Say It While You Have the Chance

Yesterday, I got the news that an old friend had passed away.   Chester Henry was the first Pastor that I worked for after graduating from BBC.  My time working for him was short and tumultuous, but I learned some very needed lessons while serving under him. 
During the first semester of my senior year at BBC, Ken McCormick, Pastor of Tri-Cty Baptist Church in Gladstone, OR, came to speak in chapel.  He issued a call for students to consider the Great Northwest of our own country as a mission field.  During that service, I felt that God was calling me to the state of Washington to start a church. Over the next few months, as graduation approached, I looked for contacts up there that might be able to help me get started.  My dad called one day and told me that a man who had pastored in Wisconsin for a while was now in Spokane, WA and might know of opportunities in that area of the country.  I really didn't know Brother Henry.  I had seen him at camp, but had little contact with him, but I wrote him a letter asking if he knew of any churches in the region who were looking for someone in the areas of youth or Christian school ministry.  His response was that there were very few churches in that area that were big enough to have staff, but that his church had a Christian school and might be needing someone in the fall.  I took that as a very positive response, but when March and April and May passed without further word, I began to lose hope that anything would come of it.  I graduated from BBC and moved to Crane, MO, where I had served as Youth Director of Crane Bible Baptist Church during my Junior and Senior years at BBC.  The summer flew past with no news.  Then during the last few days of July, Brother Henry called and said that if I could get packed up, spend a week in Lewisville, Texas for administrators training and be in Spokane in two weeks, I had the job.
Get this! I was 20 years old and single and I had been hired as the Principal and High School Learning Center Supervisor at Baptist Temple Christian School aaannnddd Youth Director at Inland Empire Baptist Temple.  But armed with my BBC diploma and my ACE Administrator's Training Certificate, I hit the road in my beat up '72 Malibu sure that I was ready for anything that life could throw at me.
1700 miles later, I showed up on the doorstep of IEBT and dove head first into Chester Henry's philosophy of ministry.  We worked seven days a week for the first three months I was there.  I found that his expectations were high and that he didn't believe in handing out a lot of praise.  Looking back, I probably hadn't earned much.  I struggled with the dual roles of authoritative administrator through the week and counselor and confidant on the weekends.  Those that I was so desperately trying to get close to as their Youth Director, I was having to discipline and motivate as their teacher and principal.  It is a difficult job, at best, but when you are just a couple of years older than the kids that you are trying to reach and teach, it is very close to impossible.
Add to it my inate desire to be liked by everyone that I come in contact with, and you have a formula for disaster.  By late January of 1981, it was evident to both Brother Henry and me that I wasn't the man for the job.  I had lost control of my classroom and the youth department was floundering.  I felt like a failure, so I walked into Brother Henry's office and told him that I would resign, effective at the end of the school year.  He was gracious and suggested that since the problem was fueled by my dual role, he could assign the Youth Department to a young couple in the church and I could concentrate on my duties with the school.
The change, although gradual was like night and day.  My effectiveness with my students improved and I started a bus route with a friend of mine so that I was still actively serving in the church.  God blessed our efforts and we built that bus route from 0 to 56 in only three months. 
In the end, if I hadn't already tendered my resignation, I probably would have stayed.  I look back on my time in Spokane as my "back side of the desert" experience.  Although it was pretty tough, there are memories and friendships that I made there that I dearly treasure.
Just recently, I came across Brother Henry's daughter on Facebook.  I told her that I would love to get in contact with him again.  I would have liked to thank him for giving me the opportunity to serve in Spokane.  I would have thanked him for the philosophy of hard work and self-discipline that he instilled in me.  And I would have apologized for any problems that my immaturity may have caused him as my Pastor.  But his death this week has robbed me of that opportunity.
This is just one more example of the importance of not allowing your words of love and gratitude to go unspoken.  In just a few weeks, it will have been 30 years since I left Inland Empire.  The church and the school are no longer in existence. But the mark that they made on my life and ministry have followed me every step of the way.

This Changes Everything!

“This Changes Everything!”

