God Who Made the Stars

Psalm 19:1-3

The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech,

And night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language

Where their voice is not heard.

Last Saturday night, I had dinner with my big brother, Danny, and he began to tell me a story from childhood. He remembers going with Mom and Dad to Michigan to visit Aunt Doris when he was about 12 years old (a couple of years before I was born). It was very memorable for him because our family didn't travel much. While they were there, Aunt Doris gave them a set of World Book encyclopedias. (I remember those very clearly. I used them for every paper I wrote in elementary school.) Danny began to study things about the universe... The Milky Way, Andromeda, the distance between the Earth, the Sun, the planets and other things. He was fascinated by what he read. One clear night he went out onto the porch and sat gazing up at the stars and he realized there had to be a Creator. He prayed a simple prayer, "God Who made the stars, reveal Yourself to me." There was no immediate answer. In fact, it wasn't until Danny was sixteen that our family began to understand Who God is. After Danny asked Jesus to be his Savior, he remembered his prayer on the front porch on that starry night. God had finally revealed Himself. I'm very grateful for my big brother that he invited God into our lives.

The Compass in My Soul

Every kid needs guidance. They don't always get it from their parents, but in my case I did. I think I was two years old when my family started going to church, so I don't have a memory outside of that culture. Some of my earliest memories are of things like my dad teaching me to pray, my mom teaching Sunday School and Bible Clubs in our home, and my dad gathering the family to read from the Bible before bedtime. I learned how to read by reading the Bible.

My family wasn't perfect. We were kinda weird in a lot of ways. My mom became sick and bedridden when I started first grade, so dad cooked our meals and took us all to church during that time. Mom remained ill with one affliction or another up until I was a teenager. I was the youngest of five children and very close to my mom. I would often stay home with her while the rest of the family went to Sunday or Wednesday evening church services. I was always afraid she would die, so I asked God to let my mom live to see my first child.

One November, I had just turned 12, my mom was laying in her bed and I was sitting with her. She told me she thought this was it - that she was going to die. I began to pray for her and the room started shaking violently. After a few minutes, Mom said she felt like she would be okay. The newspaper headlines the next day said there had been an earthquake centered in Illinois. To me, the timing was supernatural. Mom didn't have an instantaneous healing, but she soon started on some new medication that really helped. By the time I started high school, mom started to go back to church and even teach children again. Eventually, we started teaching together.

Mom was able to be at our wedding. A couple of years later, she and dad were at the hospital with us when Darcy was born 5 weeks early and nearly didn't survive. Mom went with me to the hospital every day for 3 weeks until Darcy was well enough to be released. Then she spoiled her as much as we would allow.

Mom had several battles with cancer that began in 1978 and she passed away in November of 1979 - just a month before Mandy was born. It took me a while to recall what I had asked God to do for me... to let my mom live to see my first child. It made a little easier to let her go when I realized he had loaned her more time.

My parents, especially my mom, helped shape my lifelong relationship with God. I could easily sing the Compass in My Soul song Darcy wrote...

You have raised up this child
In the way she should go
And I will not depart
There's a Compass in my soul

Rusty's Last Day

Today my church celebrated the end of an era. Rusty Kennedy is moving on literally to "God knows what." Maybe it's the litmus test for a calling of God. If it doesn't fit any logic, it's most likely the real thing. That's exactly what happened to Rusty and he describes it in his new blog, www.leavener.com.

Rusty was the youth minister for all four of my children (though Jeff was the only one to experience all seven years of Jr. High and High School under Rusty). I've always admired his creative, outside-the-lines ideas. He is a true leader and an excellent delegater. I've never seen anyone so skilled at assembling a team to take on a monumental task. The Ultimate Youth Camp each summer has always been true to its name. Everything about it was over the top.

One year on Memorial Day weekend, which is also 500 race weekend in Indy, Rusty turned the church gym into a racetrack. Teams of people were racing their radio-controlled cars around the edges of the gym. The infield was complete with lawn chairs, old sofas and trash. Steve McNeil sang Back Home Again in Indiana just like Jim Nabors. What a fun time! We were new to the church back then, so that really made an impression.

