of leaders who seem to be ashamed of this great country. I’m embarrassed by a Speaker of the House who this week told people; “now that we have health-care, they could leave their jobs & pursue their dreams knowing that the government was providing health care.” My question to the Speaker is—“Don’t people have to eat too & pay their bills as well as deal with the tax tsunami that’s coming?” I guess she’d answer that the government also has some other very fine give-away programs to feed those who don’t prefer to work. All I can say is - this woman has a very bright future behind her.
There’s a commercial on television getting a lot of airplay lately sponsored by iamnotashamed.org. It features young & old, black & white, American & International, who joyfully proclaim, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” It’s one of the few commercials that I don’t tune out but instead give it my full attention from beginning to end. It puts a smile on my face each time I hear the Gospel proclaimed right down to hearing the Scripture reference from Romans 1:16.
As much as I love this, realistically, the world as a whole is & has always been hostile to the truth that is in Christ Jesus. I was watching Fox News recently & a panel of folk, most of whom I like very much was discussing the latest Obama pick for The Supreme Court. I believe her name is Kagan. I have no idea what the sexual orientation of the women is, but the panel was discussing it. The conventional wisdom seemed to be that Americans didn’t have the right to ask that question of the woman who will be a lifetime appointee. Even Obama has to answer to people every day of his administration but if this woman is elected, she’ll answer to no one until the day she dies. It’s very likely that someday before long this court will be asked for a ruling on “Gay marriage.” If this happens, in all probability the definition of marriage will be changed for the first time in our history.
It’s interesting that we who hold to the historic, traditional, Biblical position on morality in regard to the homosexual agenda are quickly labeled “Homophobic.” Franklin Graham who has courageously addressed the issue of violence as the means to a goal in the Islamic religion has been called “Islamophobic.” If you want to know the truth, the problem with our nation is - people are “Truthophobic.”
Paul’s pride in the gospel he preached is even more amazing when you think what the gospel had done to him. Paul had been imprisoned in Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica, smuggled out of Berea, ignored in Athens, laughed at in Corinth, & stoned & left for dead in Lystra. Paul, how can you even dare to come to Rome with a record like that?
Rome! The heart of the empire.
Rome! City of philosophers & poets.
Rome! Home to every conceivable idol.
Rome! Seat of emperor-worship.
Rome! Center of intellectual arrogance.
Rome! City built on war.
Rome! The Greatest city in the world.
Paul, what makes you think you can survive in such a place? The answer to that question is wrapped up in these two verses. When we get through with this piece, hopefully we’ll have a better insight into why Christianity is so feared in our time.
THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
PAUL SAID, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for Salvation….
I’m reminded of a story of a vacuum cleaner salesman who went to a farm house to demonstrate his cleaner. A lady met him at the door but was hesitant to allow him to come in. The confidant salesman brushed by her, talking a mile a minute. The lady said….well, wait a minute…but the man was determined to demonstrate his cleaner. He dumped ashes out of his bag in the middle of the floor, & garbage & junk & everything. He said- “mam, if this vacuum cleaner doesn’t suck this all up in two minutes I’ll eat this trash with a spoon.” Finally the lady got a chance to speak & she said— “Well, you’d better start eating, we ain’t got no electricity.” No power!
The Apostle Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel because he knew it had power. After all, look what it did to him on the Damascus turnpike.
What does this powerful gospel do? It saves sinners. What else will save sinners? Not science, not education, not moral reformation, not fame & fortune or money. Think about it; the gospel & only the gospel saves sinners.
We sometimes think of salvation as past tense but here Paul is thinking of salvation in all three tenses—past—present & future. The Greek word salvation is SOZO, translated “saved.” SOZO means “to save, to make whole, to preserve, or make safe. Thus the word salvation is an all-comprehensive word & it includes all the benefits of the cross & the operations of God’s grace.
The gospel has the power to;
FORGIVE SINS [past]
IMPART NEW LIFE [present]
ADMIT INTO HEAVEN [future]
THOSE WHO BELIEVE
Now Paul tells us how salvation saves sinners;
….the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who BELIEVES!
The word –BELIEVE- means to make a personal commitment, to trust by an act of the will. It’s never enough to just hear the gospel; eventually you have to respond to it one way or the other.
Let’s suppose you weren’t feeling good & went to the doctor to find you had a rare disease with only one cure. The doc was very clear that the disease was absolutely fatal & there was only one medicine that could cure you. So you got your prescription filled & took it home, placed it on the table & forgot about it.
What will happen to you? If you don’t take the medicine you’ll surely die. The bottle of medicine can stay close to you on the table but that won’t help you. The medicine is yours because it was especially prescribed for you & has your name right on the bottle, but that won’t help you either. If you don’t ingest the medicine they’ll be having your funeral in a few days.
The gospel of Christ is the only medicine that can cure what ails us but if we don’t ‘take” the medicine there’s no hope for us. It’s no wonder Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel. No wonder he felt so honored to be able to preach about it & write about it.
THIS GOSPEL HAS THE POWER TO SAVE ANYONE & EVERYONE!
This marvelous gospel works on everyone who’ll believe it. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone regardless of, race, education, age, income, skin color, family background, religious preference, or moral standing.
