The Beacon

What drives you each day? What makes you want to get out of bed every morning? What gives you inspiration, motivation, and stamina for life? As I contemplated these questions, I thought of many things that give me a passion for living: learning, experiencing, creating, relating, and accomplishing. These are the actions, the “doings”, that come to my mind. But the subjects or goals of these passions, in my life, are God, God‘s creation, people, ideas, concepts, and understanding.

I find fulfillment in accomplishing good work, particularly at achieving excellence or perfection. Examples of this focus in my life have included doing well in school, succeeding in competitive sports and activities, achieving personal goals, earning promotions or commendations, and ticking things off my “to do” list.

However, my life is not whole when I am focused only on accomplishing things. I have come to realize this desire to accomplish is selfish, because it is for the purpose of self-satisfaction and self-actualization. I identify my self worth with what I can accomplish. And that perspective has led me to neglect my relationships with others, including God and my wife. I have neglected the spiritual work of “being,” of loving others and cultivating relationships by simply giving of my time and presence.

I am not unique in this. My German ancestry and American heritage has led me to emphasize hard work, striving for perfection, making something of myself, and personal determination and effort. There is goodness in these things, especially when done to help others or enhance the public good. But when done solely for self-esteem, this reason for existence becomes selfish and greedy.

I believe God led me to an early retirement in order to shift my focus to His calling. He wanted me to give up time and effort devoted to my job and company and devote my time, effort, abilities, and love to my family, church, and people in need. And though I dreamed of endless opportunities for leisure in retirement, most of my activities in my first 18 months of retirement have been focused on church or civic organizations and their goals. To my surprise, I have not devoted much time to home repairs and improvements, financial investing, or my favorite leisure activities of reading, writing, or photography. Although I enjoy or find pleasure or satisfaction in these things, they don’t rise to the level of fulfillment that I find in serving God and neighbor.

I believe it is essential for Christians to ask themselves each day: Am I fulfilling God’s purpose for me? Am I pursuing my life with the passion and talents that God gave me? Test your motivations and see if God has something else in store for you. Or if you receive a strong confirmation that you are aligned with God’s will, then each new day will be a refrain to God’s creation and work in you.

In Christ,

Doug

I say the Lord’s Prayer every day. I meditate on it. I savor it, as I do all of Christ’s teaching. Today, He revealed this new meaning to me.

The Lord’s Prayer holds the juxtaposition of heaven and earth before us.

Heaven: where our Father is King, where His Name reigns supreme, where His Kingdom is eternal and infinite.

Earth: where the rebellion against God continues, where we invite God‘s kingdom to reign, for God‘s will to be carried out, where we ask him to provide for us daily – the Bread of Heaven, Jesus Christ; where trespasses, temptations, and evil trip us up; where we need God to intervene in our self-willed lives – to forgive our sins, to protect us against temptation, to deliver us safely from the devil and his demons.

Jesus taught his disciples – including us – to recognize through this prayer how much we need God, because we are in a place and time where His will is contested by our own, where His provision is often refused, where we are at risk of losing our place in God‘s garden, where we need to ask him daily to keep us safe and ready for the return of Christ, so we can be swept up into heaven to spend eternity with God. Christ may come any day and so every day we must be ready. We must forgive our neighbor, we must proclaim Him King, we must praise His Power and Glory, we must stand against the enemy, and we must fight temptation to lay down our armor and give in to sin.

The Lord’s Prayer reminds us each day of what is at stake and what we are called to do. Remain steadfast and secure in the Lord – and he will deliver us on that Final Day.

Resting in the Lord’s strength,

Doug

In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus taught his disciples to pray what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” Most of us learned this prayer as children and we have recited this prayer from memory thousands of times throughout our lives. How often do we take in the intent of this prayer? It becomes an empty recitation if we give sound to the words through our mouths and do not give meaning to words through our minds. This simple prayer places us in the right relationship to God and how we are to live our lives for God and under God, now and forever.

Our Father,
We recognize Him as our loving creator, protector, and provider.
We pray to Him with our brothers and sisters. We come to Him, not alone, but in relationship with each other, as a community.

Hallowed be your name.
He is worthy of honor and respect. We show that respect when we address Him, whenever we call to Him. His name is to be honored every time we call to Him.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We invite His kingdom into our hearts, not only my heart, but the heart of everyone, that His kingdom would shine through us, that all would know and experience God as Father, that all would be brought into Him and know Him as Father. When all are part of His Kingdom, then earth will be like heaven, where only God’s will is done.

Give us this day our daily bread.
While we live on earth awaiting Christ’s return, we ask God to give us our bread, which is Christ, who offered his body, broken for us, that we might live. We ask not just for physical nourishment, but also for spiritual nourishment that comes through Christ. Knowing that God daily provided manna from heaven to sustain the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness, we ask Him to daily provide the heavenly bread of Christ that will sustain us until His return.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
While we live in these broken bodies awaiting our resurrection bodies, we acknowledge our sin, our need to be forgiven, which can only be granted if we ourselves forgive our brothers and sisters who commit sins that hurt us. Without our willingness to forgive, we cannot be forgiven by God. We hold within us the key to our own forgiveness.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
We ask God the Father to lead us in our earthly lives, guiding us away from temptation and giving us strength to resist temptation. We acknowledge the pervasiveness of evil in this world and ask the Father in faith to deliver us safely, protecting us from the purveyor of evil, Satan.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.
We acknowledge that all belongs to God: His Kingdom, into which He invites us; His Power, in which we trust; and His Glory, in which we add our voices to the angels in praising and honoring Him. In this acknowledgment, we can give up our primal instincts to seek personal security, control, and esteem. In acknowledging God as Sovereign and Lord, we are secure—because we rest in His kingdom, we give Him all control over our lives—because all power is His, and we release our desire for esteem—because all glory is His.