I serve a Risen Savior! He’s in the world today. I know that He is living, whatever men may say! Jesus Christ our risen Lord, has conquered death and the grave and because He has, we no longer have to live in fear. Because of Adam’s Fall, we were born in sin, condemned to death and separation from God, but His coming to earth in the flesh changed everything. As a matter of fact, no one that ever came face to face with Jesus walked away the same.
In Luke 8, we see the story of a man whose life was in such a mess that he could no longer live among other people. His outrage and his demons had destroyed every relationship that he had ever tried to build. Satan had him so wrapped up in chains of addiction and destruction that he lived among the tombs, a dangerous outcast from society. In his extreme state of mental and spiritual bondage, he continually ran around in nakedness and rage, until the day that he met Jesus. His encounter with the Savior changed everything! His demons were vanquished, his mind was put at ease, and his relationships were restored. The result was a powerful witness to the ability of Jesus Christ to deliver from the bondage of addiction and spiritual oppression.

Imagine the impact in Jesus’s day of these two words, “Born blind.” All of his life this beggar on the side of the road had lived in darkness. His only recourse was to depend on the generosity of others. He could do nothing to provide for himself and really had no hope of anything ever getting any better. The account in John 9 tells us that his parents were still living, offering him at least one source of help, but as the years passed, this source of supply would have in that culture become an obligation that he was expected to fulfill, leading to more hardship. And once they were gone, he would have no one to care for him or give him a sighted perspective on the world in which he only marginally lived. His life was hard, cruel, and unforgiving...until the day that he met Jesus. Jesus’ disciples were no different than anyone else that had observed him begging on the street. They weren’t concerned with his condition or his need, only who might be to blame for it. But when Jesus looked at the man, He saw right to his heart and recognized someone whom, if healed would serve as a faithful witness to the glory of God. So Jesus spit on the ground and made eye salve out of the dust. He covered the man’s eyes and said, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” And when the man obeyed in faith, he came again, the Bible says, seeing. The miraculous event touched off a firestorm of theological debate. The Pharisees would not acknowledge that what Jesus had done was a miracle from God, and so they asked the man again and again what the meaning of all this could be. His simple answer was that whoever Jesus was, He had changed everything. He said, “I don’t know much about Him, but I do know that once I was blind, and now I can see.” The power of Jesus Christ to heal the sick and wounded was only one of the many ways that He showed us that He was and is the Son of God.

That night, in the upper room, He gathered his followers around Him and warned them that life as they had known it was about to change. They had been with him for over three years. They had seen Him heal the sick and raise the dead. They had listened to His teachings and had watched Him walk on water. They saw him rebuke the Pharisees and drive the moneychangers out of the Temple. Everything that they had experienced with Him pointed to the fact that He was the Messiah and would sit on David’s throne. But Jesus knew that what they had witnessed was only the first chapter of the story, and what they were expecting was near the end of the book. He knew that there were many difficult twists and turns ahead before they could enjoy the promised blessings of being His followers. And so, He took them to a quiet place, away from the crowds, out of the glare of the spotlights to teach them a few pivotal lessons that would prepare them for the long road ahead, once He had finished His work here. What He taught them that night turned their world upside down. If they were going to rule with Him, they would have to learn to wash feet. If they were going to sit at His banquet table, they first would have to partake of the bread of His broken body and the cup of His shed blood. He told them that, despite their time together, one would betray him and the rest would desert Him in fear during His hour of greatest need. But despite all of this, He loved them and was going away to prepare a place for them so that, when He returned, they could all be together again for eternity. He promised that He would send a Comforter to them and that as a result, they would be emboldened and empowered to change the World in His name. It was a beautiful, solemn occasion that changed everything once again.