This is the set of verses that turned Martin Luther’s life around, & in the process turned the world upside down. Let’s go further. In the gospel, a righteousness of God is revealed to us, a righteousness which comes only by faith.
If we study this closely, we see that Paul is using legal terms here that come right out of the courtrooms of the ancient world. Righteousness means “not guilty, innocent of all charges.” If we are righteous in God’s eyes we can stand before Him & be declared “not guilty.” Do you see how great the gospel is? It provides for us what we could never provide for ourselves. Nothing or anyone else could provide it either.
FAITH ALONE
When Paul wrote, -The just shall live by faith, he’s saying this great gospel will save if an individual places their faith in it.
Faith alone! Not by works of the law.
Faith alone! Not by keeping a list of rules.
Faith alone! Not by baptism.
Faith alone! Not by good intentions.
Faith alone! Not by sacraments.
Faith alone! Not by penance or almsgiving.
Faith alone! Plus nothing -& minus nothing.
I grew up in a religious environment that stressed the “does & don’ts” of the Christian life. Even as a young preacher, if I preached a sermon that seemed to lean toward grace rather than legalism, I’d be looked at with a somewhat jaundiced eye. The thought was— “if a preacher talks too much about grace that meant he was hiding something in his life. If you as a preacher are really right with God then you can “stand & deliver” & preach it straight.”
They would get off onto an extreme now & again but for the most part I still believe most of what the old-timers believed. Most of it had to do with personal modesty & integrity & walking out the biblical principles of holiness. Nothing wrong with that, as a matter of fact, we need more teaching like that these days. Yes, there’s our part in this salvation. There are things we must do & must not do.
Listen to Titus;
Who gave himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity & purify unto Himself a peculiar people Zealous of Good Works.- Titus 2:14
Does the above verse contradict Paul’s statement? If salvation comes by faith alone, don’t we still have to bring forth good fruit? Don’t we have to have some works to show that we’ve truly been born again? Yes we do!
However, IMHO, here’s where some get off the reservation - “getting the cart before the horse.” Listen to Revelation 14:13;
….Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth; yea saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: and their works do follow them.
Our good works follow us to heaven; they don’t lead us to heaven.
BAD NEWS-GOOD NEWS
You & I have no hope of heaven outside of Jesus Christ. Good works cannot save us. That’s not the plan. Church membership cannot save us. Baptism cannot save us. Nothing you & I could do would make the slightest bit of difference concerning our eternal salvation. If we are trusting in a good life or a good religion to get us to heaven, someday we’ll be sadly & eternally disappointed.
The good news is; those who put their trust in Jesus Christ have been saved are being saved, & will be saved. Christ’s sacrifice in blood, received by faith, brings salvation to the believing heart, for it alone makes us recipients of the righteousness of God.
Never be ashamed of the gospel. Don’t be ashamed to teach it & share it with those you meet.
The gospel alone has the power to meet the deepest needs of mankind.
It alone has the power to wipe away the darkest stain of sin.
Praise the Lord!
Blessings,
John
Saturday, May 8, 2010
SIX MYTHS ABOUT DEPRESSION
By John Stallings
….Whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul David took the Lyre & played It; so Saul was refreshed. 1 Sam. 16:23
….For day & night thy hand was heavy upon me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to thee & did not hide my iniquity.
Psalm 32:5
To appoint unto them that mourn……the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness…..
Isaiah 61:3
I think it’s safe to say we’ve all experienced bad days from time to time. For some, these bad days can stretch into bad weeks, bad months or even bad years. Some people find themselves in a kind of funk sayings things like “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, my life is worthless.”
I’m not a stranger to mild depression, neither am I an expert. However it’s important to know some of the basics about it, because though we may not experience depression directly, odds are someone in our family will.
The story is told of a husband who noticed that his wife had lost her joy & did nothing but mope around the house. This went on for weeks until one day he suggested that she see a doctor. She was in agreement so the husband made an appointment with a competent psychologist in their city.
During the first appointment the doctor realized that the woman was suffering from a mild case of depression that he felt didn’t need medication. He walked around his desk & asked the lady to stand up. He stepped over to her, took her in his arms & gave her a warm hug. The husband watched with interest as his wife’s face lit up & she started to look like the woman he used to know. The doctor said, “Now see, this is all your wife really needs sir, a nice big warm hug at least three times a week, are you willing to do your part? The man said, “Yes sir doc, & I think it’s wonderful. I can have her here any day but Friday, that’s my golf day.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if depression could be cured that easily?
A doctor from UCLA says that if you want to know what depression feels like, just imagine you have the worst case of jet-lag you’ve ever experienced, combined with the worst grief you’ve ever felt, then throw in a migraine headache. Months could pass before it lifts.
Another well known psychiatrist likened depression to a window in a house. Most windows are dressed with some sort of shades or blinds. Then usually drapes or curtains are added. This lessens the starkness of the light coming through & is adjustable by the people in the room. The person with depression has no such window dressing, thus he or she lives constantly in the glaring light of “reality.”
There are dozens of faces to depression. There is clinical depression where medical intervention is called for. There is acute depression, manic-depression & situation- induced depression. I have no credentials nor training that would equip me to advise in those areas. Perhaps a more common depression is “walking depression,” a chronic condition like walking pneumonia. It’s so prevalent it’s called the “common cold” of emotional disorders. The person feels terrible but has no acute signs.
