Small Signs of Hope…

This week I drove past a mom and her three small children riding bikes on the sidewalk.  The mom was bringing up the rear, like a mother goose herding her goslings.  The oldest child rode confidently at the head of the line, showing the way.  The two smaller children had training wheels on their bikes.  They would peddle a little way, turn and look back to make sure mom was there, and then peddled again.   

As I passed them by, I thought how training wheels are small signs of hope.  They are there for the time between when you first mount a bike and when you can balance on two wheels.  The training wheels seem to say, “One day you will not need us; you can ride on your own.  But right now, we are here to give you enough stability to get to the future.”  Hope is what carries us from here to there. 

I checked my small garden one afternoon this week.  My tomato plants are growing like crazy.  I see the small yellow flowers that very soon will be red tomatoes.  I thought how every flower on the vine is a small sign of hope: something is growing here.  It is not here yet, but it will be.  Hope always has a starting point. 

I did a wedding for a couple last year.  Not too long ago, they sent me a picture of their ultrasound (pregnancy came quickly!).  I could make out the baby’s head, arms, and legs.  This baby in just a few weeks of growth has become a complex being.  He has months to go before he is ready to enter the world, but the pictures are a small sign of hope.  There is new life coming.  He will be greeted with joy.  But his arrival must not be rushed.  Hope needs time to grow and mature. 

I talked this week with someone who has cancer.  She has been waiting to see her treatment team.  Waiting is the hardest work of all.  The meeting happened this week.  The doctors laid out their recommendations and showed her the plan.  Her team is optimistic.  A treatment plan is small sign of hope.  There is a direction now, a schedule.  Hope flourishes when there is a plan. 

I’ve been preaching a message series about Body and Soul.  I’ve gotten dozens of emails telling me the messages are speaking to them.  Most the messages I’ve received share the same thought: “I never thought about my body that way before.”  When someone tells me that, I know it’s a compliment to God, not to me.  But the compliments do give me joy.  People are thinking differently.  Thinking differently about your body, your marriage, your friendships, even your kids is a small sign of hope.  Hope requires a shift in thinking. 

Where I live, in South Carolina, we are having the prettiest spring in 20 years.  We’re between the dark, damp days of winter and the baking heat of summer.  Normally spring in South Carolina lasts a week.  Right now, we are on beautiful week number eight.  Every day seems to invite us to go outside, to enjoy the weather, the birds, and flowers.  Each cool morning is a small sign of hope.  Each cool evening invites us to live in this moment, to savor the gifts of breeze and refreshment.  Hope requires you to savor the moments, because they come only once. 

Each day I listen to the news and hear another report about COVID19.  Each day brings news of more deaths, more cases.  I wish the newscasters would share the number of people who are recovering.  I try to remember to do the math.  In South Carolina, 6,757 confirmed cases. Deaths: 283.  I’ve forgotten how to do ratios, but it is a small sign of hope that most people with the virus are not dying.  Hope needs to be reminded about reality. 

I think God sends us small signs of hope, no matter what our crisis.  It is his way of encouraging us, telling us he is still at work, even when things look bad.  We don’t need to be led by our fears.  Maybe a prayer for you to pray is for God to show you small signs of hope.  They are out there.  It’s not a matter of just opening your eyes; it’s a matter of opening your soul. 

What Will Thanksgiving Be?

Thanksgiving for me is our extended family gathering in the woods.  The tradition started in 1937.  My grandfather, Henry W. Smith, had died in that year of the Great Depression.  Granny Smith did not want to have the Thanksgiving meal in the house, so the family gathered outside on the banks of the Buckhorn Creek.  You can do that in November if you live in Florida.

After the creek flooded one year, they moved to a grove of black-jack oaks, where it has been every year since.  I was twenty-three days old when I went to my first Thanksgiving.  I’ve only missed one – when we lived in Kentucky and were awaiting the birth of our first child.

We’ll have a long table loaded with ribs, turkey, squash, brown rice casserole, broccoli casserole, and more.  For those of you not familiar with casseroles, add enough cheese and butter to anything and it will be good.  There are desserts that have so many calories and carbs that you will gain weight just by looking at them. 

 Two of my favorite delicacies will be served: swamp cabbage and guava cobbler.  You may not know it, but this is what you will eat in heaven.  I know this because Revelation promises there is no mourning or crying in heaven, which means there must be swamp cabbage and guava cobbler.

