AT THE BEACH!! I had an opportunity to go to Garden City with my family and my mom and dad for most of last week. The blogger was in the sand, feet in the ocean, and enjoying the waves. Therefore, I did not blog last week. I thought about it a couple of times, but I did not blog.
I hope you had a good week. In spite of several events and even a tragedy at the church, it was good to spend some time away. And now, back to the grind!!!
Well, the school year is practically over and the CLC meetings will cease on Wednesday. We finished our academic stuff a few days ago and the last week or so has been character education material. It was a good semester, and all of the kids passed (although a few did it by the hair of their chinny-chin-chins). As I look back on the semester, I wonder what we really accomplished?
Certainly they learned many facts about the New Testament. About John the Baptist, Jesus, the 12 Disciples, and Paul. They learned the purpose of the Bible is to reveal God and His love to humanity. They heard the Gospel of Jesus many, many times. They learned what Jesus has to say about how we treat each other.
When I think back on the whole thing, I hope they will take at least TWO things with them: God loves them so much that He sent Jesus to DIE FOR THEIR SINS (and through this they can have eternal life) AND I hope they realize that Ebenezer Baptist Church loves them, too. I really will miss them. I know Justin will, too.
Pray for them! They are great kids, and I hope they will look back one day and see what God did for them!
And, YES, CLC will continue at Ebenezer. We have THREE classes on the slate for this fall! The CLC team will be hiring teachers for those classes, and they will be using our two vans and our facility! And I AM PUMPED ABOUT IT!!!
In sports, we drill this into our athletes. Practice, practice, practice. You play like you practice. The more you practice, the more you will automatically do the right thing when there is no time to think. All of this is true. Yes, we will make mistakes, but practice really does help when the heat is on.
This is also true in life. We would never say we are practicing in our vocations, but we are: Every day, you learn in your job. Every day (if you are paying attention) you pick up something that will help you in the future. If this is true, you are getting better and better at what you do. There are some exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, it is true.
What if we apply the same principles to life in Christ?? What if we realized that THEY DO APPLY, whether we consciously do it or not? What if I wrote that the discipline we exercise, every day, DOES determine what we do when the pressure is on, when the chips are down, when there is no time to think, just time to act??
Every day, we have a chance to practice our life in Christ. Every day is preparation for those times when the pressure is on . . .
And, practice DOES make perfect. Have a great practice today!
Tonight is our final Wednesday night of the school year. We will restart on August 29th. This brings Wednesday night supper and missions & music for kids to a halt for the summer. I can’t believe the school year is almost over (and yet in some personal ways, it could not come fast enough). But, all things considered, it sure has gone by fast!
Next year, Krissy will be a junior and Drew will be in the seventh grade. That is really hard for me to believe . . . When we came to Ebenezer, Krissy was 4 and Drew was 1 MONTH old. I know some might say I have been here 12 years too long, it seems to me to be like yesterday when we unpacked that U-Haul into one of the Cambridge Apartments on Southborough Road.
The older I get, the faster it goes by . . . If YOU have kids, better spend time with them NOW!! Tomorrow they will be moving out!
Last night was the first time I had to catch Krissy since February . . . She was faster than I have ever seen her, and she was complaining about losing speed because we took a little break after the playoffs were over. WOW!!
Pitching is a good outlet for her right now. She is having a little disagreement with one of her teachers, and it was good for her to get out on the mound and work out a little frustration, and see something good come out of it. It is better than punching a wall!
And, I like catching her. It gives us time to spend together and do something we both enjoy. Yeah, I had to miss our church softball game last night to do it, but it is worth it.
We did not make our usual Mother’s Day trek to Garden City yesterday. So, after watching SNL on my DVR, I did something EXTREMELY RARE for me (or for any Wike that I know): I watched the race.
I am not really a big racing fan. I do keep up with it, because SportsCenter talks about it every day. I will say this: There is nothing like going out there to Darlington. sitting in turn 4, and feeling little pieces of rubber hit your face and arms. But, then again, when you watch it on television you can easily keep up with everything that is going on and you have a great view of the entire track.
Now, this doesn’t mean that I will be watching the race from now on. It was a random act on a Sunday.