 

 
We often speak of the change that took place in the disciples after the resurrection, how they became powerful witnesses capable of turning the world upside down once their faith was confirmed by the marvelous miracle of the empty tomb, but I am beginning to think that the transformation started a little earlier. The catastrophic emotional earthquake that hit them when they saw Jesus hanging on that cross was the beginning of an excruciating three days of doubt, turmoil and confusion. Their hopes and dreams had been dashed to pieces. The things that they had come to believe were thrown into major conflict. They had to think that their lives were in peril and their world had come to an end. From our perspective on this side of the resurrection, we can see that it was all a part of God’s plan, but from their side, it must have been almost intolerable. It is not unlike the upheaval in the lives of those who find themselves in some dark valley. It is often impossible to see God’s plan in it all and what life has thrown at us seems hopeless. But God’s ways are not our ways, and often He uses the worst of circumstances to accomplish His greatest blessings. It is often in our darkest hours that the Light of God shines the brightest. Those disciples found themselves in a situation where they didn’t even know what to pray, all they knew was that things had changed and God was going to have to do something big to set it right. But praise the Lord, Sunday was coming.

On that early Sunday morning, as the disciples made their way to the tomb, they had no idea how much their world had changed. They were going to lay their hopes and dreams to rest in a sealed grave. All that they had envisioned for the future over the past three years lay broken, bloody and cold, wrapped in a sheet in a borrowed tomb. Any joy, peace, or worship that their hearts may have once held, had quickly run dry as the One they believed to be the Messiah, had died a cruel and agonizing death on the cross. How could they face tomorrow? How could they face their friends and neighbors to whom they had loudly proclaimed, “We have found the Messiah! Come and see!” The future that so recently had seemed bright and eternally hopeful, now seemed to be a black void filled with confusion. But all of that changed when they arrived at the tomb! The massive stone was rolled out of the way, set aside like some discarded wrapper. The Roman soldiers had fled the scene and the burial niche was empty, except for the cloth that His body had been wrapped in and the napkin that had been placed on His head. Their minds raced with a combination of confusion and hope. Any number of possible explanations ran through their minds, but the truth seemed too impossible to even hope for. Then they saw the angel. His message are the words that still shake the world today, “Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as He said.” The resurrected Christ changed the world for eternity. Death is no longer the unbeatable foe. The grave is no longer the inescapable prison. Our sin is no longer an unbreakable curse. And hell is no longer our eternal destination. Because Jesus lives, death has lost its sting, the grave has lost its power over us, sin’s price has been paid and heaven has opened its doors to all those who call on His name!

And today, two thousand years later, this Risen Christ whose finished work on the Cross fully satisfied the price demanded for mankind’s sin, is still changing hearts and lives today. If you are here this morning and you have never accepted Christ as your Savior, this can be the day when He changes everything for you. For His finished work on the cross to be applied to your need, you have to understand a few things. First, you are a sinner, we all are, and that sin has separated you from God. It is what will lead to your eternal destruction if you do not turn to Christ. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, both physical and spiritual. But the good news is that God loves you, even as a sinner, so much that He is willing to pay the price of sin for you. That’s why Jesus came. That’s what His death accomplished, the payment for your sins. And His resurrection proved it to be true and that our hope for eternal life is valid. All that He asks is that you acknowledge Him as Lord of your life, believe in His resurrection, and call upon Him for salvation. So, what better day could there ever be for Jesus Christ to change your life forever than on the day when He changed everything? Won’t you call upon Him now?

