DRIFTING

The Pastor’s Page

Drifting – It sounds so peaceful doesn’t it? There are many times in life we wish we could do exactly that, drift along with the current leaving the exertion and stress of paddling behind.

My personal mental image is one of a totally stress-free environment, if only for a short while. Nothing to battle. No fights. No conquering or being conquered.

It implies an absence of deadlines. The current may be slow, but speed is not of importance. The current will carry us in the direction and at the speed it feels like. No decisions hang over our head.
However, not all of life is meant to be “drifted” through. Oh, certainly there are times when it would be fine, if only for a little while. However, drifting also implies a lack of purpose, a wandering through life without direction, the absence of anything of importance going on in one’s life at that moment.

D. A. Carson talks about it like this, “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."

Yes, there are things in life that never seem to be downstream from where we are. They can only be had through intense effort and much grace. Now that I think about it, much more grace on God’s part than effort on ours! We are tired of the struggle, but it is our spiritual lives which suffer the most when we decide it would be so easy to just drift for a bit.

I won’t claim that my hand is always on the plow and ready for work. I won’t lie to you and say that the rising of the sun raises my spirits as well and moves me to open the word every day, rejoicing in what my Lord has in store for me. No, but I will tell you that I have seen what happens when you don’t aggressively pursue spirituality and have been closer than I would care to be to that drifting destination. Remember, drifting with the world only increases the distance one has to paddle to get back to where you REALLY want to be.

Pastor Craig

The Door of Reconciliation

Reconciliation - There is an ancient door on display in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland. The rough-hewn door has a rectangular hole hacked out of its center. It is called the "Door of Reconciliation," and gives rise to the Irish expression of "chancing one's arm," which means "to take a risk." The door became renowned when two Irish families who were feuding finally made peace.


In 1492, Sir James Butler, Earl of the Ormonds, holed up in the Cathedral. After several weeks, Sir Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of the Kildares, decided he wanted to end the feud. Sir Gerald went to the cathedral and requested entry. He promised he would do no harm. Sir James was suspicious, and refused him. Sir Gerald used a spear to hack through the wooden Cathedral door a hole just big enough to put his arm through. He then offered his hand as a gesture of peace. James shook his hand, the two were reconciled, and the feud ended.

How passionately are you willing to pursue reconciliation? Many, if not most, of us give a half-hearted apology that, upon rejection, gives us the excuse to walk away thinking we have given it our best shot. But, have we really? Have we hacked through the barrier that separates us from the one we should be in relationship with and chanced everything by sticking our bare arm through first? It’s so easy to wait for the other person to come to us and, when that doesn’t happen, to assume peace is not wanted or possible.

What if Jesus Christ had done that for us? What if God had decided not to make the first move? What if Jesus had taken the attempted crucifixion as a sign that all humanity had lost interest in any restored relationship with their creator? What if Jesus had only come halfway? If we are to be truly Christ-like, should we be expected to give anything less?

Pastor Craig

BUT

BUT! That’s an awful big word, isn’t it. It allows us to make a statement with a great deal of conviction and leave some wriggle room at the same time. At least that’s the way most of us use it. We say, “Oh, I’ll be there, but something might come up!” “I am a very caring person, but some people just get on my last nerve!” We can say just about anything as long as we can attach those three little letters to the end of our statement. We can make bold commitments, BUT we want to leave ourselves a way out as well.



Jesus doesn’t leave us a way out in Matthew 5:21ff though. In a series of five surprising turns Jesus radicalizes the Gospel and addresses three topics in ways that make people start to sweat over. Jesus establishes a new standard for righteousness, or, more likely, corrects the skewed old standard to how it should have been interpreted all along.

Think of how self-righteous we can be with the following statements. “I’ve never committed a violent act in my life!” “I have been a faithful partner for all my married years.” “When I make a promise, I keep it!”


