I Done It for Love

Every year at this time I find myself quoting Clement Moore’s description of the “jolly old elf whose belly shook like jelly.” There is something wonderful about the thought of a benevolent grandfather figure who slips down chimneys and deposits gifts for “good little girls and boys.”

But, as I reflect on my childhood, I realize that I was duped by well-intentioned parents into thinking that this benevolent grandfather was watching me all the time to see if I was bad or good. So I tried to be “good for goodness sake.” I found myself performing for a treat, much like an animal conditioned to “beg” for a bone. And, if I hadn’t been all that good, I resigned myself to my fate, realizing that I could most likely expect a lump of coal or a bundle of switches, because that was what my misbehavior merited.

This kind of thinking spilled over into my life of faith as well. I fell prey to the unbiblical notion that I must be good for God’s sake. After all, God is more ubiquitous than Santa, and much more powerful. If Santa can see me when I’m sleeping and knows when I’m awake, how much more does God know about me? “You’d better watch out,” I thought to myself.

Then I learned about grace, and came to understand that God didn’t come to earth as a baby because I’d been a good little boy and deserved his love. He came into my world because he knew me in the ugliness of my sin, and loved me and accepted me in spite of all that.

Religious people have a hard time accepting this unconditional love that is totally undeserved. They want to do something to earn it. They pride themselves on how well they keep the rules of their faith, thinking that God is pleased with their efforts. Jesus said that they have their reward. Their reward is in being good, and in trying to “outgood” one another. They pride themselves on how much better able they are than others to please God with their religious behavior. This gives new meaning to the term “comparative religion.” We compare ourselves to each other instead of comparing ourselves to God’s perfect law, which declares that there is none righteous – not one. It must break God’s heart to see the ways we strive to please him and earn his favor, when what he wants is simply faith. He wants us to simply respond to his love through faith in Christ, his only Son.

Brennan Manning illustrates this love in a wonderful story.

In 1980, the day before Christmas, Richard Ballenger’s mother in Anderson, South Carolina, was busy wrapping packages and asked her young son to shine her shoes. Soon, with the proud smile that only a seven-year-old can muster, he presented the shoes for inspection. His mother was so pleased, she gave him a quarter.

On Christmas morning as she put on the shoes to go to church, she noticed a lump in one shoe. She took it off and found a quarter wrapped in paper. Written on the paper in a child’s scrawl were the words, “I done it for love.” (citation: Brennan Manning, Shipwrecked at the Stable, in Watch for the Light, Plough Publishing House, 2001)

The shepherds gathered around a feed trough in a smelly barn must have wondered why God would choose to take on flesh, especially in such lowly environs. What was the good news of great joy that was announced by the angels? Simply this: God sent his Son as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind – and he “done it for love.”

Abundant Joy

For the joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10

We Christians have much to be joyful about. Consider this: your sins are forgiven; you have a heavenly Father who loves you, who delights in you, and who gives you the strength and guidance of His Holy Spirit every moment of every day. Furthermore, you have a home in heaven where you will spend all eternity with Jesus and all of God’s family. The list of reasons for joy goes on and on. Paul reminds us that joy is at the heart of the Christian life.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17

Here is a story to illustrate one source of joy for me. A few years ago I took my two eldest grandchildren, Kathryn and Jakob, to pick up an orchid for their great-great-grandmother, Velma Russell, known to all as Mimi. During our shopping adventure we decided to visit WalMart. On the way in Jakob noticed the golden arches over the door. “Papa,” he said, “I see the Madonald’s sign. You know, I’m kinda thirthty.”

So the three of us sat down to enjoy a soft drink and to talk about serious life issues, such as why it’s important to put a lid on a cup and the things Papa used to do with the wrappers from the straws.

Then we made a swing through the toy department. We spent most of our time in the section which contains the books that make sounds. We tried each one of them. I especially liked the one that contained my favorite cartoon characters – Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Tweetie and Sylvester. Jake and I pushed every button in that book, and laughed at each sound. Whoever said that grandpas were just “old little boys” hit the nail on the head. Meanwhile, Kathryn was having her own little party looking at and listening to a book about Pocahontas.

It occurs to me that such merriment is part and parcel of the Christian life. We have been called to joy. We can rejoice even in the midst of struggle, because we know that our lives are in God’s hands and that our futures are secure. Let’s drink deeply from the fountain of God’s love and live every moment in the joy of the Lord.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

Jake's First Start

This story is from the Harrisonburg VA Daily News Record. (www.dnronline.com)

BRIDGEWATER — Harrisonburg High School senior quarterback Jake Durden had a rough start to his varsity career, going 2-for-8 passing with a couple of fumbled snaps and two sacks in the first quarter.
But, boy, did he finish.