 We used to sit on hay bales, but recently upgraded to actual tables and chairs brought from the house.  The rumor that we made the switch because the hay bales no longer supported the weight of certain family members is a lie.

 We take pictures of each generation.  Since the death of my Aunt Ouida, I now find myself in the oldest generation.  I will hasten to point out I’m the youngest member of the oldest generation.

 After we have all eaten too much, after visiting with people we see only once a year but keep up with on Facebook, we slowly pack up the leftovers, and head back to what was my parent’s house, while other cousins scatter to other celebrations.  There are a few demented family members who walk the three miles back to the house, but I have never been tempted to join them.

 Everyone’s Thanksgiving will not be this way.  There will be a lonely widow in a nursing home, who will eat turkey provided by the staff.  They will be kind, but she will wonder why her children are not with her. 

 A solider in Syria who wishes he was settling in for a nap, is instead crouched behind a wall, dodging sniper fire.  ISIS, the Syrians, and whoever else is shooting over there do not celebrate Thanksgiving.

 A trooper somewhere will be standing beside a road, working an accident with fatalities.  He’s done it before, but it is more painful to watch a body being moved on a day when you are supposed to give thanks.

 A homeless man will stand in line for turkey and dressing.  He might wonder how his life came to this.  Someone will say to him, “Happy Thanksgiving,” but he finds it hard to count his blessings. 

 A surgical team will be in an operating room, doing a surgery that can’t wait. Somebody had to take call.  The surgery takes longer than they thought, and their Thanksgiving meal will come from a vending machine.

 A young couple, off at school, a long way from home, can’t afford to make the trip.  In their cramped apartment, they attempt to cook a turkey, but don’t know you have to thaw it first.  Their turkey turns to shreds, and they eat Chinese takeout for their first Thanksgiving together.  It makes their heart ache for home a little more.

 A child whose parents got in a violent fight the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving will be brought to a foster home.  He will sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with strange people, a little scared, not knowing how long he will be there.

 I don’t know what Thanksgiving will be for you.  But I know two things.  I know no matter where you are or what you are having to do, there will be something to give thanks for.  Find it.  Thank God. 

 And I know this: there will be someone you need to pray for this Thanksgiving.  Maybe you need to pray for their protection.  Maybe you need to pray for them to be encouraged.  Maybe you need to pray they will find hope. 

 No matter what Thanksgiving is for you, God will be there.  That, by itself, is reason enough to give thanks.

The Temptation of Moses

Imagine for a moment you are Moses.

You made a big mistake when you were young (who hasn’t) and skipped town.  You fall in love and end up working for your father-in-law because you have no other options.  For forty years you wonder the back side of nowhere, chasing sheep.  It’s a big step down for a palace prince.

One day, tending the sheep, minding your own business, going nowhere, you see a bush burning, but it doesn’t burn up.  You stop, look, and start listening to a voice that speaks to you.  God speaks to you.  Out loud.  He tells you he has a purpose for your life that is more than sheep.  Go back to Egypt, the voice commands, tell Pharaoh to let my people go.  You and God have a pretty major theological discussion.  Toward the end of the discussion you hear God’s anger rising and decide no one ever out argues God.  You decide it might be nice to see Egypt this time of year.

You go and see Pharaoh, who in an odd way is sort of a relative (all Southerners understand this). You tell him God’s plans and he is not impressed.  After nine plagues and a lot of hard-headedness on his part, you warn him something worse is coming.  Pharaoh still isn’t listening, and something worse does come and a lot of innocent people die because of him.  He decides to let God’s people go before his whole kingdom is gone.  Your people get paid to get out of town.  Before you go very far, Pharaoh changes his mind (again!), and comes after you.  God sends a hurricane wind, parts the Red Sea, and tells you to get moving.  Pharaoh follows, the wind stops, and a lot of soldiers die, because it’s hard to swim in armor.

That threat eliminated, you start toward Mt. Sinai, only to discover the people you lead are a big bunch of whiners (they were early Baptists).  They complain, God provides, but they aren’t picking up that they really can trust God.

When you finally get to Mt. Sinai, you and all the people hear the actual voice of God.  It freaks the people out, so they push you forward and say, “You talk to him and tell us what he said.”  When you go up to hear what God says, it takes a while.  After all, God is building a nation from scratch.  There are the basic laws, some discussions about holidays, talk about how to build a place of worship, and so on.  While you’re getting all this down, the people get restless, and hoodwink Aaron, your older brother, to make some idols.  This causes all kinds of trouble and the partying gets out of hand.