Death and Life, Endings and Beginnings

This has been a pretty hectic week.  In the last nine days, I've driven almost two thousand miles and have run the gambit from foreboding anxiety to deep sorrow to excitement to anticipation to hope for the future.  In other words, I have experienced life on this earth as we have come to know it.  Last Thursday, I traveled to Jefferson City, Missouri, to visit with Ron Fisher, our treasurer for the the last few years.  He was at the end of his journey. Ron suffered for the last year and a half with kidney failure and a myriad of other ailments caused by it.  He had lost weight until, at the end, he was no more than about 130 pounds.  That afternoon, I was able to speak with him and laugh and pray with him and though I knew it would be the last time I saw him on this side of the river, he assured me that he was ready to go home.  On Sunday we got the news that Ron had been promoted to glory and we prepared for the funeral in Jefferson City and the Memorial Service here at IBC. 
On Monday, Shelley and I attended BBC's Sports Awards Banquet and it really sank in that Bobby's collegiate career was over.  He was chosen as BBC's MVP for the second year in a row and we were very proud of our son's accomplishments.  But as his basketball career comes to an end, we are anticipating the beginning of his new life after college as he moves through the application process for a wonderful job that would involve teaching, coaching basketball, and ministry.
I also received news this week that Clint Kidd, one of IBC's teens has been accepted to Moody Bible Institute.  It has been Clint's dream to go to Bible college in a place where he could get a taste of the broad spectrum of real world problems that he may face in his future ministry.  Moody is located in the suburbs of Chicago and offers its students a wide range of ministry exposure to any number of cultures and social classes.  Clint's high school life in small town America is about to come to an end.  In just a few weeks, he will graduate from Grove High School and launch out into a new world of experiences and opportunities to serve God.  Even the ceremony that commemorates the end of his High School years acknowledges that in this ending there is a new beginning.  It is called a commencement, not a conclusion, a commencement.
All of this week's experiences display the conundrum that is life itself.  In every ending there is a new beginning.  For Ron, this week was not truly the end of life, it was only the beginning.  He is more alive today than he has ever been.  Our sorrow for the loss of a friend and loved one is only temporary.  The rejoicing in heaven for a child of God who has finally made it home will last for eternity.  So in reality, the end of the temporary has only opened the door for the beginning of the eternal.
 In Bobby and Clint's cases, the end of one phase of his life has opened the door for the next, more exciting, longer lasting, more fruitful phase which is about to begin.  The details are uncertain, but in faith we know that God will lead and provide.  It's really not that much different.  When I spoke with Ron on Thursday, he knew that he was about to "graduate."  While the transition process was a little scary, he knew that God had already prepared a place for him on the other side.  And so it is with every ending here on earth.  In the ending we find a new beginning.
Tomorrow, we celebrate the reason for our confidence in this hope.  At Calvary, what looked like a tragic ending, an earth-shattering defeat, was transformed on resurrection morning into the consummate victory over man's greatest enemies, death and the grave.  And in that gory ending we find that eternal life has its true beginning.  The one source of joy, peace, and comfort that can be found in Ron's passing is that because Jesus rose again, we too have hope for a day of resurrection.  Tomorrow, we will not be celebrating  bunnies, Easter eggs, and the return of Spring.  We will be remembering the sacrifice of the cross and the victory of the empty tomb.  "He is not here.  He is risen , as He said..."

Worship or Waste?

It never ceases to amaze me how diverse the Holy Spirit can be in His interaction with God's people.  Over the years, I have been exposed to a wide variety of worship opportunities among several cultures and various age groups and I find one thing in common, a general feeling that "the way we do it is the right way." From small intimate gatherings of believers singing songs of worship and adoration to God, to stadiums filled with men singing a 19th century hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy," to an almost raucous college chapel service with students singing at the top of their lungs about "arms high and heart abandoned," I have witnessed and experienced amazing moments of worship when the presence of God was palpable in the room.  And, sadly, in almost every case there were Christian brothers or sisters standing back with a critical spirit questioning the authenticity or sincerity of what they were seeing.  "How can God be honored with that kind of music?" "All I see is emotionalism.  Where is the substance?" "Why does it have to be so loud?" Or on the other hand, "Why does it have to be so slow and dead?"
When are we going to realize that God moves and works in a myriad of different ways to minister to the hearts and to reach into the innermost part of the vast variety of people that He calls His own.We need to be careful of how we judge the worship of others, of how hastily we disregard their actions and their adoration of God.  In John 12, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, brought out a costly box of precious ointment and she poured it out upon the feet of Jesus.  Then she wiped his feet with her hair.  The house was filled with the glorious fragrance of the ointment as the impact of her costly sacrifice spread to all who were in the room.  Mary's humble act of worship honored Christ and displayed her deep love for Him and her gratitude for what Jesus had so recently accomplished by raising her brother from the dead.  You would think that everyone who witnessed it would have been touched by what they saw, but sadly that was not the case.  Judas, wondered why such a waste was made.  He said, in essence, "My way would have been so much better.  Sell the ointment and give the money to the poor. That makes so much more sense. How foolish!"
The text points out that Judas' motive behind his criticism was purely selfish.  I believe that we need to realize that most of our criticism of others' worship is also selfish.  We have our preferences and we want to believe that our preferences are God's preferences.  Rather arrogant, don't you think? 
When all is said and done,  I believe that we need to worship God in the language of our heart, offer Him the sacrifices of our lips, praise Him in love and sincerity, and let Him be the judge.  Then, regardless of what others may think, we will know that our worship is not wasted.

