Lessons

‎Saturday, ‎May ‎6, ‎2023

Good morning, Lord

Verse of the Day: James 5:16 New King James Version

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Memory of the Month: John 10:27-28

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

Today's reading: 1 KINGS 21-22 LUKE 23:26-56

Lessons

I have lived out of a big and tall man’s catalogue all my life and ‘regard-ful’ of what shorter folks may think, being tall does come with its share of downfalls(and falling down).

Thinking you are Godzilla as a young man with an ego pumped full of the dreaded male hormone is one such curse. You don’t just think you are the answer to the mechanical world’s woes, you think you can fix those woes with nothing but your flesh.

Tommy drove his daddy’s 78 olds around the horse-apple tree at the end of the row in front of our last house on the dead-end street-parked, honked, and got out.

In those days before occupancy and seatbelt laws, we tried to stuff as many folks in a car as possible and this was a big car. It looked like there were four or five in the back and three or four in the front and they were on their way to a concert or something. I do not remember what they came for but as they were about to leave Tommy mentioned that his F.M. radio was shorting out. This was not good. A car load of barely post hippies without music-no cassette player-no 8-track-I was coming to the rescue.

The car antennas had been replaced for the first time with the ‘wire in the windshield’ antenna that connected with the car's front windshield center bottom. I told Tommy not to worry I had done this before.

I took my headlight sized fist and struck the windshield bottom center.

At least 1000 cracks.. no maybe 2000….and any one of them I could have crawled into. It did not fall out. So, from inside the car I could see 12-14 eyes-multiplied a few thousand times by a certain prism effect from all the tiny cracks-looking motionless at me like a calf looks at a new gate. In unison like a choir from the car I heard, “WOOOOOOOOW”.

There was no accusing me of being big and dumb-I was big and dumb.

It cost me $125.00.

This story is one extreme. The other is in Phillipians 4:6 . It took a while, but I have learned how to be content with slow growth. God does not have a cure for being big and dumb except for years of ‘broken windshields’ and thousands of ‘wowing eyes’.

Patience and humility-I don’t know which is more painful or fun remembering. God does have a good clean sense of humor, doesn’t he?

(I wrote this some years back and now I am watching my grandson...)

Philippians 4:6

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

We really cannot hurry our spiritual or our emotional growth. Yes, we can read and study but it comes as it comes-growth.

My grandson is 10 and is tall and growing. He comes in and tells his 'Mimi'(my wife) that his legs are hurting. I remember this part of growth. Your body starts to stretch and grow and the pain we sometimes have in our long bones lasts for years and then, one day, the pain is gone. Then we move into the 'self-inflicted' pain of preparation and conditioning for some 'worthwhile' activity where we are told we learn 'teamwork'.

Years of winning and losing teaches us, or we do not learn, how to deal with all that.

Then if we are aware, we learn from our children or someone else's children, that we cannot live their lives for them. They must go through the pain and elation of life on their own. We can see where they are headed and warn them but we just cannot do it for them.

We are growing, by grace, into seeing things, if in a small way, from God's point of view. He loves us and knows what will happen each time we 'swing at a windshield' but does not stop us...He is there to shore us up and help us carry a little 'learned wisdom' to the next thing.

The point is God's patience-seeing it, learning it, growing in it, and relishing it. Yes, relishing or really enjoying being patient may be the hardest thing some of us learn in this life. But if we step back and look at our lives, God's patient love and grace down through the years of our lives is unmistakable-and I have to love that.

It makes me want to show more and more grace and love and, yes, patience to my own grandson and to any I see who are about to hit another windshield...

God is great everyday...

...because He loves us...

Father in Heaven,

Forgive me when I reach and meddle in someone's growth. Let me realize Your patience in my heart more and more.

Father of perfect peace!

In the name of Christ Jesus,

Amen