It is Time to Move On

Jacob was a man who was used to making his own way; a man who had picked himself up by his own bootstraps so-to-speak. He worked hard all his life to make a way for himself and he succeeded.

His mother helped him get a birthright and a blessing that nobody else, except Rebekah and Jacob and God thought he deserved. Ooh, but that made his brother, Esau, mad! He wanted to kill his brother Jacob and he probably would have, but Jacob ran. He ran all the way to Laban, to whom he hired himself out. He really liked Laban’s daughter Rachel so he made an agreement to work for Laban in order to win her hand. But Laban tricked everyone and gave Jacob his older daughter, Leah. Jacob worked seven more years to win Rachel and he stayed on with Laban afterward as well.

Jacob grew wealth as God blessed him, but Laban and his sons felt that Jacob’s wealth was at their expense. Sensing the building tension, Jacob packed up and moved back to his homeland. As he traveled he contemplated what it might be like to meet his brother again. He divided his family and his possessions into two groups and sent them separately so that if something happened to one group, perhaps the other would escape. He stayed by himself that night – he must have been filled with anxiety about what would come the next day: would Esau take his vengeance or would time have tempered the anger?

That night Jacob wrestled with a man (was it a prophet? God himself? An angel?) and won. He held the wrestler until he coerced a blessing out of him. The blessing was a summary of Jacob’s life and a new name, Israel, which means “struggles with God.” Up to this time, it appears that Jacob believed he had accomplished pretty much everything on his own. He had taken the birthright and the blessing, he had manipulated the kinds of livestock to be born in order to increase his wages, he had saved himself from Esau, he had known when to move from Laban’s area, he had wrestled with God and man and he had won. But this was not entirely true – God fore-ordained that Jacob would get the blessing and the birthright; God blessed Jacob with the right livestock births; God protected Jacob because he had a plan for him; God let Jacob win the wrestling match and he gave him a bum hip just to remind him that when you wrestle with God there are permanent markers on your life afterward.

Jacob means “usurper”, and that is the summary of his life up to that point. In renaming him Israel, God recasts Jacob’s struggle to take for himself at others’ expense as a struggle with God. It was after this that Jacob tells Esau, “God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.”

We struggle with God when we struggle with our place in the world, since he put us in our times and places. We struggle with God when we struggle with the bills, since we receive our bounty from him. We struggle with God when we help others or refuse to, since they also are his children. We struggle with God when we think in our minds that we are self-sufficient, or that we should be, since we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and we all receive our very selves from God. We struggle with God when we refuse to take responsibility for our own lives, or allow others to do so, since we owe more than we can ever pay.

Let us all be Israel and in our struggles let us learn to trust and give thanks.

God bless.

I am glad that things are quieting down in the church I wrote about. Unfortunately, not everything could be worked out with everyone, so there is now a new church forming. I know that some will always want the worst for the other group - that's a shame. I mean really, that is shameful. On the other hand a lot of people will want to let bygones be bygones. I hope that is not held to be acceptable also.

Let it not be forgotten that this was not a difference of opinion. I do not mean, "let us keep a record of wrongs." I only want not to have our sins recast as though they were a bad-hair day. We all know that bad character develops....well, more bad character. That wrongs may be forgiven by the offended does not help the offender to practice repentance. Forgive, but do not present your hand to a biting dog. Forgive, but do not expect.

That reminds me of a story...

This week a ran into a woman who used to go to my church. She had been sweet and my children loved her very much. For a while she was influenced by another lady who was not so well motivated and who worked for my early retirement from this ministry. They met with me and my church leaders to accuse me of false teaching. I felt as though this younger woman was being used and manipulated, but under those circumstances I could not do anything for her. Anyway this week, when we ran into each other, she apologised. It made me cry that we had been estranged. And I was so proud of her for wanting to get rid of that old baggage.

