The Blessings I Have Received from the Churches I have Attended

I started to think about my spiritual journey over my life and was struck by a thought… how fortunate I had been in belonging to two churches that have been and are now being lead by really great Christian examples. The “pastors” of these two churches have blessed me, enlarged my faith, challenged me to learn and have comforted me in wonderful ways.

The Intellectual

I began going to the First United Methodist Church in Richardson, Texas shortly after moving to Richardson about 15 years ago. Keaton was in first grade and Sarah must have been about 3-4 years old. We went for the kids, and thankfully God was there waiting to help me too.

It would be another 5 years before I stood up for Jesus, but the time spent at FUMCR was far from a spiritual loss for this sinner. I was baptized in the church along with the kids. My heart felt awful at this time in my life as I knew how troubled I was personally and how far away I felt from God. Over time, as I went to more and more sermons given by my first “pastor” - David Shawver - God began to reach me as I was entranced by his sermons. The sermons appealed to me on an intellectual level that I had never experienced before. I started to understand the reasons why God worked and could work in my life. I was being drawn into God without my asking for it or understanding even the most basic of reasons.

After I came to Christ, got divorced and Suzy began to go to church with me, she too was taken by David’s sermons. But most of all she was taken in by his kindness to her and his unconditional acceptance of both of us into the church. For that and the encouragement of other members of FUMCR we became dedicated to working in the church wherever and whenever we could.

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The last months prior to our move to Colorado were full of everyday trials. One we did not anticipate was the loss of one of our Disciple classmates Melinda Shipman. She was a wonderful person who lived her life fully in God’s grace. She had been ill for many years and her beauty was only enhanced by her fight for a normal life for herself, her husband John and her children.

At her passing John asked Suzy and me to speak at her memorial service. To follow is what I was to say.

To Melinda

Melinda joined our class at the Disciple III level and continued on with us taking Disciple IV this year.

From early on we recognized that every time Melinda entered in the room, Grace and Kindness were always with her.

Melinda was an active member of our class. She shared her heart, her story and her love of her family in many ways.

Over the last 2 days, I was wondering what I could say today that would comfort her family and friends. I believe the hand of God is always with us, if we have but the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

Last night I was reading the book, “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoefer. I came across an excerpt from Mark, Chapter 10, Verses 28-31.

I had been looking for this particular verse for the last 6-9 months.

This verse talks how as a Disciple that when you give yourself up for God’s sake, you shall receive, “A hundred-fold… in the world to come; eternal life.”

Our Class had talked about this concept at length one night. None of us could really imagine a Life with God… such that it would be 100 times better than what we have now.

But, as God’s Disciple, Melinda now knows what this verse means.

Our Class talked a lot about C. S. Lewis, starting with his “Mere Christianity” book. This year we were introduced to Lewis’ sermon called the “Weight of Glory”.

In this sermon, Lewis says: “He (God) thinks of us… we shall stand before Him… The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ… that any of us who truly chooses (God)… shall find approval, shall please God. To please God… to be loved by God, but delighted as a father in a (daughter), it seems impossible, but so it is.”

Then Lewis adds what he calls the “divine accolade”. That is, God, holding our hand and saying:

“Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

I can assure you that Melinda has already heard these words.

The Disciple IV class ends with the study of Revelation. I will finish with, Chapter 21, Verses 3 and 4.

“They will be his people,… and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

As it is.

This is a talk I did at the Sunday Bible School class Suzy and I attend. As we are moving soon I was “moved” to offer up my spiritual journey in advance of my physical journey. Dean Brown the outstanding teacher of the class obliged and what follows is what I said that day. Most of the writing has appeared in parts in the Rocky Mountain Climbing Diary in prior versions and compiled and edited for the Trinity audience of friends and Disciples.

I want to apologize for not being able to attend class for the last 5-6 months. Many of you know that Suzy and I are moving to Colorado soon after my daughter graduates from high school. Over the last 18 months we bought, fixed up and moved in renters into a condo in Avon, Colorado. Started building a house in Eagle, Colorado. Went on numerous business trips from Atlanta to Santa Barbara. Had a couple of school visits. First my daughter Sarah was going to be a Missouri Tiger. She ended up an Aggie. Moved tenants out of the condo, fixed it up again, moved furniture into the condo to make it more saleable, sold it, moved furniture out, closed the sale. Put our house in Dallas on the market… and on and on. Oh yeah, Suzy just got a great job with a company based in New York.

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Jiri lives in Prague Czechoslovakia. I met him as an assistant table leader at Emmaus Walk 184 where we sat at the table of James. I had not heard from him in a year or so, so I was very pleased to see his comment from my journal entry #23. This is a really tough letter because of what he is going through right now. But in the letter is hope and the new beginning of an Emmaus Walk in his home country- the first one ever.

