November 21, 2013 : Two year remembrance of my Mentor Jesse's passing

Today marks the second anniversary of the passing of my dear friend and mentor the Rev. Dr. Jesse Brown.  It's difficult to believe that two years have passed as it seems just yesterday that I last saw my good friend.  Two years ago today, I held his hand as the last breath of life left his body and as he saw the Gates of Heaven open before him.

Here is a link to my post on the first Anniversary of Jesse's passing:
Last year's remembrance of Jesse

Of course I do find comfort and communion with my departed friend in the use of the library that he left to me.  I am so richly blessed to have these assets available to me.  Thus far I have not encountered any topic for which I have not been able to find multiple reference sources among Jesse's books.  It's a wonderful feeling to be able to go down to the shelves and pull an arm load of books and to have everything needed to tackle a theological point or to prepare a sermon.

Even though thanks to Jesse, my library is extensive I do continue to add to it, I confess to having a serious book addiction.  One of my favorite places to spend a Sunday afternoon is Half Price Books.  I could certainly have worse addictions, and I'm also certain that Jesse understands.

Again today I say farewell to my old friend Jesse.  But when someone has so deeply affected one's life, can one ever truly say farewell?  Or do we always in fact carry those folks with us daily, no matter if those individuals have departed this earth or simply for whatever reason moved on from our lives.  I firmly believe that we hold these people in our hearts and souls.  As long as those individuals continue to affect our behavior and be in our minds I believe our relationship with them continues.

Now one would be greatly mistaken if one where to believe that Jesse and I agreed upon every point theologically or politically.  In reading through the book by Robin Meyer "Saving Jesus from The Church" I am reminded of those areas in which Jesse and I disagreed and some of which we very strongly disagreed.

In reality this was likely the greatest lesson that Jesse taught to me.  Just because you may not agree with an individual on one or many points does not mean that this person does not have many things which they can teach you (and likely you them).  For me to have distanced myself from Jesse just because of a couple of points of disagreement would have been surely the greatest poverty of my life.  You see Jesse and I had as different of backgrounds and life stories as one could almost imagine, but what drew us together was a mutual desire to not only learn but to teach.  For even though Jesse had spent an entire lifetime learning about the Scriptures and about walking with Christ, right up until the end he still retained that desire to learn. I have to believe that in our relationship, the teaching and the learning wasn't just one way.  Perhaps there is no one attribute of Jesse's that I would like to emulate more in my own life, than his desire to learn right up until his last few days.  Always seeking new information and processing that information through the data accumulated through his lifetime.

Always, always, always be a student of life.  You will never meet a man, woman, or child who cannot teach you something about life, yourself, and most of all about God.  But if you close that door too quickly you may just miss the experience of a lifetime.

May you all be blessed and well.

In God's Love and Constant Grace,
Roy

New Book and a quiet Sunday and today a day off.

Since it's Veterans Day today, let me start this post off by thanking and blessing all those who have served.  Thank you all for your, and your families sacrifices to serve our great Nation as a member of the armed services.  Our Nation owes you a debt that we cannot repay and all that any of us can do is say thank you and God Bless.

Well yesterday we attended worship service at Benson Baptist Church.  It's great to hit the 8:30 am service and be out the door by 9:30 or so and have a full day to enjoy on a Sunday.  Pastor Paul told about his recent trip to Bolivia and about the people and churches that they visited there.  It was a very interesting and humbling presentation, as the folks in the third world do as Paul said "So much with so little" and as he went on we "Do so little with so much".  Paul and the other ABC Pastors that went with him had a great experience and it will be interesting to hear as he continues to share those experiences in his weekly sermons.

The rest of the day I spent cleaning and arranging things in the barn and garage.  This was a project that I sorely needed to do and just haven't had the opportunity for many months now.  The weather was beautiful and we had no other obligations (for once) so I was able to haul out and discard somethings and rearrange and store some others.

I have some larger paintings that I want to do and so I needed to get things set up again to do some work in the garage as there just isn't room anywhere else to work on them.  Now that the space is ready hopefully I'll be able to get these projects underway this week sometime.

Today both Gail and I have taken as a vacation day.  We really don't have any set plans other than spending a quiet day together, we'll just do as we like to do on days off and play it by ear.  The only thing I have on my agenda today is hitting the gym this evening, and maybe stopping by and seeing my friend Brandon Stewart at New Dawn Nutrition.  Brandon was out in California this weekend competing in the Natural Mr. Olympia Physique Competition.  This is an International competition and Brandon was able to bring home the big win to little ole Omaha.  He's an amazing athlete having also played professional football (as a kicker) before going into Bodybuilding and then into Physique.

It was a big weekend for competitions with my niece Makayla Ring competing in a Women's Physique Competition in Oklahoma where she took home third place in her class.  Makayla took quite a bit of time off from the gym since her last competition and this was the beginning of her 'comeback'.  She looked good but still needs to make some gains as she has moved up from Figure to Physique and that means she has to sport more muscle.  I'm looking forward to seeing her progress and hopefully this time she has her head screwed down tighter and won't need to back off and sort things out again.  One has to put real life first though and kudos to her for understanding that and doing what needed to be done.

My own training is going along well.  I have relaxed my diet for the last few months and along with training with extremely heavy (for me) weights I am now I believe, the strongest I have ever been in my life.  I am however within 10 lbs of also being at the heaviest body weight I have ever been as well.  Now in the eyes of the general public, I'm a long ways from being 'overweight' but in this subculture in which I live part of my life, I'm too heavy.  I don't like weighing this much so I'm tightening the diet up a bit through the end of the year and at that time I'll go on a full blown 'cut'.  It will be hard on my ego to have my lifts going down but ultimately in this hobby of mine you're always seesawing back and forth between the opposing goals of looking your best or being your strongest.  Especially at my age it's nearly impossible to do both at the same time.  