So I told her a story about when I signed my name to a list of accusations against a good man. I was ashamed when I did it, but I was afraid for my job and my reputation. I somehow thought that it was more helpful for my reputation to cowardly sign something I did not believe, than to stand up and say no. I carried that cowardly betrayal on my shoulders for more than a decade. Then one day I went to a seminar where the man I had accused was to speak. I went to him and said, "You don't know me, but I hurt you..." And I told him the story. He gave me a hug and merely said, that was a long time ago.

I was grateful to have the opportunity to do that same thing for my sister and reclaimed friend.

May God bless you richly as you seek reconciliation with broken relationships.

The previous story about my son is fresh because of the turmoil in that small town church right now. They need God's direction and healing. Many of them are struggling with how to get along with selfish and controlling brothers and sisters. Some of them are just struggling with how to be more controlling and selfish.

The leaders of that church need encouragement and a fresh breath of God. They may need more than they will allow God to perform. The minister and his family need security. They need the medicine of the soul, because theirs have been wounded. These have walked alongside their Lord and born shame for his name.

The flock needs God's work as well. Some for forgiveness, some for remorse and change, some for both.

May God guide you all on your walk of faith. Only he can heal the divisions and bridge the chasm between. He is the God of redeemed relationships. He accomplishes the impossible, even within us.

My heart is with you all

I used to preach for a church in a small town in Texas. We moved there from Florida when my son was 11 years old and my daughters were 6 and 2. Now, I love Texas - I was born and raised here in the Lone Star State - but my son was completely comfortable in his setting back in Florida. He loved swimming, church youth group, our neighborhood and most elements of his life. On the other hand, he knew nothing about cows and ranching, football, or hunting - all of which pretty much defined life in his new "home" in small town Texas. He hated me for that move; for taking him out of his good life and landing him into another.

Every day when my son went to school, he was picked on. The kids from church picked on him just like the community kids. The kids in our neighborhood picked on him. Every day, there was no respite for this 11 year-old boy, because he didn't look and act like everyone else, or understand ranch work, or shoot animals.

When he came home from school each day I asked how things went. He would say everything was okay. He said this because he was mad at me and didn't want to forgive me for bringing him to that place. He wanted to be independent of me - be his own person - handle things on his own. But every day the pain of rejection by his classmates would burn and the weight of emotional independence is too great for those circumstances.

The school administration was aware that my son was being picked on, but did nothing to control it. No correction of the offenders; after all boys will be boys - whatever that might mean.

I won't go into detail about how things ended up other than to say that my son was involved in an ordeal that was blown out of proportion and he bore his punishment in a respectable manner. I am proud of him for the humility he learned and for the way he protected others who were involved in the circumstances. And his bravery in returning to that school setting later.

The school administration decided how to handle my son's circumstances based upon popular response to what had happened, rather than upon common sense. They protected their own tails rather than protecting the child. This was not commonly known, because we (the school administration, the local authorities, my son, and myself) decided not to punish others who, along with my son, were innocently involved in childish expression.

When the superintendant (a good friend) spoke with me about my son's punishment, I asked him what would happen to the other children. He said, he didn't know yet what to do. I told him to do nothing; they didn't deserve it. All the children, including my son, were innocent of wrongdoing and since everyone believed my son acted alone there was no reason to bring embarassment or injustice on others as well. But I also told him that in doing nothing to the others he was acknowledging that my son was being treated unfairly, since the administrations' actions could only be construed as self-protection rather than a just and equitable distribution of blame. He agreed.

Next to my son's wellbeing, my biggest concern through all this was my church. I did not want this to make the church look bad. I am sure that it must have tainted my ministry while I was there, but my church leaders were very supportive through it all. I offered to resign and leave at the time, but they decided to stand with me.

I am happy that my son is doing well in college. We tease him sometimes about what happened and he laughs about it. But it is still real to him, sometimes it makes him more aware of others perceptions, or - in less mature moments - makes him care less.

What is sad is that the children who precipitated the entire event and their parents appear to have learned nothing. They still slander my son. They may never know that he was not the person they think he was, and that he protected others by bearing the whole thing himself.

Wow - I can't believe I got back into my blog. I have been trying for days, but kept running through some loop.