Listen to one young college woman describe her feelings;
“I’ve suffered from walking depression all my life. I think a lot of people do. Some people look at life as a glass half full & others see it as a glass half-empty. People like me who suffer from walking depression see life as a glass half empty. Without words it comes & suddenly, sharply, one is aware of being separated from every person in ones’ world. At one’s feet there are chasms that had been invisible until this moment & one knows their loved ones will always be across the chasms.
I never feel enthusiastic about anything. I have little faith in positive outcomes. I don’t believe in myself, I don’t trust anyone. I live my life in a fog. I stumble around unable to get motivated because I’m afraid of what I might run into. I feel too flat to do anything exciting.
Walking depression lives in your bones. It makes your bones feel like tubes of water-heavy & unstable. I’m always asking myself if it’s worth it to stand up. I’m never sure I have the internal structure to get me through a task. It takes so much effort.”
When it comes to the area of spiritual depression the word of God compels me to speak. This isn’t so much a clinical or deep depression, but rather a profound sorrow, sadness & gloom; a feeling of being “very down.” Some Christians try to deny its existence because it’s not necessarily a good advertisement for Christianity; but it does exist. Many people of my generation they don’t like the word depression & would never admit to it in their lives. Depression sounds too much like the devils work, & sometimes it is.
I’ve given the following advice to numerous people who wouldn’t admit to being depressed;
“If you have lost all of your joy, if the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup (if that’s going to be the best part of waking up, you might be better off in bed) if you haven’t smiled in so long no one can remember it, if you no longer enjoy the things you used to love, if you feel like God has gone to Key West & lost your phone number, if your face carries the message that you’ve been Baptized in lemon juice & weaned on a pickle, you’d better swallow your spiritual pride & call it what it is (depression) before it becomes something exceedingly worse.”
When was the last time you had this kind of feeling; like you might do something drastic? Truthfully this happens & it happens to the best of Christians.
Paul tells us in Eph.6:12—for we wrestle not with flesh & blood but against principalities, against powers, against the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.
This doesn’t mean that we go looking for a devil behind every mood-swing but neither should we ignore this truth.
For most of us, if we get into an emotional fog, we know it’s just a temporary feeling brought on us by certain circumstances. Sometimes getting out of bed is hard & people have no energy & can’t concentrate. These feelings usually lift but if they start interfering with our daily life very long it might be clinical depression & then a person should seek professional help. The music David played for Saul lifted his spirits temporarily but the spirit came back over & over again. I think that’s one of the reasons so many billions are spent on music; people are seeking to ward-off depression.
I’m convinced that shopping sprees are another way many people try to lift their spirits. They live with the idea that they’re one shopping trip from happiness. What happens is, they fill their houses up with things they don’t need & as soon as they “lick the candy” off their latest acquisition, they are right back where they started.
Then there are those who use food, alcohol or some other substance to lift their spirits but it’s a lift that doesn’t last.
Here are six misconceptions about depression.
1. WEAK PEOPLE GET DEPRESSED.
The truth is that it takes a strong person to bear up under depression. Saul stood head & shoulders above any man in Israel. He had broad shoulders & a strong constitution but he was still depressed.
Periodically we read about sports figures, people who make their living being stronger than the average person, admitting to depression. Anyone who’s ever read the story of Elijah knows that weakness in no way describes this Prophet, but he got depressed & begged God to kill him. No wonder, he’d just run over 100 miles trying to put distance between himself & Jezebel who’d threatened to kill him.
David was a mighty warrior & leader of men but even a cursory reading of the Psalms he wrote reveal his bouts with depression. For a whole year he didn’t write a song or tune his harp.
Certainly Jeremiah wasn’t a weakling but he got so depressed he walked into God’s office, laid down his prophet-credentials, accused God of lying to Him & vowed never to say God’s name again as long as he lived. From now on God would be “old-what’s-his-name-in-the-sky.” You will remember that Elijah couldn’t stick to that vow when he discovered that God’s words were-“like fire shut-up in my bones.”
Another wrong attitude about depression is;
2. IT’S A SPECIAL HELL RESERVED FOR THE FEW.
If you have been reading the popular magazines & newspapers in the last few years, or for that matter listening to the media you’re aware that we are presently living in the “age of melancholy.” The World Health organization says that by the year 2020, if present trends continue, depression will rank second only to heart disease as the number one disabler of persons. On any given day depression affects 18 million Americans. 12 million will go untreated. Chances are 1 in 5 of us will experience an episode of depression in our lives. The question is, if it strikes, “Where will we go for help?”
3. SOME PEOPLE THINK DEPRESSION IS A MENTAL ILLNESS.
Depression can be a chemical imbalance in the brain, but in truth many illnesses, mental & physical are caused by some sort of chemical imbalance. i.e. Diabetes, etc.
Loss can trigger depression. I’ve known people who had a great loss in their life, went into depression & never snapped out of it. This can happen with the loss of a spouse. Loss of any kind can trigger depression. Some people get depressed when they start getting older & grieve over loss of youth. Most of us snap out of it by considering the alternative.
