Disciple All Nations

I’m writing this Manna on December 7, to be posted the following Monday. The fact that my best High School friend was born on this day is significant to me.  The fact that this is Pearl Harbor Day, always made it easy to remember that this was also his birthday. He was only twenty-three days older than me.  I was only fourteen years old and in the 9^th grade when my father become Pastor of West End Baptist Church in Houston. That’s a rough age to move and have to get a new set of friends. On the first Sunday in our new church, I sat next to Jimmy Don Ulrich in Sunday School and discovered that we lived one block apart and liked all of the same things.  Through High School we commuted to school together, played baseball and basketball together, double dated together. We stayed in touch as he went off to Vietnam, and I went off to college.  Later we served as groomsmen in each other’s wedding.  After Vietnam, he went to work selling cars for his father-in-law, eventually becoming the owner of Ulrich Motors in Crockett, Texas.  The entire time he sold cars, I never owned a car unless it was purchased from him. He often called me to tell me he had a car that was just for me.  I usually purchased it.  I called him every year on his birthday, December 7, until his death a few years ago. As I was preparing to preach at his funeral, I had a new thought about heaven. I had never before thought about how we would get around in heaven. I read that the streets would be paved with gold (Revelation 21:21), but how would we travel on them? Then this thought came to me – don’t worry about transportation in heaven because Jimmy Don is already there, and he’ll take care of that for you. As the years pass by, I have more and more reasons to look forward to heaven.  December 7 reminds me that reunion with Jimmy Don Ulrich is just another of those reasons.

I watched a lot of football over the Thanksgiving holidays. Sadly, I saw three (or was it four) visiting teams demonstrate their victory by taunting the losing opponent, resulting in large fights between players and coaches.  When you win a game on the opponent’s home field, there is a right way to win and there is also a wrong way.  Football is an emotional game.  You play to win, and when you win, you celebrate.  If you win on the home field of the opponent, you celebrate with your teammates and fans.  You do not wave your flag in front of the opposing team’s fans, and you sure don’t try to plant your flag at mid-field on the opponent’s logo. When you lose, you shake hands with your opponent and go to your locker room.  You do not trash-talk your way off the field.  Life is a lot like a football game.  Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and there is a right and wrong way to respond to each emotion.  Grantland Rice wrote, “For when the One Great Scorer comes To mark against your name, He writes – not that you won or lost -But how you played the Game.”  Might I also add that He marks how you left the field when the game was over.  The Apostle Paul never played football, but he did write much about competition.  He said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7) and, “Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus, I fight: not as one who beats the air.  But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).  Give it all you’ve got – on the field of play and in the life lived, but don’t disqualify yourself by your actions.

On this American Thanksgiving Week, here are a few of my favorite Thanksgiving quotes,  Feel free to add yours to my list.

“What if today we were just grateful for everything?” Charlie Brown

“I think there is a better thing than thanksgiving: thanks-living. How is this to be done? By a general cheerfulness of manner, by an obedience to the command of Him by whose mercy we live, by a perpetual, constant delighting of ourselves in the Lord, and by a submission of our desires to His will.”  Charles Spurgeon

“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.”

Phyllis Diller

“The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.” Norman Vincent Peale

“May your stuffing be tasty May your turkey plump, May your potatoes and gravy Have nary a lump. May your yams be delicious And your pies take the prize, And may your Thanksgiving dinner Stay off your thighs!”  Grandpa Jones

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”  Erma Bombeck

 “Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,”  Ephesians 5:20

“The Lord is my strength and my shield;  My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore, my heart triumphs, And with my song I shall thank Him.”  Psalm 28:7 (NASV)

“Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest home; All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin; God our Maker doth provide For our wants to be supplied; Come to God’s own temple, come, Raise the song of harvest home.” Henry Alford

“Thank you Lord, for saving my soul Thank you Lord, for making me whole; Thank you Lord, for giving to me Thy great salvation so rich and free.” Seth and Bessie Sykes

Don’t forget to tell someone “Thanks” this Thanksgiving.

