He lost seven teeth!
May 27th, 2010
He lost seven teeth! I don’t know about you, but it was traumatic enough as a kid losing one tooth at a time. But seven? Though he’s really not to blame. Because when Duncan Keith saw the puck coming, there simply wasn’t enough time to turn his head. And so his mouth took the full brunt of that speeding ice hockey puck Sunday evening. Owww! And sure enough, when Keith put his hand up to his mouth, he spat out seven of his favorite teeth. Gone! Why then was Duncan Keith all smiles afterwards? Because his team, the Chicago Blackhawks, won on Sunday and are now headed to the Stanley Cup finals next week. And what are seven broken teeth in comparison to a dream chance to win the Super Bowl of ice hockey? Asked by reporters if he’d be replacing those seven teeth this week before the finals, Keith grinned and shook his head. No sense risking losing seven new teeth all over again. He plans to wait until the finals are over. Smart move, Duncan!
So what are you willing to risk for the sake of dream? Let’s face it—the bigger the dream, the higher the risk. Which is true for both the Andrews Academy graduates this weekend, as well as the “Mad About Marriage” seminar attendees. Brooding over a dream career? Dreaming of high octane joy in a lifelong marriage? It doesn’t matter the life goal you’re pursuing, the truth of the matter is you’ve got to be willing to take the Duncan Keith kind of risk. Which, of course, was precisely Jesus’ point to all of us: “‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life’” (Mark 8:34, 35 NLT).
Come to think of it, that’s what our Day of Fasting and Prayer (Sabbath, June 5) is about as well, isn’t it? Why would anybody fast about anything? Because if the stakes are high enough, you’re willing to sacrifice about anything to go for the “win.” And could the stakes for the church be higher on this planet than right now? The two Koreas at it again. Afghanistan and Iraq. The Euro and the European Union, and the UK and the US—all gripped (just this side of strangled) by crippling debt. And somewhere on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico we have opened a Pandora’s Box of ill. In three weeks world leaders and delegates of our community of faith meet in Atlanta to elect leaders and conduct the business of the church. Shouldn’t we be going to the mat before God on behalf of our world, our nation and our church? Join us next Sabbath, won’t you, for that sort of praying? Have questions about this idea of fasting? Go to our website, www.pmchurch.tv, and click on to the Day of Fasting and Prayer special banner—read the PDF paper—and invite your friends and family to join you. “‘If you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will find true life.’” Because some prayers, some dreams, some hopes are worth sacrificing for, aren’t they?
Have you read the latest survey on teenagers?
May 20th, 2010
Have you read the latest survey on teenagers? Two weeks ago George Barna, the Christian demographer, released a new national survey of 602 teenagers, in which they were asked to describe what they think their lives will be like in ten years. And their responses are intriguing.
Boding well for an academic community like ours, their top-rated priority for the future was finishing a college degree (93% of them declaring that by the age of 25 that would definitely or probably happen). Their next highest ten year life goal was to “have a great paying job” (81% of these teens believe it will definitely or probably happen). Their third highest goal was to “have a job where you can make a difference” (80%). And just behind that was their #4 goal, to have “a close, personal relationship with God” (72% felt such a relationship would definitely or probably be a reality ten years from now). The rest of their top ten ten-year goals in this survey were: #5, travel to other countries (71%); #6, to be “actively involved in a church or faith community” (63%); #7, to be married (58%); #8, to regularly serve the poor (48%); #9, to have children (40%); and #10, to “be famous or well-known” (26%).
Interestingly, George Barna notes, “Current church attendance appears to be a better predictor of future religious activity than is a teen’s religion affiliation. Among weekly attenders of religious youth groups, 60% said they definitely will be involved in a church in the future, which compares to just 22% of teens who attend less frequently and 14% among teens who never attend such religious functions” (http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/13-culture/366…).
So how is it with our Pioneer teenagers? Take, for example, this morning’s worship platform filled with our own “tweens” and teens, active members of our Pathfinder Club, the Evergreens. Take a long, hard look at these kids who are “our own”—bright young Seventh-day Adventist Christian teens. And then ask yourself the question, How high a priority should it be for this congregation to invest its best energies, its most dedicated leaders, its deepest sacrificial giving to ensure that “our own” survive their own uncharted voyage into the next ten years?
After all, look at the world they’re inheriting—ecologically hemorrhaging at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, economically hemorrhaging in the European Union and the United States, morally hemorrhaging in Hollywood and a society practically salivating for our teens’ immersion into its culture. Shouldn’t their church, our church be a safe haven for young hearts? That’s precisely why I’m so grateful for the men and women who lead our young—in our Pathfinder and Adventurers clubs, in our Sabbath Schools from nursery to youth, in our church schools at Ruth Murdoch and Andrews Academy. They remain year after year our unsung heroes in this battle for the heart and soul of every generation! And to them the rest of us owe a genuine debt of gratitude.
“Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)—if ever there were a divine injunction (and promise) for Creator-worshiping Adventist kids, wouldn’t it be this? And if ever Creator-loving Adventist grownups needed to seize the moment to support their young with all the time and money and volunteering energy we can muster, wouldn’t this be that time? Won’t you help us help them?
Look, I’m not an oil company executive or engineer, OK?
May 14th, 2010
Look, I’m not an oil company executive or engineer, OK? But three weeks into the on-going BP oil well blowout fiasco (or crisis, if you prefer) in the Gulf of Mexico, does it trouble you at all that nobody seems to know for sure what we’re supposed to be doing next? With over 4 million gallons of crude oil already spewed into the Gulf since the well blowout on April 20, what if the leak (at a rate federal officials now estimate to be 210,000 gallons/day) can’t be capped? I.e., what if a million gallons of crude a week keep gushing out of the broken well head into the Gulf of Mexico and eventually the oceans beyond?
I hadn’t even contemplated such a disastrous “worst case scenario” until two friends put me in touch with the Pure Energy Systems Network website (www.pesn.com) that carries the reflective analysis of software engineer and oil industry analyst Paul Noel. Noel observes that while BP officials are not commenting, the oil and natural gas deposit they were drilling into when the fatal blowout occurred may be either the largest or second largest such deposit in the world—easily topping 500,000 barrels of production a day for ten to fifteen years! The deposit covers up to 25,000 square miles and lies thirty thousand feet into the earth’s crust beneath the five-thousand-foot deep floor of the Gulf of Mexico. (You get the picture—it’s huge!) Drilling for that “deep oil,” BP punched a hole into this super-charged high-pressure (70,000 psi) pocket, and the rest is the unfolding story of a potential crisis, the magnitude of which nobody yet dares to predict. What if in all the efforts to plug the leak/hole, a much larger hole is blown open? What then? “Stunning dangerous” is how Noel described it. Another panicked writer bluntly predicted, “We are seeing a major historical and economic event taking place that could change the world as we have known it.”
What’s that have to do with you and me? Simple. The unfolding saga in the Gulf is an apocalyptic-like reminder that whether it be a volcano or an earthquake or hurricane (all acts of nature), or whether it be a BP-like disaster or a Greece-like economic meltdown (all acts of man), life on this terrestrial ball can suddenly, literally over-night be irrevocably changed.
Which is why the call to collective prayer sounded in today’s story (“The Santayana Factor—Tales of the Kings”—II) is so earnestly essential. In five weeks leaders and delegates from my own community of faith will gather in Atlanta, Georgia, for a week of prayerful deliberations. Shall it be once again business as usual? Or should the hearts of God’s people be stirred to their depths with the compelling sense of our utter need for his intervention at this critical time in earth’s history? I believe it is the latter that must awaken us to corporate prayer as never before. As the narrative of this ancient king reminds us, it is the moral duty of spiritual leaders to call the people of God to prayer. Then shall we not unite in this common prayer? “‘O our God—we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you’” (II Chronicles 20:12).
So how much is your mother worth?
May 7th, 2010
So how much is your mother worth? Not that she was anybody’s mother, the subject in Picasso’s painting “Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur.” Turns out she was the renown painter’s mistress—which hardly makes her an appropriate theme for Mother’s Day. And yet the buzz throughout the art world this week has been all about the auction price this oil canvas of Picasso’s actually fetched on Tuesday night. Reputed to have been painted by Picasso in just one day back in 1964, this 5 feet by 4 feet painting put up for auction at Christie’s auction house lasted a full 8 minutes and six seconds on the auctioneer’s block. In the end six bidders drove the price through the ceiling, until it soared to a new world record for any auctioned piece of art. How much did Picasso’s woman go for? A feverish $106.5 million. Not bad for a day’s work, is it?
If only our beloved mothers could have enjoyed the luxury of just a day’s work. The nation pauses this weekend to remember these devoted women we dearly love—mothers who never ended up on a Christie’s auction house canvas—and yet whose self-sacrificing love for the likes of you and me is a portrait of infinitely greater worth than any Picasso masterpiece. For truth be known, when the colors of our mothers were splashed across the canvases of our own childhoods and teen age years, how could anyone possibly affix any price at all to their devotion and love?
No wonder the scene of that shining moment was etched onto the canvas of Calvary, never to be effaced—when from the cross the God of the universe gazed down through his own tortured pain onto the face of the woman who had birthed him and bathed him, loved him and caressed him, taught him and trained him, who had fiercely held him in her heart when it seemed that all the world rejected him. No wonder his dying thoughts—not unlike young soldiers on many a forgotten battlefield whose final cries, history records, were for their mothers—no wonder Jesus whispered to his mother, when prayers to his Father were choked and stifled. The Son of God had but one mother. And to her his undying love was pledged.
This Mother’s Day as you thank God for your own mother and recite to her your love again and again, ponder this recollection of William Cowper, “On Receipt of My Mother’s Picture”:
Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass’d
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smiles I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say,
“Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!”
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles time’s tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
I love you, Mother.