I'm thankful for the fun and Christ-centered ministry Rusty provided for our kids in their school years, but I'm also indebted to him for spiritual insights he has brought us in just the past couple of years. When Rusty changed from being youth minister to being minister of evangelism, we saw a new side of him. One of my favorite sermons was when he drop-kicked a box of doughnuts into the parking lot. That's not why it was my favorite sermon, though that was very memorable. The message he was trying to get across is that the church building today is not the temple. WE are the temple! So quit bickering about doughnuts and other minutae. That stuff is not important. We need to be reaching people instead of getting bogged down in material things.

I know God has something great in store for Rusty and his family, otherwise he would not have awakened them at 3:00 in the morning to call them to leave Northside.

In the words of Jim Elliot, "God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him."

God bless you, Rusty and family!

Boxing God

Layton Howerton wrote a song a few years ago called Boxing God. The root thought in his lyrics was the battle of wills we often face when we want our way and God wants His. God always wins.

I've been thinking lately about a different type of Boxing God. The one where we all want to put God in a box that fits our own finite imaginations. Admit it. You do it, too.

My small group started studying the Gospel of John this week. It has made me ponder more about how Israel boxed God. No one had heard a word from God in 400 years when Jesus showed up on the scene. No wonder they didn't recognize God when they saw Him. During those centuries they had the old testament, but they had scrutinized, organized, legalized and institutionalized their religious system. Jesus came along and turned the tables.

God never changes. He outlined everything we need to know about Him in the Scriptures. He came to earth in Person. But just when you think you have Him figured out, He does something to turn you on your head.

There's a big difference between someone who has religion and one who is led by the Spirit. There's an abundance of religious institutions, but only one universal organism that is the Church. Even the creed that speaks of the "Holy Catholic Church" means the latter not the former.

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, he told her "an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

I can't box God and what I know about him is just the tip of the iceberg. When I sit down with someone and try to explain in five minutes how they can have a relationship with God through Jesus, it reminds me very much of a scene from The Matrix. "You can take the blue pill and everything will be just as it was, or you can take the red pill and understand things the way they really are." Becoming a Christian is very much like being born. It's like the first step in a journey of a thousand miles. One amazing thing I know about God is that he relates to each of His children personally. There are no six degrees of separation. No priest is necessary because that is Who Jesus is. He is the Door. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

"Experiencing God" (by Henry Blackaby) holds some sound advice for Christians. Look to see where God is working, then join Him. (Don't try to get Him to join you.) It's a little like Abe Lincoln's response, "It is not 'is God on my side,' but 'am I on God's side?'"

Divine Appointment

My husband Bob and I went out to dinner on Friday. For some reason, he suggested going to a steakhouse near our old neighborhood. When we were seated, the waitress came by to get our drink order. As she was going to get the drinks, Bob commented that she looked really familiar. When she returned, I took a better look at her face and realized she was our old neighbor - our children were playmates in grade school.

After we got caught up on what all our kids are doing now, her face suddenly became serious. "I remember that I came to talk to you when I got pregnant and the baby's father insisted I have an abortion."

My mind flashed back to a vivid memory. A friend from church, who was also a neighbor, had persuaded her to come to my house and talk about her crisis. After talking, she decided to keep the baby, but a few days later, she had a miscarriage. Then she was very upset about losing the baby. Shortly afterward, she started coming to our church.

Now, face to face with her on Friday, she knew exactly how long it had been - 25 years. It was as if she knew how old the baby would be, had it survived. She said, "Do you remember what you said to me? You told me God had helped me raise four children and he would help me with this one too." That was the turning point for her. She went home determined to go through with the pregnancy. Her boyfriend, who was whacked out on drugs, came home and found out she hadn't had the abortion. He beat her so badly that she miscarried three days later. (That was a detail I never knew till now).

Somehow it seemed worth it to her - to be beaten rather than to willingly take her baby's life. Her conscience was clear.

On the way to work today, I heard on the radio that this is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's decision to legalize abortion on demand. During those 34 years, 48,000,000 babies have been aborted.