Judgment: For Better or Worse

Matthew 7:1 is probably the most misquoted, wrongly interpreted verse in all of the Bible.  "Judge not, that ye be not judged."  It is often quoted to avoid facing the impact of wrong actions or to divert the attention from an ungodly lifestyle by asserting that anyone who would point out sin, is an intolerant hypocrite.  To be honest, Jesus was warning against hypocrisy and judgmentalism and a critical spirit, but He was not prohibiting all judgment or condemning loving warnings of the consequences of sin.  If you continue on in the passage, you will see that what He was calling for was compassion, self-reflection, and love in our evaluation of the actions of others.  The passage really warns about three kinds of judgment:
Harsh judgment - we often expect much more out of others than we ourselves are willing to give.  Jesus warned that you will be judged by the same criteria that you use to judge others.  One of the most important characteristics of Jesus that our lives should reflect is that of compassion for the sinner.  His words on the cross are the best example of all, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
We are all a product of our generation and of our "raisin's," as the old folks used to say. I was recently reminded of a conversation that I had with my grandfather when I was about ten years old.  I was raised in the late 60's and early 70's in Racine, Wisconsin, about half way between Chicago and Milwaukee.  It was the era of the Civil Rights Movement and racial tensions were high.  Bussing students from one part of town to another to insure racial integration in our schools was a part of my late elementary and Junior High School life.  I had learned to be cautious and sensitive to the feelings of those around me, especially when it came to relating to those of a different race.
In the middle of that turmoil, I went to visit my grandparents for Christmas in 1969.  They were good, kind, and loving people from East Texas, but the culture in which they had been raised was very different from the one that I was growing up in.  I can never remember my grandfather saying an angry, mean or judgmental word about anyone in my entire life.  But the conversation that I am thinking of reflected his upbringing.  He spoke in glowing terms of a co-worker at the plywood mill who happened to be black.  He said, "You'd never even know he was a n*****, he is just like a white person."  It shocked me a little, growing up where I was growing up and being in the middle of the fray where the use of that term would have most certainly started a fight and maybe even a riot.  To hear it come from my grandfather's mouth was startling.  But through the years, I have come to realize that it was not uttered in anger, malice, or condescension, it was just part of his vocabulary that had a more benign meaning than I realized.
I believe that we need to consider the person when we interpret the words of others. We need to seek to know them for who they are and where they have been before we judge them too harshly.
Hasty judgment - Jesus was also condemning hasty judgment.  In James we are told to be "quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." We must beware making a judgment before all of the facts are in.  We should be anxious to hear the explanation of the actions of others, and we should allow our thoughts to be filtered through the principles of Scripture and the fruit of the Spirit before we speak them. Avoiding hasty judgments will protect us against having to eat our words later.
Holier-than-thou judgment - The most obvious warning in this passage is about pointing out the faults in others without dealing with our own faults first.  This passage doesn't teach that if you are a sinner, you have no right to warn someone else of the consequences of their sin.  It does, however, teach that if you are not willing to deal with the sin in your own life, you won't be equipped, nor qualified to deal with sin in the lives of others.  It speaks of spiritual blindness when it comes to our own sin while seeking to point out the smallest infractions in the life of another.
As a Pastor, I am often called upon to confront people with the impact of their sin.  Sadly, many people will not listen.  Often, they become defensive and angry that anyone would "judge them."  It is even sadder when a parent gets angry when their child is reprimanded and quickly comes to the defense of the child rather than dealing with the problem itself.  I recently had a long conversation with a mother who told me that her daughter's personal life was none of the business of anyone else in our youth group.  Another girl had spoken to her about something in her life that she saw as a danger to her spiritually.  The mother railed about the hypocrisy of the one who would dare to tell her daughter that what she was doing was wrong.  I told the mother that, at her request, I would instruct the other girl not to intrude any further into her daughter's life.  Then I told her that what she was asking, would effectively remove the strongest safeguard available in the life of her daughter.  There is no stronger deterrent to sin in the life of a teenager than the supportive admonition and exhortation of their peers.  Accountability sometimes pinches, but if it didn't it wouldn't be accountability.  Jesus, most certainly, was not prohibiting us from warning those that we love about the consequences of the sin in their life.  He was simply asking that when we do so, we do it with love and compassion

Texas!