Dr. Dan R. Crawford, Senior Professor, Chair of Prayer Emeritus; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. Former Head of Task Force for the Teaching of Prayer in Theological Education for America’s National Prayer Committee.  Administrative Consultant for the Valley Baptist Missions

Last week I attended a church convention where many of my former seminary students were also in attendance as well as numerous other friends.  Having spent a career ministering and teaching at both the college and Seminary level as well as serving twenty-nine churches as Interim Pastor, not to mention friends made while traveling the world, I could only take a few steps without someone calling my name.  One of the marks of a successful career/ministry is to be recognized in a positive way by those you’ve known along the journey.  One of the joys of getting older, is having some of those people remind you of your influence on their lives.  How does one measure success?  Dale Carnegie said, “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” To use his measurement of success, I have been successful. While there were days of difficulty and seasons of stress, I sincerely had fun at what I did.  I am fully aware that, “Joy comes in the morning” (Psalm30:5), but I’m thankful that it also comes along the way. Thanks friends for allowing me to enjoy some truly joyful hours last week.

Every pastor (or Interim Pastor) needs a deacon like Stephen.  I had him twice.  Not only was he an Attorney but was repeatedly re-elected as a County Judge.  A life-long resident of his home- town, he was a forty-year Sunday School Teacher at his Church.  That’s where I met him.  He was the Chairman of the Deacons.  I was the Interim Pastor.  It was a difficult time in the life of the church.  At the conclusion of a lengthy interim, I said to Stephen, “Well, we made it.”  His response was, “Thanks to your faith.  You trusted God and believed in us.”  My response was. “I couldn’t have done it without your support.”  The second time I was Interim Pastor of that same church, Stephen was the Chairman of the Pastor Search Committee. When the Committee handed me their top ten prospects and asked me to review them, I set one aside.  Stephen asked why and my reply was, “I don’t think you can get him – he lived in a larger city, successful pastor of a larger church, probably had a larger salary, happy where he was.” Stephen said, “I think we can get him”. They got him.  On my last Sunday, I thanked Stephen for his faith – believing in God’s direction and the church’s response. His response was to thank me for my support – when other committee members had questions, I stood with Stephen’s belief that they could get him.  When you can get faith and support together, you usually have a winning team. Last week, in a packed auditorium, we memorialized my friend, Stephen.  At least twice, we were a winning team.

We’ve come here from the north, east, south and west to this place, but one of these days we’re going to gather in a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1).  We’ve driven over well-worn roads, if only from airport to airport, but one of these days we’re going to walk all over God’s heaven on streets paved with gold (Revelation 21:21). We’ve got everything from sinus congestion to arthritis, maybe even worse, but one of these days, we’re going to get a body that is free from all pain, sorrow, suffering (Revelation 21:4). We’ve been trying to eat healthy, lose weight and be in shape, but one of these days, we’re going to sit down at the marriage supper of the Lord, and have food we know not of (Revelation 19:9; John 4:32).  We’ve been living by the calendar, from one event to another, but one of these days, we’re going to throw away our calendars, datebooks and palm pilots, and time will be no more (Revelation 22:5). We’ve been honked at and waved at just trying to get from place to place, but one of these days the trumpet of the Lord is going to sound, and time will be no more. (1 Thessalonians 4:16). We’re tired and weary and almost worn out, but before long, we’re going to sit down with our Jesus and rest a little while (Revelation 6:11).  Meantime, we’re stuck here in this old sinful world,  trying to fix things by voting.  God help us.