You feel pretty good about it when you can make those three statements, don’t you? Jesus however sets up a new authority. Jesus compares the rules of humanity to the rules of humanity’s creator. Jesus refers us back to the owner’s manual. Unlike your car where the owner it refers to is you, here the owner is our Heavenly Father.


We claim a cool and even handed attitude in all our dealings in life, but Jesus asks, “Have you ever hated anyone? Have you ever called anyone a fool, in anger? Have you ever lost your temper? Have you ever thought, ‘I’m so mad I could kill them?’” Jesus tells us that violence wished upon someone makes us just as guilty as violence committed against someone.


We claim fidelity in the most intimate of our relationships, but Jesus confronts us again, “Would you be willing to play a tape of your thought life or publish a catalogue of the videos and movies you watch?” There are more ways to be unfaithful in our most intimate relationships than crawling into bed with people other than our spouse!


We proudly claim that we keep our promises, but Jesus asks, “Why do you have to make a promise at all?” If we have to say, “You have my word on it.” is our word really any good at all?


If you’re like me, you don’t feel nearly as good about yourself as you did at the beginning of this short article. Our righteousness becomes, as Paul says, “nothing but filthy rags!” It isn’t surprising that we need a Savior! It is surprising that so many of us spend so much effort trying to find ways to justify our own actions rather than simply clinging to the forgiveness for those actions that Christ has extended to us through his life, death, and resurrection.

Pastor Craig

A Life Lived Well

Sometime during the night of January 31 – February 1 a man died. In one sense his death was sad. He died alone in his trailer in Wilmer. He chose not to call 911 when he could no longer breathe. He was ready to go anyway.

I doubt any of you would know him. He wasn’t the kind of company most of us keep. He didn’t get out much anyway. The chemo treatments for his throat cancer robbed him of his voice and most of his strength. I knew him only because his sister (who lives in Michigan) called a former pastor of hers (who lives in Houston) who looked up other Presbyterian pastors on the internet and found I was the closest one.

The man, who I’ll simply call M, made some unwise decisions in his life. Part of the reason he ended up where he did was from his own doing. He reached this senior age and had little of the world’s goods to show for it. Now, I don’t believe for a minute that an abundance of stuff is the strongest foundation for peace, joy, happiness, and self-fulfillment. Some of the happiest people I know are among the poorest I know as well.

I visited with M multiple times through texting and a handful of times face-to-face. He had been homeless for a number of years. He had struggled with alcoholism and addiction. He had been out of touch with his two sons for decades.

It is a humbling thing to be at the end of one’s life and wonder what might have been. What would have happened if I would have said “Yes” instead of “No”, or the other way around? What would have happened if I would have studied harder, taken the risk instead of playing it safe, or lifted my voice instead of remaining silent?

I have a few of those moments myself. I could have spent a summer working on the Alaskan pipeline, another summer running a restaurant in Yosemite National Park, the one after that in Yellowstone. I would like to be able to go back and take advantage of just one of those opportunities. Granted, it’s not only about opportunities like that. There are other types of missed moments as well.

M had hope, no, not the kind of hope that he would be made well. He knew all along his days were short. You see, recently he became a Christian. I wish I could say it was through my witness, but it wasn’t. Someone else had the honor of hearing him profess faith in Christ. His hope was no longer in accumulating the things of this world. It wasn’t even about being made well. It was all about finishing well. His hope was in the world to come. He spent Christmas celebrating his advent. He knew that the recent holiday season would be his last. So, he reconnected with his two sons. He took off for Michigan to visit his sister one last time. He spread cheer and hope everywhere he went. He lifted my spirits and ministered to me every time we “talked”. There was no gloom of death around him. There were no unspoken words or deeds left undone.

My friend did not mourn the life he could have, maybe even should have, had. You see, he was more excited about the life that was coming, the time when he really becomes the creature God created him to be, one with no room for regrets, one who has moved from the anticipation of advent to the realization of Christ alive and the bringing of life in its fullest! When he left this world I know he left with the one assurance, other than his salvation, most of us long for – the assurance of a life finished well!

Pastor Craig