Trailing 14-0, the Blue Streaks rallied behind Durden’s four touchdowns — three through the air — while capitalizing on a go-ahead two-point conversion with 6:23 left and a late fumble recovery to defeat Turner Ashby 36-35 on Friday night in an instant classic to kick off the 2011 season.

“I can’t stand too many of these,” HHS first-year coach Chris Thurman said while catching his breath. “But I’ll take them any way I can get them.”

HHS and TA will meet again on Sept. 23 at Harrisonburg in the Valley District opener. Friday’s game did not count as a district game.

Down 35-28 with less than seven minutes to play, Durden calmly flipped a shovel pass to senior running back Corbin Whitelow for 26 yards to avoid the pass rush. The very next play, the 6-foot-3, 192-pound quarterback stood in and took a lick, but not before uncoiling a 37-yard strike to junior Issiah Smith, who regained his balance after making a spectacular stumbling catch.

“I was on the ground, but I saw him get in and take out the side judge, or whoever that was back there,” Durden said. “I saw the man coverage and tried to put it up there for him. He’s a great playmaker.”

Then, Thurman rolled the dice, opting for an option pitch play for two and the lead.

“We had been playing from behind the whole game, so I was hoping to get some momentum,” Thurman said. “You’ve got to take a risk down there.”

Junior Kasaan Fields took the snap and looked for the pitch. Pressured, the play broke down in a hurry, but the speedy Fields kept would-be tackles at arms’ length and somehow found the end zone around the left corner — precious points on what became the game-winning play.

“It was a called play, but it wasn’t that play,” Fields said. “… I was supposed to pitch it. I just used my speed. I just kept my feet moving.”

For three-plus quarters, the Knights were in control.

Running behind a beefy offensive line, junior running back Keenan Jordan steadily gashed the HHS defense. The two-way starter ran for 82 of his 114 yards in the second half, scoring three touchdowns in the game.

“Keenan was like an iron man,” TA coach Charlie Newman said. “… He becomes a different person with the ball in his hands. He was on the sidelines looking like he was about to die… but he really impressed me with a lot of guts there at the end.”

TA’s self-inflicted wounds in the form of 10 penalties and three turnovers helped gradually sway the momentum over to the Streaks, who took full advantage.

After managing to trim the deficit to 21-14 before halftime with a 1-yard Whitelow plunge and a two-point conversion run by Durden, HHS forced TA’s first punt of the night. Then, Durden —– who threw a picture perfect 20-yard TD to Corey Stader in the second quarter — began finding a veteran-like rhythm.

“He’s going to be –— before it’s all said and done — a spectacular quarterback,” Thurman said of Durden, who finished 13-for-27 for 264 yards with another 72 yards on 19 carries. “He’s a lot smarter than his coach. He’s going to be good.”

Durden tied the game twice on consecutive third-quarter drives. First, he fired a 35-yard strike to Weylin Holmes, who burned his only defender in a blown coverage. Then, he capped off a quick minute-and-a-half drive with a 1-yard keeper, making it 28-28.

“In high school football, the momentum thing is huge,” Newman said. “Once they got back into it and felt good about what they were doing, I knew we were going to have to battle. We had some breakdowns on some coverages… and [HHS] made plays when they had to make plays.”

Still, the Knights wouldn’t relent.

On the very next drive, which carried the game into the fourth quarter, quarterback Trent Hart marched TA down the field with four runs of his own for 23 yards. Jordan punctuated the 14-play drive with a 1-yard score.

But late heroics by Durden and Fields — and a fumble by Hart inside the HHS 35 with 3:15 left — sealed the comeback victory for Harrisonburg.

“What a great job up front there,” said Durden, who helped HHS run out the clock. “What a great job up front to move the chains in the fourth quarter.”