Pain can also trigger depression. I read an article recently that in America, back pain is a leading cause of depression.
We are in a culture that so idolizes youth that today many teenagers & pre-teens are suffering depression because of the prospects of aging.
The pace of our modern day life also causes some people to be depressed. In my forties I kept such a rigid travel schedule along with being a pastor that I often had mild spells of depression. In 1981 I went to China & several other Oriental countries for three weeks & when I came home I thought I’d never get back to normalcy. People who are depressed will often say the world seems “surreal” to them. I don’t think we realize how jet travel, computers, cell phones & fast cars (all of which I use) have robbed us of the normal human scale of life.
Researchers say that cortisol; a stress hormone can also cause depression. It’s harmless in small doses but when stress causes inordinate amounts to constantly be pumped into the body it can rob us of energy, mobility, our sex drives, & our basic ability to feel human emotions. I read about a man who experienced this to such a degree that he lost all ability to love his wife, parents & his children. He had pushed himself so long trying to be successful that he was, in the vernacular, burned-out; so burned out that he no longer had real feelings. I hope & pray it was temporary for him.
4. ANOTHER MISCONCEPTION ABOUT DEPRESSION IS THAT IT’S A RESULT OF SIN IN ONES LIFE--& THAT DEPRESSION ITSELF IS SIN.
This is not so. Charles Haddon Spurgeon the great 19th century preacher often called “The prince of preachers,” the man God used to light the fires of the 19th century revival movement suffered from depression most of his adult life. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be away from his pulpit two or three months a year because of depression. I don’t know whether this is true but many scholars think that Paul’s “Thorn in the flesh” may have been depression. I will say however that if Paul wasn’t depressed he missed several good chances. After all, his kin, his race, & his people largely rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
And what about some of those churches? Maybe he was depressed by the failure of the churches he planted to live out their life in Christ. They were a constant anxiety to him. (2nd Cor.11:28.)
Abraham Lincoln; at the height of the Civil War said, “If the misery I feel was equally divided among every member of the human race, there would not be a single smiling face among us.”
The Bible tells us that Moses, Jeremiah, Job, & Elijah all had bouts of depression. I have a feeling that some of the best people suffer from depression. The truth is life is not always a stroll through a rose garden. There are mountains & valleys. There are many downward slopes. I have known pastors who didn’t want to take Mondays off because they were still stressed out from Sunday & they didn’t want to feel that bad on their day off. They could enjoy a day off later in the week much more. We should learn to see these depressed times less like a pit to climb out of & more like a tunnel to pass through.
But we can’t blame all depression on things like the pace of life, stress & chemical imbalance. We mustn’t overlook the possibility that unrepentant & unconfessed sin is a major cause of depression.
Saul had every right to be depressed. God had anointed him to be king of Israel but he disobeyed God & gradually backslid. God ended up giving the kingdom to David. Saul, the man with all the potential in the world ended up committing suicide on Mount Gilboa.
When David’s baby died he was able to throw it off but when it came to his sin with Bathsheba & the murder of her husband, his writings show us it continued to depress him. I suspect that a lot of people would get rid of depression if only they got rid of their sin.
You could say it like this; ---when we grieve the Holy Spirit by our sin, He turns around & grieves us back.
Another myth about depression is that;
5. DEPRESSION IS ALWAYS BAD.
In Saul’s case, God was dealing with him causing him to be depressed because of his wrong doing. There is only one thing I can think of that is worse than depression & that’s for a person to become so dead to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit that they can totally ignore Him. When that happens we are beyond help because it’s impossible to repent. This is what Jesus meant when he said the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the unforgivable sin. (Matt. 12:31)
According to Hebrews 12:6-- “God chastens whom He loves.” We are convicted of sin & righteousness & judgment. (John 16:8) We ought to take a measure of hope if we are in sin & its depressing us. There remains the possibility that we will humble ourselves before God & receive His aid & forgiveness.
If we’re experiencing depression we should ask ourselves questions like; am I harboring bitterness toward another person? Have I addressed the sin in my life? Am I feeling guilty about something? Have I turned away from God? Am I being a faithful Christian? And so on.
6. FINALLY, SOME DEPRESSED FOLK FEEL THERE’S NO HOPE FOR THEM.
This is a myth. If the depression is a chemical imbalance, there is prayer & there are also medications that can do wonders. Many other depressed people can be helped by a change of diet, rest or by taking up a hobby for physical activity. I read somewhere that it’s impossible to actually be depressed while exercising. I’ve known people who always had headaches & were so sick it kept them constantly depressed. A trip to the doctor revealed they were eating too much sugar or other bad foods & when this changed they were different people.
One of the best ways to fight a mild case of depression is to do something. We don’t feel our way to a different way of acting, rather we act our way to a different way of feeling. If you wake up one morning & feel depressed, talk to depression like you would a person.
· “O.K depression, I see you are here & that’s alright but you have to understand I’ve got a lot to do. I’m getting out of this bed depressed. I’m going to shower, if necessary depressed. I’m going to eat breakfast depressed. I’m going to work depressed & I’m going to work all day depressed if that’s the way it has to be. Then I’m coming home depressed. I’ll eat my supper depressed & I’m going to church depressed.”