God tells you to step aside, he is going to make short work of these people and start over with you. 

Hit pause.  Would you be tempted by that offer?  I would.  No more children of Israel.  Now we start the children of Moses.  Has a nice ring to it.  No more dealing with these hard-headed people.  No more decision making. No more having my older brother and sister giving me that disapproving frown that says, “We could do better.”  It would be back to simple life.  Just you and the Missus, kicking back at the tent flap every evening, watching the grand-kids. 

Hit play.  In a moment of great humility, Moses prays for these aggravating people, that God will spare them and have mercy.  God does.  There are some clean up details, but before long, you and the people hit the trail, headed for Canaan, the promised land.

When you are at the doorstep of the land God promised, you send in spies.  They come back and tell you the land is better than you dreamed, but there is no way our army can beat their army.  The people believe these guys and start whining – again.  The ones at the front of the crowd pick up rocks to stone you and Aaron.  So much for loyalty.  God intervenes to save your neck and once again, declares his intention to wipe out this people and start over with you.

Hit pause.  Would you be tempted by this second offer?  I would.  Past performance is the best predictor of future behavior.  The road ahead looks like forty more years of aggravation, suffering for other people’s stupid choices. 

Hit play.  For a second time you ask God to spare his people.  Again, you plead for God to be merciful.  Again, God listens.  Again, God relents.  You realize God must trust you a lot.

Now, stop imagining yourself as Moses.  You are just you.  How many of your prayers are not for yourself, but for someone else?  Are you willing to load more aggravation onto your life so other people get a chance to follow God?  What kind of character does it take to ask God to change his plans?

Maybe the best question is not how much you trust God, but how much God trusts you?

Does Prayer Do Any Good?

I was visiting an old Kentucky farmer in the hospital.  He had “the cancer,” as the old timers said.  Not surprising since he had smoked since he was seven.  When he wasn’t smoking, he was chewing tobacco.  He had an addiction on steroids.  I was his twenty-six-year-old pastor, still a little unsure what to say to a man who was dying.   

We talked about the weather, about his farm, and about his “young-uns,” the youngest of whom was twenty years older than I.  Then the conversation turned serious.  He said his doctor came by and told him the cancer had spread and there was nothing more they could do.  He said, “Preacher, I’ve been praying, but it don’t seem like my prayers are doing much good.  How ‘bout you pray for me?” 

What do you say to that?  Here was a man who was dying, who was praying, but felt like his prayers weren’t escaping his hospital room.  Still, he was asking for prayer. 

I think we’ve all been where that man was, maybe not in a hospital room, but in a situation when you feel like prayer is your only hope and it doesn’t seem like it’s working.  We’ve faced financial darkness and prayed to win the lottery, but our number doesn’t come up.  We’ve faced an empty bedroom and prayed he or she would come back home, but there is no knock on the door.  We’ve faced our own addictions and begged God to take away our cravings, but before we know it, we’ve caved in again.   

Maybe you have prayed with all the faith you can muster that God would spare a life and the next day you’re planning a funeral.  Maybe you’ve prayed that God would open a door or even a window, but the door doesn’t swing and the window is stuck shut.  Maybe you’ve prayed for your child to do right, even claiming the scripture, “Train up a child in the way they should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” only to have them take the first exit ramp they could. 

You might agree with that old Kentucky farmer, that your prayers don’t seem to do much good.   

Part of our problem is we forget prayer at its best is a conversation with God.  You ask God what’s on his mind and tell him what’s on yours.  I think that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Thy will be done…”  When you tell God your financial troubles, if you pause and listen, you might hear God saying, “Spend less.”  God is smart that way.  When you ask God to bring him or her back, God might say, “I’d like to, but I gave them free will, just like I gave you.  They are off making their own mistakes now.  Let’s talk about you building your life on me, not them.”  When you ask God to make the cravings go away, he might say, “I will, one minute at a time.  You have to walk with me every minute.” 

Prayer is not like Amazon or Wal-Mart.  You don’t put in your order.  You ask God for his wisdom and his provision.  The two go hand in hand. 

Moses once had a conversation with God that saved a nation.  The Israelites were being hard-headed as usual, once more refusing to do what God wanted them to do.  God told Moses, “I will destroy these people, start over, and make you into a great nation.”  If I had been Moses, I would have taken that deal in a skinny minute. 

