Pastor's Word

Beloved,

Everybody knows children generate apocalyptic moments.

It’s a Psalm 8:2/Matthew 21:16 thing.

God forces us to pay close attention to them for our own good.

When we were considering opening our home to a high school senior who had been thrown out of his uncle’s home after being thrown out of other homes about seven months ago, our youngest asked rhetorically, “Daddy, you’re always telling people not to wait for others to do what is right; so why don’t we take him in?”

We did.

It was hard to argue with a child telling us, in effect, to practice what we...

Though it turned out to be less than I had hoped for the 19 year old - wanting him to experience and appreciate family - we were obedient at the insistence of our youngest child and our family was reacquainted with agape.

Tough as it turned out to be, it was the right thing to do and we do not regret doing it.

Seeds, sometimes, take a long time to...

I had lasik surgery about seven years ago; and it worked out just fine for, uh, about five years.

It was an improvement over bifocals; reminding me of Gary Player who said during this year’s Masters, “Change is the price of survival.”

It’s a wineskins thing; making room for the fresh and new and better.

Kinda like using computers instead of #2 pencils.

Anyway, when my golf game started deteriorating and Tyler started whoppin’ me and Billy, my favorite Special Olympics Golf Champion, began having second thoughts about me being his partner in a big tournament later this summer along with other lesser considerations, I decided it was time to get a check-up.

I decided to try contacts with my wife and two youngest in attendance.

I’ve never worn contacts.

The doctor was skeptical about my ability to adapt to such a, uh, change at my age.

My wife said, “He’ll never be able to do it.”

Our next to youngest had that look of disbelief on his face.

The nurses were nice.

Then our youngest, who wouldn’t leave the room as I tried to put ‘em on which was doing little to decrease my anxieties/angst about the challenge and change for someone my age who had never worn contacts, whispered in my ear, “Daddy, I know you can do it. You’re always telling people to try new things that can make things better.”

I’ve been wearing ‘em ever since.

I can see so much better, or as I said to a Sunday School class yesterday, “You look a lot better than I thought.”

Getting back to Gary Player, “Change is the price of survival.”

Yeah, some of life’s changes aren’t so good - like what’s happening to the moral/spiritual fabric of government and mainline denominations in America - but lots are really, really, really helpful in making life better.

And, more often than not for geezers like me, children, so filled with hope and adventure and willingness to try new things to make everything so much better, are God’s special apocalyptic agents to expand the old to make room for the new to prove God is alive and well and still blessing people who will dare to trust that there’s always room for improvement by His grace.

More often than not, Jesus said the old wasn’t/isn’t bad; while insisting everything/everyone can get better.

He should know if you know what I mean.

Blessings and Love,

RRK