It’s possible but not probable that depression will still be there when they sing the first worship song. It could possibly still be there after the second song. But if you’ll keep on singing & praising something will happen & depression will have to go for James said “Draw nigh to God & he’ll draw night unto you.”
In all the years I’ve been preaching, I’ve rarely felt like preaching when I first started. But after I’ve been preaching about 5 minutes, something happens & I start feeling different. Then I don’t feel like stopping. Many people over the years have been grateful that I don’t go by my feelings.
If a person’s depression is spiritual in nature, the result of sin, that person can find release by turning to the God who loves them.
Psalm 32 continues;
5. I acknowledge my sin to you, O, Lord. & I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgression to the Lord; then you forgave the guilt of my sin. 6. Therefore let every one who is Godly offer a prayer to you; at a time of distress, in the rush of great waters, they shall not be reached. 7. God, you art a hiding place…..
There isn’t a “twelve step program” for avoiding depression, but there are however some steps we can take if we’re facing it.
We should ask ourselves the questions; do we have trouble making decisions? Do we experience a lot of uncontrollable crying? If a person is living on the verge of tears all the time, though as I said I’m no expert, I think that should be recognized as serious & an individual should seek help either through personal prayer or through Christian counseling.
If a person is having trouble getting out of bed, can’t seem to make it to work or to school, or if thoughts of suicide are creeping into their head, in these cases immediate care is necessary & steps should be taken with a professional.
WHEN HOLIDAYS COME UP IT WOULD BE LUDICRUS NOT TO INCLUDE,
POST HOLIDAY DEPRESSION.
Have you ever noticed that depression can strike after a holiday, or for that matter, after any of the great celebrations of life? We feel the build-up of excitement & all of the sudden its over. The problem is that big days tend to magnify all our emotions. We suffer from an intense case of the “oughts” during the holidays. We believe we ought to be able to give our children all the things they want, & we ought to be able to satisfy all the time demands of our extended family. We ought to spend the holidays in the middle of a great big adoring family. Unfortunately the real holiday experience never quite lives up to our “oughts.”
Nurses report that the maternity ward of a hospital can be one of the saddest places in the world. The initial rush is gone. Now the baby is keeping you up all night; you are tired & discouraged & asking yourself—“why did I ever get myself into this situation?” They even have a medical name for it; Postpartum Depression. After any great success or triumph after any of the great accomplishments of life, there’s normally a reaction, a falling back. You can almost feel things slowing down, returning to the routine & the mundane.
WE SHOULD BE CERTAIN TO TALK TO GOD ABOUT OUR MOODS & REMEMBER PRAYER IS A POWERFUL TOOL AGAINST DEPRESSION.
When Jesus was having a difficult time He went to God & cried out, “Please God, deliver me from this.” We should make certain we’re getting enough rest & ask ourselves if some unresolved conflict or unconfessed sin is causing this. But no matter what, I encourage anyone battling depression to seek help from God & also from trained Christian professionals if necessary.
No one needs to be held captive to depression, there is a way out.
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.—Isaiah 61:3—
Blessings,
John
….Whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul David took the Lyre & played It; so Saul was refreshed. 1 Sam. 16:23
….For day & night thy hand was heavy upon me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to thee & did not hide my iniquity.
Psalm 32:5
To appoint unto them that mourn……the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness…..
Isaiah 61:3
I think it’s safe to say we’ve all experienced bad days from time to time. For some, these bad days can stretch into bad weeks, bad months or even bad years. Some people find themselves in a kind of funk sayings things like “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, my life is worthless.”
I’m not a stranger to mild depression, neither am I an expert. However it’s important to know some of the basics about it, because though we may not experience depression directly, odds are someone in our family will.
The story is told of a husband who noticed that his wife had lost her joy & did nothing but mope around the house. This went on for weeks until one day he suggested that she see a doctor. She was in agreement so the husband made an appointment with a competent psychologist in their city.
During the first appointment the doctor realized that the woman was suffering from a mild case of depression that he felt didn’t need medication. He walked around his desk & asked the lady to stand up. He stepped over to her, took her in his arms & gave her a warm hug. The husband watched with interest as his wife’s face lit up & she started to look like the woman he used to know. The doctor said, “Now see, this is all your wife really needs sir, a nice big warm hug at least three times a week, are you willing to do your part? The man said, “Yes sir doc, & I think it’s wonderful. I can have her here any day but Friday, that’s my golf day.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if depression could be cured that easily?
A doctor from UCLA says that if you want to know what depression feels like, just imagine you have the worst case of jet-lag you’ve ever experienced, combined with the worst grief you’ve ever felt, then throw in a migraine headache. Months could pass before it lifts.
Another well known psychiatrist likened depression to a window in a house. Most windows are dressed with some sort of shades or blinds. Then usually drapes or curtains are added. This lessens the starkness of the light coming through & is adjustable by the people in the room. The person with depression has no such window dressing, thus he or she lives constantly in the glaring light of “reality.”
There are dozens of faces to depression. There is clinical depression where medical intervention is called for. There is acute depression, manic-depression & situation- induced depression. I have no credentials nor training that would equip me to advise in those areas. Perhaps a more common depression is “walking depression,” a chronic condition like walking pneumonia. It’s so prevalent it’s called the “common cold” of emotional disorders. The person feels terrible but has no acute signs.