But Moses didn’t.  He talked it over with God, reminding him how he would look to everyone if he brought his people out of slavery and then wiped them out.  His act of amazing grace would look like a cruel ploy.  God, amazingly, agreed with Moses.  Apparently, God is willing to hear our side of the story.   

In that Kentucky hospital room, fumbling for a prayer that was hopeful, I thought to ask that old Kentucky farmer what he wanted me to pray for.  I was expecting him to say, “Pray I’ll be healed, of course.”  

He said, “Preacher, pray it will be quick.  I don’t want to suffer.  I’m ready to meet Jesus; I believe.”  I was surprised.  I could tell he’d given this a lot of thought.  Maybe he’d even talked it over with God.  So, I took his hand and prayed.  I thanked God for his faith.  I ask God to be merciful and not make him suffer.  I told God we knew we weren’t in charge of the timing of such things, but if it worked out with his plans, it would be a good thing if death came sooner instead of later.  I said “Amen,” and the old farmer said, “Thank you, preacher.  That was just the prayer I needed.” 

I did the man’s funeral six days later. 

Did my prayer make a difference?  Only God knows.  But I can tell you what I know: that prayer made a difference in me.  Maybe that’s why you should start your conversation with God. 

Doris Didn’t Die…

Late one night my phone rang.  Doris’ son was on the phone.  She had been found unconscious and was in the hospital in ICU.  The outlook was grim.  Could I please come? 

You can’t say “no” to that kind of request.  I tried to dress quickly in the dark, made my way down the stairs, and eased my truck out of the driveway.  The hospital was a few minutes away and I tried to shake the sleepy cobwebs out of my mind.

I knew the hospital well, including which doors were unlocked at 2:00 AM.  The family was gathered in the ICU waiting area: son, daughter, in-laws, grandchildren.  The son told me he had talked to his mother earlier in the day and she seemed fine.  Then she didn’t answer the phone.  He went over there and found her lying on the kitchen floor, non-responsive.  He called 911 and the ambulance delivered her to the hospital.  They had spent anxious hours in the ER waiting room, when the doctor came out and told them Doris had a stroke, her heartbeat was irregular, and things did not look good.  They would move her to ICU and try to keep her comfortable.

The family had not yet seen Doris in ICU.  They were doing that most difficult work of waiting.  I gathered them all together and said a prayer for Doris.  I asked God to be with her, to comfort her and to comfort this family.  To tell the truth, I was trying to prepare the family for the worst.  Though pastors are people of faith, we are around death so often we assume death is coming.  I know that night I was sure that Doris would be passing from this life into eternity.

It was four in the morning when a nurse came out into the waiting room and invited us to go back to see Doris, two at a time.  Her son and daughter rose and then looked at me.  “Let the preacher go first,” said the son.  Her daughter nodded and I walked with her out of the waiting room.

We went through the heavy doors that separated ICU from the rest of the hospital.   This was not my first rodeo, as they say, I wasn’t surprised to see Doris with a tube down in mouth, a Christmas tree of IV pumps and tubes around her bed, and her eyes closed.  I looked at the monitor and noticed the irregular rhythm traced in green lines.  Her daughter stood on one side of the bed and took her mother’s hand.  I stood by the other side and took the other hand.  The only sound was the soft hiss of the ventilator and the far-off chime of other IV pumps in other rooms.  Death felt close.

I said to the daughter, “Let’s pray.”  I prayed for Doris to feel God’s peace and grace.  Words were forming on my lips to ask God to prepare the family, but I felt a check in my heart.  A small voice whispered inside of me, “You haven’t asked me to heal Doris.” 

It’s amazing how fast you can argue with God.  In the middle of my prayer I felt myself telling God this woman was not going to make it and the family needed comfort more than anything.  Thankfully none of this conversation was audible – it was going on in my soul.  I heard the whisper again, “Pray for her healing.”  I did.  Not very enthusiastically.  Not with much faith.  Just a simple, “Lord, according to your will, please heal Doris.”

I said “Amen” and left the room.  I told the son I was going back home but asked him to please call me if anything happened.  I went back home to grab sleep in what remained of the night, expecting any minute for the phone to ring with the news that Doris had died. 

My wife was gracious enough to take care of the kids and let me sleep in.  It was 10:00 AM when I made my way back to the hospital.  I stopped by the ICU waiting room, but none of the family was there.  I thought that was a little strange.  I buzzed the nurses’ station and asked to come back and they let me in.

I walked into Doris’ room and she was sitting up in her bed, no tubes, no ventilator, right as rain.  She was eating breakfast.  She called out, “Clay, it’s so good to see you!  I heard you had to come up here last night and pray for me.”