I have lived in Oklahoma longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life.  This summer it will be eighteen years since I became an Okie.  When pressed, I say, " I was born in Texas, but I got to Oklahoma as fast as I could."  Eleven years in Oklahoma City and almost 20 years as an Sooner football fan have built up a good-natured animosity toward Texas.  I teasingly insult Texas and Texans at every opportunity, but over the past couple of days, I had the opportunity to jump in the old time machine and take a trip back to when I proudly proclaimed, "I'm from Texas, and everything is bigger and better in Texas."

Eighty years ago, a couple of the Jernigan sisters fell in love and married a couple of the Hughes brothers and between them they had nine kids.  This passle of double cousins grew up as close as brothers and sisters in the piney woods and red dirt hills of east Texas.  This past week, Bonnie Sue Hughes McGinnis, the oldest daughter of Arthur and Essie Hughes passed away.  I took my dad and mom to the funeral in Center, Texas, the childhood home of the Hughes clan.  For me, the experience was like stepping back in time.  We visited the old "Baker place," the house that my grandparents lived in from my earliest recollection until my grandfather passed away in 1981.  It sat on 100 acres with a place for chickens and cattle and a huge garden as well as two and a half ponds, where my grandmother taught me to fish.  The house has changed a bit in the 30 years since Papaw passed on and Mamaw moved in with my aunt in Jacksonville.  The Bakers, who had moved to Houston to work in the oil business, retired and moved back to the place and renovated the house, adding on to the back and building a large garage.  They have since sold it to someone else and things have fallen into a state of disrepair.  The chicken house and the barn are still standing as reminders of the times when I would follow my grandfather out to the barn and watch him milk the old cow.  I'd gather a few eggs and we would tinker around with a few things until my grandmother would step out onto the back step and yell, "Elllllbert!," letting us both know that breakfast was on the table and it was time to come to the house.  When we got to the house, washed our hands, and sat down at the table, the breakfast was always the same.  Fried eggs and sausage, biscuits as big as a cat's head, home-churned butter, and strap syrup.  With the left overs, Mamaw would make Papaw two fried egg sandwiches for his lunch and he would head off to the plywood mill. 

For some reason the barn didn't look nearly as big as it used to, but seeing it reminded me that with all of the negative things that I say about Texas, some of the greatest moments of my life took place there.  Just across the road from the barn was the hayfield where I first learned to drive a stick shift.  I was six, and we were putting up hay.  It was a cloudy day and Papaw was afraid that it was going to rain on the hay, so he and my uncle Jerry and a couple of my second cousins put me behind the wheel of the truck and I drove while they stacked the haybales. I remember that day like it was yesterday.  My uncle Jerry was young and spry and when they came across an armadillo in the field, he chased it down and caught it for me.  He put it is a chicken coup and set it on the front porch.  After I went to bed, he found an old turtle under the front porch and he put it in the chicken coup with the armadillo.  When I woke up in the morning, the tarrapin was closed up tight in its shell.  Uncle Jerry told me that the armadillo had laid an egg during the night. I truly miss Jerry.

The old courthouse in Center, reminded me of the days of shopping trips with my Mamaw to Payne and Payne's and Beall's on the town square.  Papaw would drop us off and we would walk from store to store and then make a stop at the barber shop where I asked the barber to give me a haircut like Bro. Cravey from the church.  He was bald with tuft of hair on both sides of his head, and at six, I thought that was a pretty cool look.  It must have been because I had never seen Bro. Cravey without a broad smile on his face.