Listen to one young college woman describe her feelings;
“I’ve suffered from walking depression all my life. I think a lot of people do. Some people look at life as a glass half full & others see it as a glass half-empty. People like me who suffer from walking depression see life as a glass half empty. Without words it comes & suddenly, sharply, one is aware of being separated from every person in ones’ world. At one’s feet there are chasms that had been invisible until this moment & one knows their loved ones will always be across the chasms.
I never feel enthusiastic about anything. I have little faith in positive outcomes. I don’t believe in myself, I don’t trust anyone. I live my life in a fog. I stumble around unable to get motivated because I’m afraid of what I might run into. I feel too flat to do anything exciting.
Walking depression lives in your bones. It makes your bones feel like tubes of water-heavy & unstable. I’m always asking myself if it’s worth it to stand up. I’m never sure I have the internal structure to get me through a task. It takes so much effort.”
When it comes to the area of spiritual depression the word of God compels me to speak. This isn’t so much a clinical or deep depression, but rather a profound sorrow, sadness & gloom; a feeling of being “very down.” Some Christians try to deny its existence because it’s not necessarily a good advertisement for Christianity; but it does exist. Many people of my generation they don’t like the word depression & would never admit to it in their lives. Depression sounds too much like the devils work, & sometimes it is.
I’ve given the following advice to numerous people who wouldn’t admit to being depressed;
“If you have lost all of your joy, if the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup (if that’s going to be the best part of waking up, you might be better off in bed) if you haven’t smiled in so long no one can remember it, if you no longer enjoy the things you used to love, if you feel like God has gone to Key West & lost your phone number, if your face carries the message that you’ve been Baptized in lemon juice & weaned on a pickle, you’d better swallow your spiritual pride & call it what it is (depression) before it becomes something exceedingly worse.”
When was the last time you had this kind of feeling; like you might do something drastic? Truthfully this happens & it happens to the best of Christians.
Paul tells us in Eph.6:12—for we wrestle not with flesh & blood but against principalities, against powers, against the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.
This doesn’t mean that we go looking for a devil behind every mood-swing but neither should we ignore this truth.
For most of us, if we get into an emotional fog, we know it’s just a temporary feeling brought on us by certain circumstances. Sometimes getting out of bed is hard & people have no energy & can’t concentrate. These feelings usually lift but if they start interfering with our daily life very long it might be clinical depression & then a person should seek professional help. The music David played for Saul lifted his spirits temporarily but the spirit came back over & over again. I think that’s one of the reasons so many billions are spent on music; people are seeking to ward-off depression.
I’m convinced that shopping sprees are another way many people try to lift their spirits. They live with the idea that they’re one shopping trip from happiness. What happens is, they fill their houses up with things they don’t need & as soon as they “lick the candy” off their latest acquisition, they are right back where they started.
Then there are those who use food, alcohol or some other substance to lift their spirits but it’s a lift that doesn’t last.
Here are six misconceptions about depression.
1. WEAK PEOPLE GET DEPRESSED.
The truth is that it takes a strong person to bear up under depression. Saul stood head & shoulders above any man in Israel. He had broad shoulders & a strong constitution but he was still depressed.
Periodically we read about sports figures, people who make their living being stronger than the average person, admitting to depression. Anyone who’s ever read the story of Elijah knows that weakness in no way describes this Prophet, but he got depressed & begged God to kill him. No wonder, he’d just run over 100 miles trying to put distance between himself & Jezebel who’d threatened to kill him.
David was a mighty warrior & leader of men but even a cursory reading of the Psalms he wrote reveal his bouts with depression. For a whole year he didn’t write a song or tune his harp.
Certainly Jeremiah wasn’t a weakling but he got so depressed he walked into God’s office, laid down his prophet-credentials, accused God of lying to Him & vowed never to say God’s name again as long as he lived. From now on God would be “old-what’s-his-name-in-the-sky.” You will remember that Elijah couldn’t stick to that vow when he discovered that God’s words were-“like fire shut-up in my bones.”
Another wrong attitude about depression is;
2. IT’S A SPECIAL HELL RESERVED FOR THE FEW.
If you have been reading the popular magazines & newspapers in the last few years, or for that matter listening to the media you’re aware that we are presently living in the “age of melancholy.” The World Health organization says that by the year 2020, if present trends continue, depression will rank second only to heart disease as the number one disabler of persons. On any given day depression affects 18 million Americans. 12 million will go untreated. Chances are 1 in 5 of us will experience an episode of depression in our lives. The question is, if it strikes, “Where will we go for help?”
3. SOME PEOPLE THINK DEPRESSION IS A MENTAL ILLNESS.
Depression can be a chemical imbalance in the brain, but in truth many illnesses, mental & physical are caused by some sort of chemical imbalance. i.e. Diabetes, etc.
Loss can trigger depression. I’ve known people who had a great loss in their life, went into depression & never snapped out of it. This can happen with the loss of a spouse. Loss of any kind can trigger depression. Some people get depressed when they start getting older & grieve over loss of youth. Most of us snap out of it by considering the alternative.
Pain can also trigger depression. I read an article recently that in America, back pain is a leading cause of depression.