I stammer out a yes, still in shock.  Doris said, “My daughter told me you prayed the sweetest prayer over me.  She said as soon as you left, my heart got better, and I started breathing better.  They took me off that machine and I bounced right back.”

I told Doris how bad everything looked last night and that God had done a miracle.  She grinned and said, “I guess I am your miracle.”

I served that church for two more years until I came to Sumter.  Every Sunday Doris would see me at the door and tell me, “Good message!  Remember, I am your miracle.”

I’ve never forgotten Doris.  She wasn’t my miracle; she was God’s.

Please Pray for Me. Okay, What?

It’s an occupational hazard: “Pastor, please pray for me.”  When I first began as a pastor, I said “Okay,” and went on my way.  No one told me people actually expected me to pray with them.  Right then.  About whatever their need was.  I was corrected by some older women at Southside Baptist Church in my hometown, where I was the twenty-two-year-old pastor (Twenty-five brave people who called me when I was young, single, and didn’t know a thing).  Over the years, I learned to do two things: ask people what they wanted me to pray for; and pray right then.

Over the years I’ve heard the usual litany of requests: pray for an upcoming doctor’s appointment, someone who lost a loved one, a troubled teenager, and a fractured marriage.  People have cried on my shoulder, asking me to pray for someone they love that is destroying his or her life and needs Jesus.  I pray hard when that request is made.

I’ve also been asked to pray for dogs that aren’t acting right, irritable cats, and even for a lost cow (I wasn’t sure if I should pray for the cow to be found or to be saved).  One adorable four-year-old girl looked at me with big blue eyes and asked me to pray for her goldfish who was upside down in his water.  How do you pray for the resurrection of a goldfish?

I don’t know if this story is true, but I once heard about a pastor who was asked to pray for a young woman named Nikki.  When he asked about Nikki’s condition, he was told that Nikki was a young mother whose husband had left her for his ex-wife.  She had cancer that required an operation, and now as a result of the surgery, she had lost her memory.  The pastor was moved by the plight of this poor woman.  He asked which hospital she was in.  The reply came that she was on the soap opera “The Young and the Restless.”  He prayed for “Nikki” with gritted teeth.

People seldom ask for my opinion about their prayer requests.  The longer I study scripture, the more I am convinced we pray for the wrong things.  Most of our prayers are for God to solve our problems.  Don’t get me wrong, I think we ought to pray those prayers.  We might need to add a few items to our list, however.

Pray that people will be wise.  Wisdom is understanding reality and living life according to that knowledge.  For example, a woman came to me whose husband had left her.  She was in tears, understandably.  As we talked, however, it was apparent there had been problems in the marriage for many years, including multiple affairs on his part.  I asked her if she really wanted him back.  She paused, as if it was the first time she had considered the question, and then softly replied, “No.  I do not want him back.  He is toxic to me and to our kids.  Honestly, I feel sorry for the woman in this latest affair.  He’s going to wreck her life, like he wrecked mine.”  That woman was experiencing the birth of wisdom.  I pray more people are wise.

Pray that people open their eyes to what God is doing.  Often we expect God to deliver answers to our prayers like Amazon Prime delivers packages: anything more than two days makes us wonder if the answer has been lost in transit.  But if you pause, you can see God has not forgotten you or your needs.  No matter how hopeless you feel, God’s hand can still be seen in your life.  When Job cries out that God has not answered him, God reminds Job in a not-so-subtle way that he is still making the universe spin, controlling the weather, and generally thinking about things Job has never thought about.  I pray more people open their eyes to God’s activity.

Pray that people will have hope.  Hope is more powerful than anxiety, more powerful than despair.  Hope pulls us forward.  I want to pray for people to have hope, not that things will work out, but with the assurance that God is in control.  I want people to have hope for their child in rebellion, knowing that God loves their child more than they do.  I want people who are picking themselves up after their latest fall back into addiction to have hope that God’s power will pick them up and help them start again.  I pray more people will live with God’s hope.

Pray for all the other burdens of your heart.  Pray for the sick, the grieving, the lost.  Pray that lost cows will be found and pray cute four-year-old girls will understand the death of their goldfish.  But add other things to your prayer requests.  Wisdom.  Seeing God’s activity.  Hope.  Pray for these things.  For yourself.  For your children.  For your spouse.  For each other.  For our leaders.  Our Heavenly Father is longing to answer prayers like these.