My Thanksgiving (All Of This and Ty)
...and Ty
I am thankful…
For sorrows that pass me by
For the cleansing of a simple sigh
For Donya’s Pumpkin Pie (more almonds, please)
And Ty
I am thankful…
For the memory of friendships past
For Autumn (but it goes too fast)
For my half-empty, half-full glass
And Ty
I am thankful…
For tears I never cried
For okra when it’s fried
For the people who are on my side
And Ty
I am thankful…
For 1940 – ’91
For the man who called me son
Though he left with work undone
And Ty
I am thankful…
For troubles I never see
For daughters better than me
For freedom that isn’t free
And Ty
I am thankful…
For Tommy and Mary Lou
For Felicia and Jimbo, too
(Tell them and I will sue)
And Ty
I am thankful…
For breakfast, especially Mom’s
For the occasional trip to Tom’s
For my sisters and…okay, Don
And Ty
I am thankful…
For the woman I take for granted
For kisses yet unplanted
For a love that’s been enchanted
And Ty
I am thankful…
For Christ and Calvary
For sinners He loves, like me
For the promise of eternity
And Ty
I am thankful…
For a thousand other things
For the hope that a new day brings
For a phone that sometimes rings
And Ty
I am thankful…
Wandering the Backroads of My Mind
Backroads of my Mind
Towns in these parts have international names. There is Paris, Detroit, Bogata, New Boston (and Old Boston), Naples, Atlanta, and Omaha, to name a few. Perhaps they were named by those who founded them based on the places they had once called home. Perhaps they believed that if they gave a town a noble name, it would live up to its name. Or maybe it was the place they most wished they could visit.
Whatever their reasons for choosing such names, these pioneers scratched their new towns out of red clay and built them among stately Pines, pristine lakes, and lush, green meadows.
They may have named their towns for exotic destinations in far away lands, or bigger cities in other states, but they gave them their own distinct personalities. They built the kinds of places and raised the kinds of families that time and circumstance may change, but not very quickly, and not much.
I was raised more of a west Texas boy. The trees were shorter and the scenery might not have been better, but you could see more of it at a time. I was raised where the rolling hills of the famed Texas Hill Country ease themselves into the waiting arms of the west Texas plains and, but for ripples here and there, flatten and yield to the more rugged terrain, the horned toads, roadrunners and mesquite thorns.
In west Texas, people are generally open and friendly. They seldom meet a stranger, or anyone who stays a stranger long. They tell tall tales and battle fierce elements. They bore into sun-baked earth and sometimes strike oil. They grow cotton, cantaloupe, and peanuts, and spend plenty of time praying for rain…but only in the right season.
In east Texas, the people are friendly enough, but they have these comfort zones. Some call them clans. It can be more difficult to break the ice or wedge yourself into a community. But when you are in, you are in. East Texans take as much comfort and find as much beauty in the thick Piney forests as the westerners do in the treeless, windswept plains.
I have traveled both regions rather extensively. I have lived in each, as well.
I grew up in Mineral Wells, climbing a scraggly hill we dared call Welcome Mountain and running the streets without a moment’s apprehension. Years later, In the ’90s, me in my thirties, I spent six years in Paris, Texas, where I pastored as fine a group of people as ever gathered under a steeple.
I love both places.
There is something comforting about not being able to see the forest for the trees, being surrounded by the towering Pines that have withstood howling wind and tons of ice,flash floods and relentless drought. Still they stand, tall and proud, silent sentinels guarding the lonely soul. And yet there is something liberating about seeing for miles and miles as you travel a west Texas road that seldom requires a bend or curve in it, but cuts through the plains like an asphalt arrow aimed at some distant and undefined target where the earth meets the sky.
If you live in the Piney woods, like my mother, enveloped in those trees, the nights can be pitch black. On a night, however, when the moon is bright or the heavens are bedecked with stars unhindered by hovering clouds, looking up through the treetops is a dazzling, intoxicating, even spiritual experience.
But out west, the sunsets, it seems, are always brilliant. As the sun seems to burn itself into the very horizon, every color in the spectrum from deep blue to bright red declares the end of the day and promises the beginning of yet another night of starry splendor. From Orion to the Big Dipper to the Milky Way, the heavenly hosts put on a silent concert for anyone with an ear for the beauty of silence and an eye for the glory of stillness.
I have traveled these places, from El Paso to Texarkana and most every stop between. And tonight, I traveled them again – some by foot, some by car, and some by magic carpet – while lying in the guest room of my daughter’s first apartment, listening to the soft whir of the ceiling fan and the oh-so-faint traffic of Interstate 30.