We are in a culture that so idolizes youth that today many teenagers & pre-teens are suffering depression because of the prospects of aging.
The pace of our modern day life also causes some people to be depressed. In my forties I kept such a rigid travel schedule along with being a pastor that I often had mild spells of depression. In 1981 I went to China & several other Oriental countries for three weeks & when I came home I thought I’d never get back to normalcy. People who are depressed will often say the world seems “surreal” to them. I don’t think we realize how jet travel, computers, cell phones & fast cars (all of which I use) have robbed us of the normal human scale of life.
Researchers say that cortisol; a stress hormone can also cause depression. It’s harmless in small doses but when stress causes inordinate amounts to constantly be pumped into the body it can rob us of energy, mobility, our sex drives, & our basic ability to feel human emotions. I read about a man who experienced this to such a degree that he lost all ability to love his wife, parents & his children. He had pushed himself so long trying to be successful that he was, in the vernacular, burned-out; so burned out that he no longer had real feelings. I hope & pray it was temporary for him.
4. ANOTHER MISCONCEPTION ABOUT DEPRESSION IS THAT IT’S A RESULT OF SIN IN ONES LIFE--& THAT DEPRESSION ITSELF IS SIN.
This is not so. Charles Haddon Spurgeon the great 19th century preacher often called “The prince of preachers,” the man God used to light the fires of the 19th century revival movement suffered from depression most of his adult life. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be away from his pulpit two or three months a year because of depression. I don’t know whether this is true but many scholars think that Paul’s “Thorn in the flesh” may have been depression. I will say however that if Paul wasn’t depressed he missed several good chances. After all, his kin, his race, & his people largely rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
And what about some of those churches? Maybe he was depressed by the failure of the churches he planted to live out their life in Christ. They were a constant anxiety to him. (2nd Cor.11:28.)
Abraham Lincoln; at the height of the Civil War said, “If the misery I feel was equally divided among every member of the human race, there would not be a single smiling face among us.”
The Bible tells us that Moses, Jeremiah, Job, & Elijah all had bouts of depression. I have a feeling that some of the best people suffer from depression. The truth is life is not always a stroll through a rose garden. There are mountains & valleys. There are many downward slopes. I have known pastors who didn’t want to take Mondays off because they were still stressed out from Sunday & they didn’t want to feel that bad on their day off. They could enjoy a day off later in the week much more. We should learn to see these depressed times less like a pit to climb out of & more like a tunnel to pass through.
But we can’t blame all depression on things like the pace of life, stress & chemical imbalance. We mustn’t overlook the possibility that unrepentant & unconfessed sin is a major cause of depression.
Saul had every right to be depressed. God had anointed him to be king of Israel but he disobeyed God & gradually backslid. God ended up giving the kingdom to David. Saul, the man with all the potential in the world ended up committing suicide on Mount Gilboa.
When David’s baby died he was able to throw it off but when it came to his sin with Bathsheba & the murder of her husband, his writings show us it continued to depress him. I suspect that a lot of people would get rid of depression if only they got rid of their sin.
You could say it like this; ---when we grieve the Holy Spirit by our sin, He turns around & grieves us back.
Another myth about depression is that;
5. DEPRESSION IS ALWAYS BAD.
In Saul’s case, God was dealing with him causing him to be depressed because of his wrong doing. There is only one thing I can think of that is worse than depression & that’s for a person to become so dead to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit that they can totally ignore Him. When that happens we are beyond help because it’s impossible to repent. This is what Jesus meant when he said the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the unforgivable sin. (Matt. 12:31)
According to Hebrews 12:6-- “God chastens whom He loves.” We are convicted of sin & righteousness & judgment. (John 16:8) We ought to take a measure of hope if we are in sin & its depressing us. There remains the possibility that we will humble ourselves before God & receive His aid & forgiveness.
If we’re experiencing depression we should ask ourselves questions like; am I harboring bitterness toward another person? Have I addressed the sin in my life? Am I feeling guilty about something? Have I turned away from God? Am I being a faithful Christian? And so on.
6. FINALLY, SOME DEPRESSED FOLK FEEL THERE’S NO HOPE FOR THEM.
This is a myth. If the depression is a chemical imbalance, there is prayer & there are also medications that can do wonders. Many other depressed people can be helped by a change of diet, rest or by taking up a hobby for physical activity. I read somewhere that it’s impossible to actually be depressed while exercising. I’ve known people who always had headaches & were so sick it kept them constantly depressed. A trip to the doctor revealed they were eating too much sugar or other bad foods & when this changed they were different people.
One of the best ways to fight a mild case of depression is to do something. We don’t feel our way to a different way of acting, rather we act our way to a different way of feeling. If you wake up one morning & feel depressed, talk to depression like you would a person.
· “O.K depression, I see you are here & that’s alright but you have to understand I’ve got a lot to do. I’m getting out of this bed depressed. I’m going to shower, if necessary depressed. I’m going to eat breakfast depressed. I’m going to work depressed & I’m going to work all day depressed if that’s the way it has to be. Then I’m coming home depressed. I’ll eat my supper depressed & I’m going to church depressed.”
It’s possible but not probable that depression will still be there when they sing the first worship song. It could possibly still be there after the second song. But if you’ll keep on singing & praising something will happen & depression will have to go for James said “Draw nigh to God & he’ll draw night unto you.”