I’ve been on the road this past week.  There comes a time when kids want all that stuff that has been stored at their parent’s house.  They finally get a home that is large enough and has storage space, and they request their belongings.  So, I loaded hundreds, or, maybe it was thousands, of baseball cards, as well as a considerable amount of golf equipment and delivered it to our son in Des Moines, Iowa (actually, to the suburb of Norwalk, Iowa). It was worth all ten hours on the road just to sit on their back porch and watch for deer, as they talked of their new-found church home, friends they’ve made in their small group within the church, volunteering for some service project at church, discussing possible future mission trips, and beyond church activities, to hear them discuss Halloween plans with their new neighborhood. Then, of course, they took me to their favorite Bar-B-Que Restaurant before I made my way back home.  I spent part of my first day back home staring at the empty shelves that once held numerous notebooks of baseball cards and at the spot in the storage room where golf clubs used to sit. It has been a week of reminders that life goes on and, proof, once again, that if you, “train up a child in the way he should go . . . when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Following a recent presentation, a young man wanted to know if I had time for him to ask me a question.  When I agreed that I had time, he asked his question – “What do you do when someone criticizes you?”  A lot of questions need time to think through an answer before responding.  Some that need time, don’t get time.  This was like that.  He was expecting an immediate response, and I’m afraid it was not as good as I would give again, having now had time to think about it.  First, I grew up with a Pastor/Father who never seemed to be bothered by anything.  Good role model.  Second, I spent fifteen years in collegiate ministry.  University students are being trained to challenge everything, so my every decision was analyzed, sometimes criticized, and challenged.  I learned not to let it bother me.  Then I spent twenty-two years trying to teach theological education in a seminary.  Traditionally, many of these want-a-be ministers at least thought they already knew more than their professors, so I walked out of every class, assuming that someone in the room probably didn’t like me or appreciate my lectures. In other words, I just learned from an early age, to not let criticism or disagreement, bother me.  I’ve also served as Interim Pastor twenty-nine times.  I would be deceiving myself if I thought every member of every church loved me and my ministry.  But I got up every Sunday morning and preached what I thought God was leading me to preach, thus becoming lunch-time criticism for a few.  In my mother’s words, I let it roll off of me like “water off a duck’s back.”  I actually never knew what that meant, but it sounded good.  Did the criticism ever hurt, oh yeah, but a good night’s sleep and I was usually good to go again.  The young man also asked if I had a verse of Scripture that helped.  I couldn’t think of one at the time, but how about the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 5:48, “I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”  Try this the next time you are criticized.

As major league baseball season winds down and professional ice hockey season begins, I am reminded of something that happened a few years ago.  I was on sabbatical leave, teaching at the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary in Alberta, Canada.  The Canadian national newspaper carried an interesting editorial heavily criticizing the United States for stealing Canada’s game – Ice Hockey – and “neutering it” by giving the teams less than aggressive, fighting team names, like Ducks and Penguins.  It was an honest opinion, and I tended to agree with it.  However, that same year, the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series, and the Canadian newspaper was silent on who stole whose game.  Criticism needs balance. On a lesser scale, I see a similar thing happening with churches.  We are quick to criticize what other churches are doing, all the while being guilty of similar things.  We need to be reminded that in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked, “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye” (Matthew 7:3)?  Two verses later, He called those do did such things, “Hypocrites!”

Friends read what you write.  Special friends not only read what you write, but they share your words with their friends. Phil is one such a special friend. For many years, I have written an October issue of my Monday Morning Manna on the subject of Pastor Appreciation, since October is Pastor Appreciation Month.  This month, my good friend, Phil Miglioratti @ The Reimagine.Network has re-printed five of my recent editions in the newsletter for The National Pastor’s Network at https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/353548.  One of the things I can do this October is encourage the Pastors who read my Manna, to log on to Phil’s site and benefit from all the good information and inspiration that is included there.  And if you are not a Pastor, perhaps you could pass this Manna on to your Pastor so he can check the link to Phil’s website.  This is what friends do – they share, they encourage, they strengthen. C.S. Lewis once said, “What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.”  The Apostle Paul writes, “The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him” (Galatians 6:6, NASB).