The whole family's out of school for the summer! Except I may enroll in another class, but, maybe not. In about 3 weeks, I will open a fireworks stand. This will be our fifth year - every year is a challenge, especially when you live in West Texas, since weather is usually hot and dry.

My grandfather was the chief engineer on Benbrook Dam. He surveyed the project, planned eveything including the parks and roads, oversaw the construction and then stayed in a Corps of Engineers home built close to the facilities by the dam gates. We would visit often as children and it was always exciting. There was so much to explore and get into.

My older brother and younger sister and I would go to visit every fourth of July. Grandad would take us to the fireworks stand and we would shop prices till we came up with the best deal we could. The people working the stand must have been pretty patient to let us balance young bodies on our belly's on the counter of their display window for so long while we dreamed of colorful explosions in the sky above our heads.

Among all the other fireworks, we always bought firecrackers of course. We would put one under a can with the fuse sticking out and light it and run! Boom! We watched the can to see whose went higher. Sometimes we'd light them in our fingers and throw them as far as we could, but every now and then one of the fuses would be made of too-thin material and would burn too quickly for us to get it out of our hand. Bang! the loud explosion right next to my right ear would ring for hours, but I barely noticed since the pounding pain in my thumb and forefinger demanded all of my attention. My porr, abused, fingers would throb with every beat of my young little heart. They would have this numb feeling when you touched them so that it felt like someone else's thumb or finger, yet at the same time the pain was so intense, you knew it was indeed yours. Nothing could help.

You would think that once would be enought to teach me not to do that again, but I am not that smart: year after year I might relive the same searing pain two or three times; each time believing I had learned some key piece of information that would keep it from happening again; each time tempting fate with those last few defective firecrackers with the thin, short fuses - I think I can do this one....Bang!! Owww!

Back in those days all the cokes ("coke" is Texan for soda pop) came in glass bottles, which, by the way, is the absolute best way to drink a coke. Each state had laws requiring that a deposit of some amount be paid on each bottle when you bought your coke - that was to encourage people to return the bottle to the store and get their money back, and to discourage people from tossing those glass bottle out on the side of the road where they would break and create pain and suffering for small children riding their bikes or shuffling their bare feet. In spite of that state mandated deposit some people, who must have had a lot more money than us, would carelessly toss their bottles out anyway, leaving a treasure trove of glass money for my brother and me to pick up on July 5th after all the partying the night before. We were up with the sun. Grandad would take us to the best places which we picked clean of any valuable item lightweight enough and small enough to fit in the trunk of the car. We would carry load after load from the car into the store, then back to the lake for another load. After a few years, other people caught on and tried to take "our" bottles, which I felt thoroughly entitle to, since it was Grandad's lake after all. But we usually got there first anyway and Grandad seemed to know where the best loot was.

One year, I think 1972, Grandad had a heart attack. His doctor made him quit smoking and gave him a medical retirement. He was 62 in 1972, and he did quit smoking. He lived to be 91 years old I believe, and I preached his funeral. I miss him. After he retired the Army Corps of Engineers made him move out of the house up on the hill overlooking the lake. I miss that house too. They built a pavillion over the foundation for the old house; just poured the new one right over the old one. I can still go there and see the trees and flowers he planted, the grass he tended; and look down the hill at the water. It is nostalgic, but not pleasurable - it just makes me more aware of what is gone. And what all else is going.

I hope my children have memories like those. Not the same ones, but something just as meaningful; something that makes your eye sting when you think about it for a while.

Wow! A lot has happened since my last post. My wife graduated from Abilene Christian University and is about to finish her first year of teaching. My son graduated from high school and has just complete his first year at ACU. My daughter just received the MVP award for her Cross Country efforts this year and my youngest daughter also received three awards today, one for Academic Acheivement, one for Music, and one for Art.

It was tough for my sweet wife, having lost her mother last November and dealing with her school-childrens' parents, but she has had a strong finish. She has blessed all her students - they did exceptionally well on their measurements testing.

Perhaps I will do a better job posting regularly.