In all the years I’ve been preaching, I’ve rarely felt like preaching when I first started. But after I’ve been preaching about 5 minutes, something happens & I start feeling different. Then I don’t feel like stopping. Many people over the years have been grateful that I don’t go by my feelings.
If a person’s depression is spiritual in nature, the result of sin, that person can find release by turning to the God who loves them.
Psalm 32 continues;
5. I acknowledge my sin to you, O, Lord. & I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgression to the Lord; then you forgave the guilt of my sin. 6. Therefore let every one who is Godly offer a prayer to you; at a time of distress, in the rush of great waters, they shall not be reached. 7. God, you art a hiding place…..
There isn’t a “twelve step program” for avoiding depression, but there are however some steps we can take if we’re facing it.
We should ask ourselves the questions; do we have trouble making decisions? Do we experience a lot of uncontrollable crying? If a person is living on the verge of tears all the time, though as I said I’m no expert, I think that should be recognized as serious & an individual should seek help either through personal prayer or through Christian counseling.
If a person is having trouble getting out of bed, can’t seem to make it to work or to school, or if thoughts of suicide are creeping into their head, in these cases immediate care is necessary & steps should be taken with a professional.
WHEN HOLIDAYS COME UP IT WOULD BE LUDICRUS NOT TO INCLUDE,
POST HOLIDAY DEPRESSION.
Have you ever noticed that depression can strike after a holiday, or for that matter, after any of the great celebrations of life? We feel the build-up of excitement & all of the sudden its over. The problem is that big days tend to magnify all our emotions. We suffer from an intense case of the “oughts” during the holidays. We believe we ought to be able to give our children all the things they want, & we ought to be able to satisfy all the time demands of our extended family. We ought to spend the holidays in the middle of a great big adoring family. Unfortunately the real holiday experience never quite lives up to our “oughts.”
Nurses report that the maternity ward of a hospital can be one of the saddest places in the world. The initial rush is gone. Now the baby is keeping you up all night; you are tired & discouraged & asking yourself—“why did I ever get myself into this situation?” They even have a medical name for it; Postpartum Depression. After any great success or triumph after any of the great accomplishments of life, there’s normally a reaction, a falling back. You can almost feel things slowing down, returning to the routine & the mundane.
WE SHOULD BE CERTAIN TO TALK TO GOD ABOUT OUR MOODS & REMEMBER PRAYER IS A POWERFUL TOOL AGAINST DEPRESSION.
When Jesus was having a difficult time He went to God & cried out, “Please God, deliver me from this.” We should make certain we’re getting enough rest & ask ourselves if some unresolved conflict or unconfessed sin is causing this. But no matter what, I encourage anyone battling depression to seek help from God & also from trained Christian professionals if necessary.
No one needs to be held captive to depression, there is a way out.
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.—Isaiah 61:3—
Blessings,
John
Friday, May 7, 2010
Learning To Lean Milestone
ByJohn Stallings
Thirty-four years ago this month, in 1976, with $4,500 borrowed from a friend, we went to the Mark 5 studios in Greenville, South Carolina to record 10 of our brand new compositions.
The songs included “Learning to Lean.” Of course we had no idea that song would emerge & be embraced by so many.
It would be easier to tell what gospel singer/singers have not recorded the song than to tell which ones have recorded it.
I noticed that YouTube has put that early recording up for everyone’s listening pleasure. If you click on the link below you’ll hear “learning to lean” in it’s earliest form & before the words were even available in any book store.
Though Cecile Blackwood & all the guys who made up The Blackwood Brothers became my friends many years before most of them went to heaven, I never learned how they got the song so quickly, but they did & had it on the national charts before I could blink.
One year later learning to lean was awarded Nashville’s prestigious “Dove Award” & the rest is history.
We weren’t responsible for putting this song on You tube, but it’s there at least for now. If you click the link below you’ll be able to hear that first historic recording & it won’t cost you anything but about four minutes.
I guarantee you’ll be blessed if you can take the time to listen.
Blessings,
John
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qXZhmTXhA
Thirty-four years ago this month, in 1976, with $4,500 borrowed from a friend, we went to the Mark 5 studios in Greenville, South Carolina to record 10 of our brand new compositions.
The songs included “Learning to Lean.” Of course we had no idea that song would emerge & be embraced by so many.
It would be easier to tell what gospel singer/singers have not recorded the song than to tell which ones have recorded it.
I noticed that YouTube has put that early recording up for everyone’s listening pleasure. If you click on the link below you’ll hear “learning to lean” in it’s earliest form & before the words were even available in any book store.
Though Cecile Blackwood & all the guys who made up The Blackwood Brothers became my friends many years before most of them went to heaven, I never learned how they got the song so quickly, but they did & had it on the national charts before I could blink.
One year later learning to lean was awarded Nashville’s prestigious “Dove Award” & the rest is history.
We weren’t responsible for putting this song on You tube, but it’s there at least for now. If you click the link below you’ll be able to hear that first historic recording & it won’t cost you anything but about four minutes.
I guarantee you’ll be blessed if you can take the time to listen.
Blessings,
John
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qXZhmTXhA
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