Doubly Blessed

                                  Gene Hughes - 1957                                  Bobby Hughes 2010

The pictures that accompany this story are here just to prove that my children didn’t get all of their athletic genes from their mother.  Fathers Day is always a time for thanksgiving for me.  My own father was a tremendous example to me and I love him very much.  His faithfulness to God and my mother, his love for God’s Word, and his steady, calm determination never failed him in over 50 years of ministry through good times and bad.  As great of a father as he was, he has been an even more devoted grandfather to my children and my two nieces.

Father’s Day also holds some tremendous memories for me.  25 years ago this Tuesday, June 18, 1988, was the Saturday before Fathers Day.  Shelley woke me up very early, saying that she had a back ache and that she thought that she might be in labor.  Only a few hours later, Robert Martin Hughes, made his way into the world.  What an amazing Fathers Day present!

From the very beginning, Bobby had a sweet, compliant temperament.  He was and continues to be a good-natured, compassionate, and fun-loving person. 

His very first word was ‘Ball,’ and much of his life has been driven by his love for sports of every kind, but he also caught a passion for missions and for serving the Lord very early on. 

I can remember a conversation before he was even a teenager where we discussed his plans for the future.  He had determined that he was going to play in the NBA, mind you this was before he grew nine inches in his sophomore and junior years of high school.  He was going to live in the small Amish town of Goshen, Indiana, and give most of his multi-million dollar salary to support missionaries around the world.

Since then, he has had the opportunity to play four years of college basketball and go on multiple missions trips to the Philippines, and these days his goals have changed. 

Now he looks forward to the day when he and his wife, Ariel, can serve the Lord, first-hand as missionaries.  Until then, he is using the skills that God has given him to open the doors of witness to college kids in the Dallas Metroplex.

So you see, I have been doubly blessed.  As a son, I have witnessed the life-long example of a great father, and as a father, God has blessed me with a son, who seeks to follow not me, but God.  You just can’t be more blessed than that.

 

Not Home Yet

Whenever you are doing a study on faith, the life of Abraham always seems to come to the forefront.  As a matter of fact, in Hebrews 11, Abraham occupies 12 verses of the chapter when most of the examples are limited to one or two verses each. 

Abraham’s faith was something unusual.  God called him to get up and go without telling him where he would be going, and in faith, Abraham obeyed.

By faith, Abraham wandered around in the wilderness most of his life waiting for God to give him the inheritance that He had promised.

Although his flesh got the better of him on a couple of occasions, for the most part, he lived his life by faith, even when the outward circumstances seemed to indicate that God had forgotten about His promises.

I am constantly challenged by verse 13, where it tells of all of those faithful ones in the past who died before the promise was fulfilled.  It says that they died in faith, not having received the promises, but in spite of that fact, their reaction to those promises was monumental.

First, they saw them afar off.  They had a vision of what God could do and would do based on His Word.

Second, they were persuaded of them.  Their faith gave them hope despite the outward appearances.

Third, they embraced them.  They brought all of their resources and personal resolve to bear upon the vision.

And finally, they recognized their place in the process.  They were pilgrims, moving from one country to a better country.  They didn’t allow themselves to get too attached to any particular acre of sand.   They knew that God was leading them to a place of victory and blessing.

Their faithful pursuit of God’s promised blessing didn’t go unnoticed.  Verse 16 is one of the most awesome verses in all of Scripture. It says, “…wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.”

Wow! To know that God is proud of us!  What an honor!

The story is told of a faithful missionary who had served many years in a very remote part of Africa, and was finally coming home to America.  As the ship that he was on pulled into port, the missionary noticed on the pier a large contingent of people, replete with a marching band and several Welcome Home banners.   The missionary’s heart jumped for joy as he saw the wonderful welcome and acknowledgement of all of his years of service. 

However, when the gangplank was lowered, a rich political dignitary and his traveling party moved in front of the missionary and was warmly greeted with kisses and hugs and handshakes.  By the time the missionary was able to disembark, the crowd had dispersed and there was no one there to welcome the missionary home.  It had all been intended for the politician.

Heart-broken, the missionary took the long walk to the street corner to catch a cab.  As he walked, he cried out to God, “After all that I’ve done in service to You, now I come home and there is no one here to greet me.  Father, how could you let this happen?”

In a moment of quiet desperation, the missionary heard the voice of the Lord saying, “But, my child, you’re not home yet.”

Those that live by faith know that the real welcome home will come on the day when we stand before the Lord and hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joys of the Lord.”

Looking For Something More

 

We’ve been looking at Hebrews 11 and the fruit of faith as it is exhibited in the lives of those that follow after God.  Last night, I saw yet another example of the spiritual emptiness of pursuing the things that the flesh desires.  I had gotten in late and sat down to let my mind relax before I went to bed and flipped on the TV.  Jay Leno was interviewing Jimmy Connors, the world-famous tennis star from the 70’s and 80’s.  Apparently he has written an autobiography that is pretty in-depth about his life before, during, and after his tennis career.  After the usual small talk, Leno mentioned that Connors had had a pretty significant gambling problem throughout his playing days.  Connors agreed, mentioned that it had been in his family for years, and gave a couple of extreme examples of the negative impact that it had on him.  Then came one of those moments that people need to hear more often; a moment in which the blinders come off and the false advertising of the flesh is swept away.

Connors said, “I was looking for something more.  I thought tennis would give me everything, you know, that feeling of the excitement and the thrill of winning and of playing on wide open stages all around the world.  But it wasn’t, it just didn’t satisfy.  I was missing something because tennis didn’t fill my whole day.”

I’ve heard similar laments from the rich and famous, such as Joe Namath and Tom Brady, men who according to the world’s standards have it all, but the emptiness that they express proves the premise of our study in Hebrews 11, that the physical world, experienced by our five senses are only half of the real world and anyone whose focus ignores the spiritual half will end up lonely, empty, and lost.

It confirms a conclusion I drew years ago about why so many people are convinced that Elvis isn’t dead.  Elvis had everything that this world associates with happiness; fame, talent, popularity, wealth, beautiful women, success, and yet he drank and drugged himself to death because he found no peace and satisfaction in any of it.  Many people would rather deceive themselves into believing that he is living on a spaceship with JFK and Marilyn Monroe than to accept that the things that they believe will make them happy are truly just empty promises without a relationship with Jesus Christ.

In contrast, I remember walking down a street in Cebu City, the Philippines, in 1999 and seeing the impoverished conditions of so many of the people there.  They had created for themselves little booths along the sides of the street where, by day, they sold pot holders that they had woven from scraps of material they had scavenged from a nearby factory.  When the sun went down, they simply pulled their wares off of the table and laid down on a matt inside the booth and slept for the night. 

What jumped out at me was the smiles on their faces and the joy in their hearts.  They were laughing and singing and talking as they passed the day.  I mentioned to the Filipino pastor that was with us, “I am amazed at how joyful they are in spite of their poverty.”

He said, “Oh, no, Pastor, this is not poverty.  They make enough each day to supply their needs for that day, so they are satisfied.  Their joy does not come from what they own.  It comes from Who they know.”

Not a bad lesson for American Christians to learn.

Sadly, Jimmy Connors never mentioned finding a solution for his gambling problem.  Based on what I heard in the interview, it is unlikely that he has come to know Christ.  Maybe he needs to move to Cebu for a while and sell pot-holders.  I have a friend that could set him up with a booth and tell him where to find that something, no, Someone, who could fill that emptiness.