Harrisonburg 0 14 13 8 – 36
Turner Ashby 14 7 7 7 – 35

First Quarter

TA — Jordan 13 run (Martinez kick,) 8:55
TA — Shifflett 26 pass from Hart (Martinez kick), 1:47
Second Quarter

HHS — Stader 20 pass from Durden (kick blocked) 9:26
TA — Hanifee 21 run (Martinez kick), 3:30
HHS — Whitelow 2 run (Durden run), 0:59

Third Quarter

HHS— Holmes 35 pass from Durden (Floros kick), 8:32
TA — Jordan 4 run (Martinez kick), 2:59
HHS — Durden 1 run (Floros kick), 1:15

Fourth Quarter

TA — Jordan 1 run (Martinez kick) 6:57
HHS — Smith 37 pass from Durden (K. Fields run), 6:23

—-
HHS TA
First downs 17 22
Rushes-yards 30-86 44-284
Passing 295 155
Comp-Att-Int 17-34-0 12-26-2
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 1-1
Punts 1-30 2-29
Penalties-Yards 6-51 10-81
—-
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING-HHS: Durden 20-63, Whitelow 8-22, Floros 1-(minus 2), K. Fields 1-3; TA: Hart 15-104, Jordan 19-135, Brown 7-14, Collins 1-3, Hanifee 2-28.
PASSING- HHS: Durden 17-34-295; TA: Hart 12-26-155.
RECEIVING-HHS: Charles 5-65, Stader 2-42, Holmes 3-62, Burke 1-3, Smith 2-50, Whitelow 4-73. TA: Shumaker 6-71, Jordan 2-27, Knott 1-17, Allman 1-5, Shifflett 2-35.

Waiting on a hurricane

Living on the coast can often be an anxious waiting game during hurricane season. Looking at the current hurricane tracking map, it appears as though Hurricane Irene is headed for the Carolinas, reminiscent of Hurricane Hugo, which came ashore in 1989just north of Charleston, SC.

We were living on Hilton Head Island in 1989, so I remember well the anxiety of waiting for this massive storm as it bore down on the South Carolina coast.

During those days we were able to track the progress of hurricanes thanks to the maps on the side of the Winn Dixie grocery bags. (This was before the era of paper or plastic.)

I remember carefully plotting the coordinates of Hugo as it approached. With every update provided by weatherman Pat Prokop at WSAV TV in Savannah, we would put a dot on our map to chart the progress of the storm.

Hugo was forecast to make landfall on Thursday, and evacuation of Hilton Head began in earnest on the Wednesday before, because it was predicted to make landfall somewhere in the vicinity of Tybee Island GA or Hilton Head, or possibly enter at the mouth of the Savannah River and travel inland.

Living, as we did, in a ranch style house built on a concrete slab atop a berm of sand maybe two feet above sea level, we realized the damage that such a storm could do. It was clear that if Hugo struck just south of us that we would feel the full fury of the storm surge, which, if it had occurred at high tide, would likely have washed our house into the sound and all the way to Bluffton.

But we stayed all day Wednesday. In fact, First Baptist Church, where I served as associate pastor, and which is located almost on the beach on the south end of the island, conducted our mid-week prayer service per usual on that Wednesday evening. And, not only did we have a handful of hardy members in attendance, we also had a CBS 48 Hours film crew with us to document our service. As we stood in a circle and prayed for the Lord's protection and intervention, the cameras rolled.

Various persons prayed around our little circle. All at once, with eyes closed, I heard the unmistakable voice of my friend, Raymond "Catfish" Enslow, who prayed in his inimitable lowcountry baritone drawl; "Lord, you're the master of the winds and the waves, and we believe that you can redirect this storm if it's your will."

Now I'm a person of faith, and I believe, like Catfish, that God can and does intervene supernaturally, but I still went home and boarded up the house.

That next morning I loaded our family into our van and we joined the throng driving across the bridge to higher, or at least, more distant ground. We decided to go stay with our friends Gary and Wanda in Pritchardville, far enough inland and south to be safe, in our opinion.

As we settled in that evening, we decided we'd watch the CBS 48 Hours show to see how they had covered our prayer service. But, just before the program started, we lost power. Gary hurried out to their travel trailer parked out back, and came back in with a battery-powered portable television. We gathered around the tiny black and white tv like families used to gather around the radio to listen to Amos and Andy. Finally we saw the story of our prayer service, and there, for all America to hear, was Catfish praying that the would Lord redirect the storm.

A short time later the weatherman broke in to give an updated forecast. He reported that Hurricane Hugo had made a small shift in direction. As we plotted the coordinates, it was clear to us that Hugo had indeed turned north, and would quite possibly miss us but would likely hit in the Charleston area.

Indeed, late that night Hugo came ashore right in the Charleston area, with the "right hook" storm surge hitting the little fishing village of McCellanville with a force that tossed 60' fishing boats hundreds of feet up onto land and flooded the entire town.

Hugo then roared through the Francis Marion National Forest and all the way inland through Charlotte, where 90 mph winds blew out windows and toppled trees.