So I would ask prayers for Jiri and his family and for the Emmaus Walk occurring May 24-27.
“Durk,

thank you so much for the letter. I reply only now as I am currently hard pressed for time, and not just time …

All that started when my Mom was rushed to hospital with stroke last year, December 18. The doctors gave no chance as the haemorrage was massive, nearly one third of her right hemisphere was affected, with the lesion going as deep as the brain stem. They were probably right. But strangely enough, somebody decided, in two days, to open her anyway and remove the clot. The result was she started breathing herself but, expectedly, not much more. Now, over three months following the stroke, she is in a condition diagnosed as a locked-in syndrome: the brain stem locks all the supratentorial (i.e. higher cerebral) functions from expressing themselves through the body. Her condition then looks pretty much like a coma, and in all practical respects it is. Her pseudo-comatose condition allows her only blinking, limited side to side eye movements, a tension in her right hand and occasional movements of leg digits.
My Dad went to hospital a month ago in an urgent need to have a multiple by-pass. However, he could not find motivation enough to overcome postoperative complications and died last week. He had an excellent care as Czech kardiosurgery ranks among world top class and, actually, he was recovering. The root problem seemed the lack of will to go on. Tomorrow I am going to have his funeral. I did not tell my Mom yet what happened to Daddy. Still, strangely enough, she seems to be losing motivation to try to show her achievements. She could move even her knees and almost move her right thumb and the little finger separately when she was at her peak. The last few days, however, she seems to show (almost) nothing and keeps just looking away. Given her age, she’s battling against time. Permanent lying can devastate much younger bodies and her neurological progress seems too slow or perhaps none at all.

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I have been doing a lot of reading the last few years. William Barclay’s Commentaries of the New Testament, C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and now his sermons compiled under the title The Weight of Glory, John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul and many more.

But I note The Weight of Glory and Wild at Heart in particular which will lead me through the rest of this writing.

I picked up The Weight of Glory at the last Walk to Emmaus where I was blessed to coach. Close beside it on the table was Wild at Heart which I had already read. These are two very different books but they collided in my head today and caused this writing.

I began reading the Lewis sermon upon returning from the Walk. As usual Lewis took a little time to warm up to his task, but when he got going what I read had to be one of the most beautiful statements about God ever produced outside of the Bible.

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As many of you know we are preparing to move to Colorado. Part of that process is to get rid of some of the stuff we have been carrying around and to rid ourselves of it prior to the move.

Last Sunday, a week ago, I was doing so when I came across a bag we had that included all of the name badges from the first Disciple Bible class we taught 3 ½ years ago. I thought about throwing away the badges when out popped Peggy’s badge. It gave me pause.

You see Peggy has been very ill for a number of months. I couldn’t bring myself to throw away her badge, and felt that finding it was a request for a prayer. And so I did begin to hold Peggy in my prayers.

Peggy died several days later.

Her funeral was on Friday.

When I learned of her passing, I retrieved her name badge. Suzy then found a Disciple “button” that is given away when someone passes the course. I stuck the button into the name badge and took the badge along with the button to the funeral.

Peggy’s illness collected her to Heaven very rapidly, yet she was able to clearly and succinctly setup much of the funeral service prior to her call.

In our sanctuary I distinctly felt the Presence of the Holy Spirit in the church along with the mourners. Peggy was all about life and the pictures that were shared of her life showed that. That is the picture I will always have of her as being full of life.

One of the songs that she chose was the Hymn of Promise, and while I had listened to it any number of times before this day, these words came to life:

“There’s a song in every silence”, and

“In our end there is a beginning.”

At the end of the service was a receiving line of the family, all coming from some distance to be in Dallas to celebrate Peggy’s life, and I was able to pass the badge on to them.

I am taking the rest of the badges with me to Colorado and to wherever else I may go, so that I can hold these friends in my heart forever. It is a small thing, but a necessary thing to do.

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Dr. Clayton Oliphint, our pastor, taught on Thessalonians 5: 11-24 a couple of weeks ago and I found my notes from his sermon. Thessalonians was for me a powerful and positive writing about the human and Christian condition, of course written by the ultimate “green”- Saint Paul.

So I want to point out some of his direct comments from Clayton with comments following from me at the end.

Thessalonians 5: 11-24

11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

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One of the “features” of Choices is talking about and discovering “trying is lying.” To the point that many of us use it in everyday circumstances to make points and to show people what it meant to go through Choices. So I was feeling pretty full of myself when I was reading a chapter in Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. (I know, I know he is showing up a lot lately… well there may be a good reason for that as I will try to explain.)

In Chapter 12 of his book entitled “Faith”, he goes on and on about people trying to do good and to be good. All about people trying to be good Christians and failing. I was thinking to myself, obviously without any divine intervention as has occurred to Lewis on many occasions in his life and writings, well if he had only gone to Choices, he would know all about “trying”.

I kept on reading and realized, or should say had it pointed out to me, that what Lewis was saying was that: “All trying leads to Failure”.

You can’t try to be good, you can’t try to be a better Christian, mother, father, daughter, son, employee, employer or can accomplish whatever it is that you want in your life by trying.

And here is what he says exactly:

“Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get into Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

I’ll say it again: “a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

What would your life be like if you knew that a gleam of Heaven was already inside you?

How about if you just live your life like a gleam of Heaven is already inside you?

Life wouldn’t be so trying… would it?

May the gleam of Heaven within you, shine to all around you and lead you and them into a new relationship with God, Love, Durk