The funeral home brought back a few more fond memories.  I know that sounds strange, but the Watson family has been in the mortuary business in Center for over 30 years.  When I was 18 years old and a student at BBC, the pastor at Central Baptist Church, Bro. Roy Wallace, thought it would be a great idea to have me come down and preach a teen revival.  I'm not sure how great he thought the idea was when it was all over, but I appreciate his confidence in me at such an early age.  The Watson's were members of Central Baptist at that time and Mr. Watson had a teenage daughter, Angela.  I was talking with her after one of the services and she was playing with one of the little children.  She asked the little boy if he knew what her father did for a living.  When he said no, she said, "My daddy kills dead people."  I don't know why that funny little line has stuck in my head all these years, but seeing Bro. Watson again brought it out. 
The funeral home is located at another hallowed spot in my memory.  The graveyard where Bonnie was buried is also the gravesite of one of my greatest heroes in the faith.  In life and in death he is known simply as Missionary Bob Hughes.  It is inscribed on his gravestone and it is his legacy.  More than anything else in his life, he was a missionary.  His legacy lives on in two daughters who serve God faithfully and a wonderful church in Cebu City, the Philippines that is still changing the world, 35 years after his passing.  He is who my son is named after.
As I reflected on all of these wonderful memories, I was challenged to think of more of the wonderful things in my life that happened to me in Texas.  The childhood joys were abundant, but they pale in comparison to the fact that I proposed to my wife of 28 years in Texas, I witnessed the birth of my first child in Texas, and I spent every Christmas but one until I was 35 years old there.
I have heard old-age defined as the point in life where you see the past as having more to offer you than the future.  The older I get, the more it seems that my mind is drawn back to the days that have gone by.  I hope that I can continue to look forward as well to what God still has for me in the days ahead.  I never want to get so caught up in the past that I lose sight of the fact that God is working in me and through me right now and desires to do so for years to come.  I guess the greatest lesson learned this past few days is that life is short and opportunities are fleeting.  We need to live life to its fullest and build upon the foundation that has been laid in our lives by the past, and remember, "... pressing toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God."  The finish line is still ahead.

Thank God for Technology!

Almost a year ago, I went with my daughter, Chelsea, to a conference in Denver to check out a missions opportunity for her called the World Race.  I really didn't know what to expect from the conference, but the one thing that I came away with after spending the day with Lanny Richardson and a few of the leaders of Adventures in Missions, was that I didn't want to miss what God would be teaching me through Chelsea's experience.  The nine months of preparation and fund-raising were a series of incredible realizations as I saw my daughter's walk with God and dependence upon Him blossum into something rare and amazing.  Now as she enters her third month on the World Race, I am not only seeing God do some exciting things in and through her, but I am recognizing little messages that He is sending me on a regular basis as well.  Today's message was about the value of communication. 
Chelsea spent last month in a very remote and somewhat primitive environment in Cambodia.  As a result, our communication with her was infrequent and difficult at best.  As a father, I really missed hearing about what she was doing and how God was working, but I tried to be patient because I knew that she was where God wanted her to be.  A few days ago, Chelsea arrived in Darwin, Australia, where she will be staying for the next month, ministering in a place called Bagot, a few miles outside of Darwin.  She is staying in a YWAM(Youth With A Mission) Base in Darwin and will have access to all of the modern technology and as a result, we have been able to hear a lot more about what God has been doing over the last month.  One of Chelsea's teammates even posted a 9 min video with pictures and video from their work there.  I will include that video at the end of this blog.
The thing that God has been speaking to my heart about this morning is the strong desire that He has to hear from me.  He is my Father and I am just a visitor in a strange place far from home.  I have a job to do, but He wants to be a part of it and wants me to keep the lines of communication open.  I sometimes allow prayer to become a task or duty, and forget that it is the opportunity for intimate communication with the One who loves me more than anyone in the world.  It is so easy to get so busy doing things FOR Him that I neglect my time WITH Him, and I know that grieves His heart.
With my daughter living and serving fifteen and a half time zones away, I am thankful for Facebook, Skype, email, text messaging, and cell phone service.  I check these different outlets several times a day, just in case she might have posted something.  I need to be aware that God is just as anxious to hear from me and to be a part of my day as well.