Just wandering…the backroads of my mind.
But I am Poor and Needy
But I am poor and needy; Make haste to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay. Psa. 70:5 (NKJV)
I saw him again today, this frail old man, dirty, heavily bearded, hollow-eyed and gaunt. He sits on the median of a busy intersection near my home, holding a cardboard sign that declares his destitute state and begs for help from passersby.
I had seen him before, but only as I hurried past him, on my way to whatever was next in my busy life. But today our eyes met. I looked into his and he into mine and I wondered what his story might be. How had he come to this place? What misfortunes, poor decisions, or cruel twists of “fate” had conspired to reduce this man to the place of an undignified beggar?
I looked and I saw myself. Crudely clad in the rags of unrighteousness. Hopeless to change my circumstance. Unable to rid myself of the stench and stain of sin.
Pass Me Not...
When I got home, I quickly turned to the seventieth chapter of the Psalms. I read the startling, sobering words of a king in distress. I listened as David, a rich and powerful king, declared himself “poor and needy.”
And my heart cried out, “So am I!”
I am poor and needy. I have so many needs that I will never be able to meet myself. I was glad that I could say with the Psalmist, “O God, YOU are my help and my deliverer. O LORD, do not delay.” Then, I choked out the words of the old hymn: “Pass me not, O gentle Savior; hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by.”
And I heard Him whisper, “I am here.”
A Prayer For Today: “Father, I am as poor and needy as any person who has ever lived. I cannot save myself. I cannot clean myself up and present myself holy and undefiled to You. I need Your salvation. I need Your cleansing blood. Thank You for meeting my needs. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
The Law of the Jungle and the Law of Christ
Galatians 6:2,5 (NKJV)
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ… For each one shall bear his own load.
From Rudyard Kipling’s timeless classic, The Jungle Book, comes this morsel of wisdom:
“Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break
it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and
back –
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is
the Pack.”
Pay especially close attention, if you will, to that last line: “The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the pack.” There is so much instruction for us in that simple metaphorical statement, especially if we consider it in concert with the words of the Apostle Paul.
Allow me to break it down:
THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK IS THE WOLF.
You have heard, no doubt, that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In any place of community – whether a home, a church, a business organization, or whatever – the strength of the whole is contingent upon the contribution of each individual. Without the wolf, there is no pack. It is the strength and dedication of the wolf that makes the pack a possibility.
The same is true in your church or home or place of business.
Paul puts it this way: “For each one shall bear his own load.”
Let one soldier in a unit fail to do his job, and the entire unit is at risk. Let one member of a team be derelict in his duties and the whole team may fail. Let one church member fail to shoulder his part of the ministry burden, and the entire congregation is put at a disadvantage. Let one family member… well, you get the picture, right?
The strength of the pack is the wolf. You do matter. It IS important whether you do your part. No individual has ever lived and died to himself alone. Your influence and potential is greater than you may realize.
THE STRENGTH OF THE WOLF IS THE PACK
As strong and beautiful as the individual wolf may be, if he is alone, he is vulnerable. He is not a great solitary hunter. His safety and his strength is in the pack
For the church, Paul taps into this truth about the “pack mentality” in Galatians 6:2 when he instructs us to help bear the burdens of others. A community of believers is at its best when it rallies to the aid of a faltering member. Whether it is seeing a widow through the loss of her husband, or a young couple through the death of a child, or a family through the stress of unemployment, or simply lifting one another up in prayer before the throne of the grace.
Way back in Genesis, God saw and asserted that it was not “good” for a man to be alone. He needs companionship. He needs community. Let us beware of too much isolation. Let us be even more acutely aware of how vitally important the church, the home, the workplace, the nation, etc. is to our lives.
The point here is that we each have individual responsibilities, but we should not be individualists. We need each other. Together, with each of us doing our part, we are as formidable and as functional as the wolf pack.
And that, my friend, is the law of Christ…and the law of the jungle.
A PRAYER FOR TODAY:
“Father, I want to take the time today to be thankful for the places of community You have afforded me. (Be specific. Give thanks for your, family, church, workplace, country, etc.) I pray that I will never
take them for granted, and that I will fulfill my individual responsibility so that I am ever a blessing and never a burden. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Social Follow
Journey With...
-
The JourneyMan by D. Gene Strother is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at genestrother.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at permission@genestrother.com.
Here we go…
-
-
-