The next time you recite the Lord’s Prayer, be attentive to its meaning.

To His glory,

Doug

For most of us, home is a place where we feel we belong, where we feel comfortable, safe, and accepted. We desire to come home, to family, to a place where we can let our guard down and just be ourselves. That feeling of belonging is so important to all of us, an essential element of living. As children, we count on our home, our family, as the place where we will always belong. But the dynamics of the American family have changed dramatically since the 1960s.

Dr. Brene Brown, a social research professor, recently asked a group of middle schoolers in Houston what they thought the difference was between fitting in and belonging. She said, “They had incredibly simple and profound answers: ‘Fitting in is when you want to be a part of something. Belonging is when others want you.’ Then a young girl raised her hand and said, ‘You know, miss, it’s really hard not to fit in or belong at school, but not belonging at home is the worst.’ And when she said that, probably half the kids either burst into tears or just put their heads down, unable to speak.”

We all need to realize the state of the family in our current day. It’s not surprising that many adolescents are acting erratically across our society if they don’t feel like they belong at home. When they don’t feel they belong at home, they try to find somewhere else where they can belong. We need to create safe, loving, protected places for children. Schools can be one place, but certainly churches should be the first place outside the home that children feel they are wanted, loved, and belong.

In working with teachers, Dr. Brown tells them: “You may be creating the only space in a child’s life where he or she can walk in, hang up their backpack, and hang up their armor. Only for the hour or two hours this child is with you can they literally take that off.” This is an important lesson for all of us in the church to think about each time we are in the presence of a child.

Remember, as servants of the Lord, we are the antidote that can save someone else’s life if we are at full strength, that is, when we are filled with God’s love. But if we let our potency slip, we are less effective as God’s agents of change in the world. We must soak up His love from His Word, commune with Him in prayer and the Lord’s Supper, and allow the Holy Spirit to have His way with us. Only through the abundant love of God in us can we offer that love to the world.

Lord, let us go out into the world each day, primed and prepared with the love of Christ to be your agents of change, ready to speak words of love and encouragement, to offer ourselves in acts of kindness to everyone and even more so to children and young people. We pray that St. Mark would be a place where children would feel they belong. May we go to extraordinary means to offer hope and a sense of belonging to each child—to each person—we meet. In the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Doug

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”  Psalm 18:2

I am my son’s father, but he is not mine. He belongs to The Father, who holds my son is His hand. You see, three times my son’s life has been on the precipice of death, and each time my God has delivered him.

At birth, my son’s umbilical cord was wrapped over his shoulder, and with each contraction of my wife’s uterus, his blood pressure would plummet. Though not yet born, his life was in danger and the doctor quickly decided an emergency Caesarean section was necessary to save him, and 10 minutes later, Travis, my first child, was delivered into the world, amazingly healthy and ready to begin life.

At age 20, Travis was in an accident when the car in which he was a passenger skidded on a rain-slick highway and flew down an embankment and into a row of trees, late at night. The car was so mangled that the emergency responders had to remove him through the windshield. He was conscious and his face was covered in dried blood when we arrived at the emergency room an hour later. After 4 hours of CT scans and examinations, he was discharged from the hospital. Miraculously, he had only a bruised hip and no lacerations large enough to require stitches.

Three years later, Travis was diagnosed with cancer. He suffered from coughing and chest pain for 2 months while doctors misdiagnosed his condition as bronchitis. Finally one morning, after he passed out in my arms, I took him to the emergency room, where a CT scan revealed a large mass around his heart. A biopsy revealed it to be a treatable form of lymphoma, and after 4 months of chemotherapy, he was deemed cancer free, and he remains so now, 5 years later.

My Father has delivered my son each time he faced death. I have come to trust my Father more and more throughout my life, and probably no events have evoked and nurtured that faith and trust like these threats to my son’s life.

I have also gained trust and learned to be deeply grateful by my son’s response to these brushes with death. At age 60, I have never had a serious accident, no broken bones, no disease, no significant chronic pain. I feel blessed to have been healthy my entire life. But I am more blessed by having witnessed my own son experience pain, face a deadly disease, and emerge essentially unscathed and stronger for having endured these perils. Following his accident and his cancer, Travis always had a calmness about himself. He never cried, never expressed fear, never complained “why me?” Though a man of few words, his faith is clearly conveyed in his reaction to life-threatening experiences.

My son is a gift to me, given by My Father, just as Jesus is a gift given to me, and to all who believe, by His father. The Father did not keep His own son from death, but gave him up freely so that we would have life and have it eternally. I know that God has used Travis and will continue to employ him for His purposes. I live in my faith and trust in God’s love and provision, knowing that He is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer in this earthly life, until I reach the everlasting life to come, just as He has been with my son and will see him through to eternity.

In my love for my Father,

Doug

For 40 years, Star Wars have reigned across our galaxy, but Star Peace is coming. A long time ago in a land far, far away, The Chosen One is about to be born. He will be the Emissary of Peace that ends the conflicts among the peoples of our planet. He will embolden the rebels who fight for justice against the evil empire, giving them The Force known as the Holy Spirit to be their counsel in waging the battle against evil.  He will bring peace not only to our star system but to the Universe. His name is Jesus Christ.

May you celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas Day and every day, spreading the word that Star Wars will one day cease, for they will be overcome by The Star of Peace, who gathers all nations and peoples to come and see His glory.