I've often wondered what might have happened but for the faithful prayer of my friend, Catfish.

A tribute to Army pilots

Recently our community mourned the loss of one of its heroes, a young Army pilot named Terry Varnadore, who was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan this past April. CW2 Varnadore is survived by an expectant wife and a child.

On the day his body was flown home the entire community turned out to line the route from the airport to the funeral home. It was a great outpouring of compassion and support.

His story brought to mind my own experiences with Army helicopters and the brave pilots and crew who flew them.

My first flight came during a wargame exercise in Germany dubbed "reforger." At the time I commanded the recon platoon of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, the "Blue Spaders." As a part of this weeklong exercise, my platoon was chosen for a demonstration of air mobility. For this exercise we drove my command track under a Sikorsky "sky crane," the chopper that looks like a praying mantis. We secured it under the chopper by cables, climbed inside, and off we went. My favorite part of this whole deal was watching the notables in the bleachers when we landed. It was hilarious to see them grab their hats and toupees as the prop wash blasted over them.

A year later, when I arrived in Vietnam, I was assigned to command an airmobile infantry platoon. Our "ride" both into the jungle and back out again was the UH6, Huey. We would fly in lifts of six birds, enough to carry the 30-35 men of a rifle platoon. My platoon's assignment was to secure the landing zone, so I flew on the first bird, followed by the rest of my platoon in the other five Hueys. The first chopper carried me plus my radio operator, our platoon medic, a Vietnamese scout, and the "pig" (M60) team. We sat in the door with our feet dangling, flying along at 120 knots and 2000 feet. As we flew, we could see Cobra gunships at both flanks. They provided security for our lift and also "prepped" the lz with miniguns, rocket launchers and 40mm grenades before landed. Every airmobile insertion was another 4th of July.

As we touched down I slid out and directed my platoon into position in order to secure the landing zone. Once the entire company was on the ground in our new area of operations (AO) we moved out in various directions to sniff out any evidence of the movement of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh trail and to interdict any enemy troops.

Every third or fourth day a Huey would fly out to our position with resupplies. And occasionally we had to call on them for the evacuation of a wounded soldier.

We came to be able to distinguish each helicopter by its sound. We could tell a Huey from a Cobra, from a Chinook, from a "loach."

The best sound of chopper blades, though, was that fortnightly "whop-whop" sound of the Hueys that were on their way to extract us to carry us to the rear for a three day stand down.

I grew to greatly admire the brave young men who flew these great birds. They were some of the real heroes of Vietnam; daring, courageous, driven to do their job with the utmost of excellence under the most difficult of circumstances. And today's Army pilots are heroes in their own right. I salute them all.

Even Christians struggle with stress.

A relationship with Jesus Christ does not entitle one to a "get out of stress free" card. In fact, when you follow Christ your life may become even more stressful, because you now have an enemy who will do everything within his power to make your life miserable. (Read "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis)

Which raises the question: How does/should a believer handle stress? Here are some thoughts.

1. Pray; earnestly, honestly, and sincerely. Prayer is how we give to God the things that are stressing us. There is a sense of release and relief by simply being honest to God. And rest assured he already knows your struggles. In fact, He has even allowed them to exist, for purposes you may never know. As we pray, however, we're given a glimpse of God's perspective on our troubles, and we're reminded that we're His precious child, for whom Christ died. Remember, too, that he promises to never leave us nor forsake us. I love the song "He Will Carry You," by Scott Wesley Brown. The chorus says, "If He carried the weight of the world upon His shoulders, I know, my brother, that He will carry you."

2. Share your burden w/a trusted believer, or a few of them, that you know will pray for you. Someone has said that a burden shared is a burden halved. God has created us as a family, and He wants us to support, encourage, and edify one another.

3. Remember that God will use your struggles for His purposes. He won't let any of your experience go to waste. He will help you through this time, then show you how you can bless, encourage and strengthen someone else who needs to hear your story of how He brought you through. (See 2Corinthians 1)

It Only Takes A Moment to Honor A Vet

As soon as I walked into the grocery store, I saw him at the checkout. Stooped, with two canes resting beside him, wearing a Korea veteran hat with pins indicating some of the campaigns he had fought in. I made a beeline for him, even though I was running late on my honey-do errand.

As I walked up to him, I extended my hand. “Thank you for you service, sir.” As simply as that.

With a solid grip he grasped my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

These grand old heroes are fast disappearing. Don’t pass up an opportunity to express your gratitude to one of them.