This week I pulled a book off my shelf entitled "Saving Jesus from The Church, How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus" by Robin R. Meyers.  It cannot be an accident that I pulled this book off the shelf to read as we are coming up on the second anniversary of the passing of my Mentor Jesse.  This was one of Jesse's books and this author truly shares a great many of Jesse's personal beliefs.  Much of what I am reading are things that Jesse and I discussed during our times together.  In fact as I am reading it I cannot help but hear the words in my head in Jesse's own voice.

Depending on what Gail and I decide to do today, I may well finish this book and be able to move onto another this week.  After reading this book I'm anxious to get to a couple others that I have not yet read but I know that Jesse thought highly of.

May this day and week find you all well and ready to serve our all loving and gracious God.

In His Absolute and Undying Love & Grace!
Roy

A great blog post (another bloggers) concerning Marriage.

I stumbled upon this blog today and I really like this particular post by the young blogger.

http://sethadamsmith.com/2013/11/02/marriage-isnt-for-you/

It's a great bit of writing, though I'm not going to say that the young man has it all figured out, he does have a good start on how to have a successful marriage and one that will likely survive the years.  If he truly practices what he's written I have no doubt that he and his lovely wife will have a long and happy life together.

Perhaps the most important thing his father got across to him is love isn't enough on it's own, it's how you love one another.  Being open and sharing your thoughts and desires and then wanting nothing more than to help your mate reach their dreams and letting them help you reach yours.

I do envy the author in his having such communication with his father.  My own father never gave me any advice for marriage, though I have to confess I never asked him for any advice either.  When the time comes that my children are preparing to marry I fully intend to sit down and have many talks with them.  I do not want them to struggle down the road of marriage as I have and to have to learn how to be married by the school of mistakes, hard knocks and heartache.  

It's a bit trite but communication with your spouse is very, very important.  For whatever reason I at one time just thought my spouse knew me well enough to just 'know' exactly what I wanted out of life without me talking about it.  I never used to share my dreams for life, I just kept them to myself. Communication with my spouse was never my long suite and unfortunately I'm well aware that it still isn't. 

Here's just a teaser but do follow the link and take a look at his blog entry.

Having been married only a year and a half, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn’t for me.

Now before you start making assumptions, keep reading.

I met my wife in high school when we were 15 years old. We were friends for ten years until…until we decided no longer wanted to be just friends. :) I strongly recommend that best friends fall in love. Good times will be had by all.

Nevertheless, falling in love with my best friend did not prevent me from having certain fears and anxieties about getting married. The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. Was I ready? Was I making the right choice? Was Kim the right person to marry? Would she make me happy?

Then, one fateful night, I shared these thoughts and concerns with my dad.

Perhaps each of us have moments in our lives when it feels like time slows down or the air becomes still and everything around us seems to draw in, marking that moment as one we will never forget.

Added 11/6/13
Apparently this blog has gone viral and the couple appeared on Fox News.
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/11/06/recently-married-blogger-seth-adam-smith-stirs-controversy-%E2%80%9Cmarriage-isn%E2%80%99t-me%E2%80%9D-message

Sermon at Humboldt Christian Church

A lovely country church.  I do not know where this particular church is located,
but what a beautiful setting it is.

Today we drove down to Humboldt, NE to worship again with the congregation at the Humboldt Christian Church.  My friend Howard Blecha is the Pastor for the church and he was away at camp with the youth group so I provided pulpit supply for him.  I really enjoy visiting the church in Humboldt, they are just good people and a joy to celebrate the Lord with.  You know you are in God's Country when folks ask where is so and so and the answer is that they are out deer hunting.  Of course as a minister I think they should be in church, but as an old country boy at heart I can fully understand the allure of being out in God's creation waiting to harvest some of it's bounty.  God Bless them all.

The sermon was over Luke 19:1-10 and I throughly enjoyed preparing and delivering this sermon.  I did have a couple of senior moments when I couldn't think of a word that I had just said a moment before but that is just part of getting a bit longer in the tooth I suppose.  I chose to read this scripture from the 'Revised Standard Version' (RSV) translation, though almost all scholars prefer the 'New Revised Standard Version' (NRSV) I must confess that of all the translations I like the older RSV the best.  It seems to me to be the best blend of accuracy in the translation and eloquent language.  But than again when I am doing serious study I will compare multiple translations and when in doubt always default to the NRSV.

There are multiple messages in this bit of Lukan scripture (and the passage is entirely unique to Luke with no mention in any other Canonical writings) but the message I strove the hardest to convey was based on the meaning of Zacchaeus's name.  Zacchaeus in both Aramaic and Hebrew means 'clean' or 'pure'.  What a name for a Chief Tax Collector who collaborates with the Romans in domination of his people and considered a great sinner by his fellow Jews.  But the point is that 'Pure' is truly how God sees not only Zacchaeus the Chief Tax Collector and sinner, but how he sees all of us sinners.  God see's past the sin and to the heart of the sinner.  Where there resides in all of us a pure child of God, one who is lost (in the wrong place) not because we are damned but rather because we are not in the proper relationship with God.  I quoted C.S. Lewis in his famous quote that "The gates of Hell are locked from the inside."  Truly if we are lost (out of relationship with God) it is our own doing, as God looks past the sin, and seeks all of us, just as he was seeking Zacchaeus in this bit of scripture.

May you all be richly Blessed this week and may you all grow in your relationship with our Almighty God.

In His constant Care and Grace,

Roy

Jesus and Zacchaeus - Luke 19:1-10 (Revised Standard Version)

19 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And there was a man named Zacchae′us; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. 3 And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchae′us, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it they all murmured, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchae′us stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”