The Guiness Book of World Records – I actually had one of those once. And truthfully, I didn’t think they published them anymore. I thought it was all online. But a quick search on eBay shows that for $22.00 you can buy a 2026 version, and for $10.00 buy one from 1976. I enjoyed reading the records of the tallest person, or the fastest car, or the largest animal in that bicentennial year. Now in our sestercentennial year, I only read about records online, usually in a back-page article in the news. Yes, in the last 50 years The Guiness Book of World Records chronicles not silly records necessarily, but shall we say, “creative” records. Like recently, a 90-year-old woman by the name of Ann Crile Esselstyn got in the book for holding a dead hang position for 2 minutes and 56 seconds, hanging with her bare hands from a horizontal pipe she had hung from the ceiling in a bedroom. Speaking of nonagenarians, an Australian man just got into the book for being the oldest person to become a grandparent for the first time, at 92 years and 209 days old. For those of you who are still waiting – there’s hope!

          And for the most “creative” right now? An Arkansas woman got in the book for wearing the most T-shirts in a half-marathon. OK. “How many?” you might ask. 55. “Why?” you might ask next. Well, she says to replicate the weight she has lost running for the last 17 years. I don’t know how much those 55 T-shirts weighed, and I don’t know what the rest of the 54 white T-shirts said, but the 55^th one simply read “Colossians 3:12.”

      Colossians 3:12 reads: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” I love that! Usually, you see people putting references up like John 3:16, or some other evangelistic verse. Meredith Smith, this woman from Arkansas, chose to ask us for kindness and gentleness. I think this should be the rallying call of Americans right now. Particularly in the United States today, Christians should call one another, not other people, to be compassionate, and kind, and humble, and gentle, and patient. That verse addresses Christians. It says, “as God’s chosen people.”  That would be us.

        Now, compared to some of the violent rhetoric we hear in the national news, we can easily say we’re not doing that. But I think God would call all of us to recall the conversations we have more locally – with our family and friends, and our Christian brothers and sisters. Would others characterize our words, all our words, as compassionate and kind? That’s what the apostle Paul calls us to in that letter to the Colossians. That’s what the Lord is calling us to, as American Christians.

Let’s work on it.

Trying to think of something to get me into that record book,

Craig

Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another;
love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. 1 Peter 3:8 (NKJB)