The Random Thinker

The pastor of a local church had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard and was afraid to come down. The pastor coaxed, offered warm milk, etc. The kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and drove away so that the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten.

He did all this, checking his progress in the car frequently, then figured if he went just a little bit further, the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But as he moved a little further forward, the rope broke. The tree went BOING and the kitten instantly sailed through the air – out of sight.

The pastor felt terrible. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they’d seen a little kitten. No. Nobody had seen a stray kitten. So he prayed, “Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping,” and went on about his business.

A few days later he was at the grocery store, and met one of his church members. He happened to look into her shopping cart and was amazed to see cat food. Now this woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her, “Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats so much?”

She replied, “You won’t believe this,” and told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat, but she kept refusing. Then a few days before, the child had begged again, so the Mom finally told her little girl, “Well if God gives you a cat, I’ll let you keep it.” She told the pastor, “I watched my child go out in the yard, get on her knees, and ask God for a cat.

And really, Pastor, you won’t believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky, with its paws outspread, and landed right in front of her.”

www.mikeysfunnies.com

I took a day off yesterday to go and help my parents. To make a long story short, my folks are having a hard time with a tennant and decided to ask him to leave. Much, much easier said than done.

At the magistrate’s office, the hearing went as well as it could. After all evidence was carefully considered, the judge basically told the tennant he had to vacate the property. It was difficult to hear the evidence, the f-bombs dropped on my mom a few months ago, the range of emotion from the tennant from accusing my mom and dad of being driven by greed (if you knew my mom and dad, you would realize how absolutely RIDICULOUS that is), to admitting he tried to get them to give him 50k and he would GO AWAY, along with a few other things.

The part where life hurts came when I had to leave to come back last night. It is hard to see how volatile this guy was, even with the judge, and not wonder if he will try to do something to my folks. That makes me kind of sick. On one hand, this thing IS headed in the right direction. And that is a good thing. Just gonna be a rough few weeks.

We pay ATT aLOT of money every month. They have our home phone, dsl, Dish TV, and our cellular service. A cellular service that is a family package that, alone, we pay mucho dinero for. So, you would think their customer service would be first rate, right??

Krissy is having multiple problems with a Palm Centro she bought in January. It drops calls. It misses text messages. Diana and Krissy have gone back to the ATT store a couple of times, and to no avail.

I will say the assistant manager of the ATT store on Second Loop was very helpful. He seemed to understand the intermittent problems we are having. HOWEVER, the person on the toll free warranty line, who we had to call FROM THE STORE, was not.

She tried to convince me that Krissy is dropping texts because she has too much stuff on her phone. Untrue. Then she tried to call the phone and it went straight to voicemail. THAT IS ONE OF THE PROBLEMS. Then she called again and it went to the phone. “Well, Mr. Wike, it seems the phone is fixed.” “No ma’am, the problem comes and goes.”

“Well, it is working now.” “Ma’am, you JUST CALLED IT AND IT WENT STRAIGHT TO VOICEMAIL.”

I could go on and on. She simply refused to hear the problem and tried to convince me I should buy a NEW PHONE. Wait a minute … isnt she the WARRANTY DEPARTMENT!! She even would not listen to the assistant manager when HE TRIED TO EXPLAIN THE PROBLEM TO HER.

The resolution is they are sending a refurbished phone to Krissy and we are trying that. I am not a happy camper with AT&T right now.

She was very friendly and nice. But her customer service was HORRIBLE. And when my contracts are all up, I might just be looking for a new provider.

Yesterday was an extraordinary Sunday. In many ways. It was one of those days when the planets aligned and there was SO MUCH GOING ON I could barely see straight in front of me for the next event.

Morning worship was great. Dawn Smith Jordan presented a mini-concert AND led worship for Ed, who is in Honduras right now on medical mission. We commissioned Bryan and Tracey Braddock for their work in Chicago.

After lunch with DSJ and the family, it was off to Freedom Florence. The Dixie Youth State Tournament is here this week, and yours truly is assisting by lining up people to pray and sing the national anthem at the beginning of each day. Yesterday, Ethan Pettigrew prayed and Abbie Norton sang. And BOTH did an amazing job. I almost choked up.

Then, off to Antioch Baptist Church, another church planted by Rev. Sampson Ham back in the mid-1800’s. They were having a mortgage burning and, in light of the fact Ebenezer is their parent church, they asked me to come and pray an ancestrial/roots prayer. That was fun.