Last night I had the privilege of officiating at a family wedding . . . The bride is the daughter of my first cousin. Ironically, even though I am about the only family member that lives in Florence, this is where they held the wedding. It was to be an outdoor affair at the Country Club of South Carolina. Tipoff: 5:30pm.
The risk of an outdoor wedding when it is hot in the Pee Dee region of SC is great. Evening showers are like clockwork. Driving out there last night, I knew we were in trouble. And, besides, with the Darlington race last night, you had to KNOW it would rain. And rain IT DID.
The problem was easy to understand, but difficult to solve. The bride wanted so badly to be married outdoors and the rain looked (to the experts) like it was passing over. Dealing with baseball and softball, I had a bad feeling about those clouds. I tried to get things going. We had no “director” for this wedding, and that put the bride in a difficult spot: She was in no condition to make the necessary decision to move the wedding in doors, and had her heart set on doing it outside.
We waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, reason kicked in as the storm got worse and it was apparent there was no way an outdoor wedding would occur on that day. We moved it inside, finally got it started, and it went off like clockwork.
And, the moral of the story is: No matter how much you plan, pray, rehearse, set up, and wish, you can never control what will happen in an outdoor wedding!!! Take the money, get hitched in a small ceremony, and go on a CRUISE!!!
I watched Dateline: NBC last night after hearing about it yesterday. I was talking to Kenney in the Y and someone mentioned it. I asked him about it, and he told me he was concerned how Dateline might portray the Florence County Sheriff’s Department. He also told me there is much more to the story than would be mentioned.
Watching the first hour, I thought Kenney’s concern was right: They were making the FCSO look like the bumbling Mayberry outfit, stereotypical of the south. But, I watched on. In the end, I thought Kenney looked like the ONLY SANE person in the story. And I appreciate that.
I am proud of our Sheriff, of his men, and of what they do for us EVERYDAY. As for an unsolved murder, there are several things about that:
1. No one will solve EVERY CRIME. It is a fact of law enforcement that detectives do not like, but it IS a fact.
2. The “film-makers” in the story (the victim’s brother AND the action hero / director / cop from Michigan) definitely know more than they are telling about this story. Both tried to discredit Kenney and our State Law Enforcement Division. BOTH FAILED.
3. God DOES KNOW who did this, and He will deal with it in His time. (And, I hope He lets Kenney bring it down on the guilty party . . .)
We really don’t know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future. We are wise to prepare for the future, for what is to come . . . In fact, we have a responsibility to be wise in this area. But we can never, never forget that God is doing more, right now, to prepare us for what is to come than we could ever do. It can be tough . . . and there will be times that we do not understand . . . But this is a fact, and we should be thankful.
In our very nature is the “need” to control things, especially in our lives and in the lives of our children. One of the greatest wake-up calls we receive is the realization that we control very little, other than HOW we respond to life. Yes, we control OUR OWN actions and our self-discipline, but we really cannot control other people OR our own circumstances (even though we love to think we can). Okay, maybe we can control a little of our circumstances, but life comes at us fast and there is much we CANNOT control.
What can really do?? Live every moment in obedience to God, listening to Him for cues on how to move and where to go. Live with self-discipline: You cannot control others, but you CAN control your responses. Live honestly with God, with yourself, and with others. And put aside a little money . . . Don’t let it burn a hole in your pocket.
Do your best and listen to God . . . He knows the future for which He is preparing YOU.
In all seriousness, I agree with the comments on yesterday’s post . . . The real question here is “What is the solution??” It is apparent that we are WAY TOO DEPENDENT on gasoline. We empower the oil companies with our demand for their product and our willingness to pay the price, no matter how high it climbs. And, as Dean found, who among us can afford a battery-powered car???
Maybe we REALLY need to commit to not drive as much . . .To plan our trips with more efficiency . . . To drive smaller cars, and to slow down . . . And maybe, just maybe, we need to ALL contact our US Senators and ask for an inquiry into the frequent and sudden jumps in gas prices. Analysts say we need to build another gas refinery, but no one wants to build it in their neighborhood. Is that really the answer???
One Pastor's Perspective 