THEN, off to Ebenezer (I had to leave Antioch early) for Sunday evening worship. Sunday evenings have become more of a small-group Bible study. I love it, but I do wish more people would come.

Then, home again (I did see the inside of my home twice in the afternoon, for only for about 30 minutes each time). After preaching in the morning, I usually stay home in the afternoon and chill out. Takes a lot out of you. Now, this morning, I NEED A TRIPLE SHOT … Of espresso, of course!

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness … (I John 1:9)

There is a great power in confession. One we can only understand when we actively confess our sins. A great burden is lifted. A clean slate is given. Relationships are mended. God’s purpose is more clearly seen and our relationship with Him is made better and stronger.

As a pastor, I see this firsthand over and over again. And God never fails to amaze us when we just DO His word!!!

Remember those days when you were young, carefree, and had time and resources to pull elaborate pranks on people?? How far did YOU take them?

Some events at EBC have reminded me this week of some of the things I did as a kid. And I am ashamed. I guess I never saw how much things that we think are funny and harmless can hurt people, and eventually hurt the Kingdom of God.

We are dealing with some of that this week. An ongoing joke at Ebenezer among some of our youth and college kids has reached a point where it is no longer funny, where we are giving license to people to complain about THAT CHURCH and the Kingdom of God. And enough is enough.

We all too easily forget that we live in a global community, and our actions have some sort of impact on everyone around us. When we take things too far, when we damage property, when we disrupt an entire families night of sleep, when we steal, we have definitely deviated from God’s will and we are not building His kingdom.

But that is not all … When we live in our pride, when we forsake God’s will for what we want, we are in the same boat. In other words, YOU have the potential to make a positive impact on the Kingdom of God OR a NEGATIVE impact, just in HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE.

EVERYDAY. Think about it …

Just when you think it is safe to go back into the water. The past seven days have been most difficult at the Wike house, and somewhat at Ebenezer. Several odd things have happened; Most, if they happened alone, wouldn’t be so bad. But put them all together and AUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Then, my airconditioner at the house stopped working. Fortunately I grew up doing HVAC work with my dad and have some of the tools and supplies needed to fix it. Hopefully that is now done, but time will tell.

I am now waiting to call the State Farm Total Loss claim center to see how bad today is gonna be. Since the first of the year we’ve put a lot of money into the Jetta to get it roadworthy for Clemson. I am not looking forward to this.

I hate rollercoasters … I think it is the loss of control that I hate about them.

Well, yesterday was a rollercoaster at Ebenezer. I could never blog about all that happened. Wouldn’t be appropriate, and I would NEVER remember all of it. Sometimes I think about starting a book that I wouldn’t be able to publish for a long, long time, about all of the things that happen. Yesterday was a rollercoaster day: The bottom would fall out, jerk me around, and when I think things were calming down, it would fall again.

This morning, I am tired. And I think I have whiplash!!! And I hope today is more of a ferris wheel day.

Last night I attended a church co-ed softball game. Went to watch Krissy play. After playing men’s softball for 12 seasons, I’ve not played the last two. Last night I remembered why.

There were some out there to have fun, trying hard, but not getting too caught up in the moment. And then there were a few that took this thing WAYYYY too seriously. Complaining about EVERY mistake everyone else made. Getting way too caught up in all of it. Jamie Foster told one guy “Don’t take this too seriously. This is church league softball.” The answer confirmed my illustration from Sunday of how we’ve all been trained in the art of war.

“I’m not out here to have fun. I’m out here to win.” Those words, recited by a young man in the dugout. And there were older adults, leaders, who echoed that thought.

People, this is CHURCH LEAGUE SOFTBALL. Not a one of you is being paid. Not a one of you is a professional softball player. Re-evaluate yourself. I told one at the end of the game that you can’t take this too seriously, and if you do, you will hate it very soon. I’ve seen that one played out over and over again.

That is why I stopped playing. That, plus the fact that I was a pitcher and I got tired of people firing rockets up the middle and the umpires telling me to get over it.

It is almost officially the MIDDLE of summer break. WHERE IS IT GOING?? I knew this one would go faster, because of what we have to do at the end … in about ONE month.

I guess summer break always goes away too fast. One of the things I am noticing is the older I get, the FASTER time seems to go by. As we get busy, as we get caught up in the stresses and struggles of life, time flies by faster and faster. It seems like only a few years ago when I graduated high school. And that was TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. A QUARTER OF A CENTURY.

I guess I just hoped THIS summer would go by a little slower. No such luck.