On my way home the other day, I listened briefly to a talk show on Christian radio. I don’t know if the conversation started with AI as the topic, but it had gotten there by the time I turned the radio on.

In Christian circles, and particularly in the professional side of it (preachers, teachers, song writers), there is an aversion towards AI. For instance, there is something creepy about thinking that a machine created a whole worship song – lyrics, melody, and even a full “recording” of it with full instrumentals. How can a machine create a song that connects the human soul with the eternal and spiritual God? What does a computer know about loving God? How can you trust that? And how can you trust AI with a sermon? Who wants to hear Pastor Bob read a sermon written by a machine called “Grok?”  Even if Elon Musk owns it? Who wants to participate in a Bible Study generated by ChatGPT?

On this radio show, the host confessed that he had accidentally used AI in answering somebody’s question, but it was only because “Gemini” gave the correct answer when he googled something, and it had come up first. He was apologetic, like he had brushed up against pornography or something. Is it that bad?

I use AI for research. Now, the purest form of research is to run experiments in the field. Ask the question “do people back into parking spaces more now than 50 years ago?”  Then, formulate a hypothesis: “People back into parking spaces more now than 50 years ago.”  Then, go to an old Publix, count how many do, and then find a picture of that Publix 50 years ago, and compare. Research at its purest. Next down on the ladder, you go old-school and go to a library and look for someone who has done that research.  Maybe use the inter-library loan to get the book you need. Or, next down the research lazy ladder, you just Google it, and start reading through the (most often) first page of hits and decide for yourself. The easiest route is to ask AI. I’ll leave that to you.

Now, back in the day, when I used inter-library loan, I might have a theological question and go to the library. I might find a book written by an internationally recognized scholar. Does that mean I would get the right answer? What if that author was Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher? First, you wouldn’t understand the answer, and second, it likely would be wrong. What if a now disgraced preacher wrote the praise song? Is it wrong now? My point is, AI is not the only source of potential mistruth.

And if, for sermons, we are going to only rely on a bunch of pastors confusing inspiration from God with the Saturday night desperation of nothing yet to say for Sunday, we’re all in trouble. Everything we think, everything we believe, everything we say needs to be placed against the backdrop of Scripture with the prayerful blessing of the Holy Spirit. When a thought, when a line from a hymn, a point in a sermon matches up with Scripture, then we can trust it. And I think we can trust it whether it comes from field work, reading a book, googling it, or yes, even asking AI.

I was taught way back in college that “all truth is God’s truth.”  It matters not where I found it, or who articulated it, if it’s true, it is Godly. And I can trust it. Spiritual truths are only those that line up with Scripture. That is our testing ground.

We need to know it well!

Looking towards the Word,

Craig

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. John 17:17 (NIV)

      Living close to Boca Regional Hospital, I can walk to the Emergency Room. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. I can walk to the parking deck by the Emergency Room. And I can walk to the parking deck by the Medical Arts building, and the one by the main entrance of the hospital. Most nights, I walk up all three, getting a lot of steps in without wandering too far from home.

               Because I walk these so often, I start recognizing cars in the lots. I get to see the routines of the security and transportation people. I count the flights of stairs in the stairwells. I get to see the skyline of Boca from my hillbilly castle in the sky (obscure reference alert).

               I also have all kinds of encounters with cars; people driving too fast, people, lots of people, taking breaks/sleeping in their cars, parked collector cars, etc. One of these encounters happened the other night when a Jeep pulled out uncomfortably close to me. I locked eyes with this driver as she pulled out – it wasn’t dangerous, but unnecessarily close for an otherwise almost empty parking lot. And because of the proximity, I could see a dash-full collection of little rubber ducks in her car.

               Now, I have seen these before and have noticed that they appear only in Jeep Wranglers. While I had noticed this around town, I had paid it no mind. But as I pretty nearly got inside this particular Jeep, I saw the collection up close and personal, and it made me curious enough to look up what the deal is.

               We have a couple of Jeep owners in our church, so at the risk of breaking the pact of “It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand” (stickers starts at $7.99 on Amazon), I googled this rubber ducky thing. I typed in “what’s up with the ducks in…” and it auto filled the rest of my question (that’s how many people ask it.) And the answer? Well, during the pandemic, a Canadian woman put one of those ducks on another owner’s Jeep with a quick encouraging note, took a photo of it and posted it on social media under #duckduckjeep, and the idea went viral. While the rest of us were collecting toilet paper, Jeep Wrangler owners started collecting little rubber ducklings.

               As I kept walking up the ramp of the parking lot, I smiled at that thought. It’s kind of cool that this one “random act of kindness” went viral. I think Jesus intended that to happen when He encouraged us to “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Jesus wanted kindness to go viral. The Apostle Paul told Titus “Devote yourselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.”

               There’s also a great sense of community in this. You know you belong to a community when your Jeep gets a rubber duck placed on the door handle. And you can show the world you belong to that community by stuffing them on your dash. (Actually, some of these collections look dangerous to me!) And that got me to wondering about what makes us recognizable as Christians, and, specifically, as members of First Boca. Can people tell that we are Christians and that we belong to a particular church? Now, I don’t think we should make T-shirts that say, “It’s a First Boca thing.”  But it’s something to think about. Janice played “And They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love” a couple of Sundays ago as a prelude. I think that’s more what I’m thinking. I think that’s what Jesus was speaking to in the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s let our lights shine!

Back home,

Craig

“And do not forget to do good and to share with others,
for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”  Hebrews 13:16 (NIV)

       People complain that getting things done in churches takes forever. Maybe nobody complains about this more than me. Well, maybe I should say, “nobody is more aware of this than me,” because I can be the cause of the delays sometimes. Sometimes I am scared of the unknown. Sometimes I can’t figure it out. Sometimes I am opposed to the idea. Sometimes there’s just no money for it – the reasons why things take a long time are many. But the reality is still the same – change can be painfully slow in the church.

        Because of this reality, I laughed, genuinely laughed when I read an article recently about the Sawgrass Expressway. Now, my introduction to the Sawgrass Expressway came through a writer from the Maimi Herald by the name of Dave Barry. He wrote a weekly humor column that justified the purchase price of the newspaper on Sundays. And one Sunday in 1988 he wrote about this new highway–the “Sawgrass Expressway”–that he said nobody in South Florida knew where it went or why it was built. He asked that some tourists drive up it and come back and report on what they found.

         If somebody had indeed reported back then, they would have said it goes way to the North, then bends to the East, and ends up on a road called 10^th Street. Back in 1986 when they finished this project, there was nothing there. It just ended on this street. If a local had driven that scouting expedition, they would have wondered why they didn’t have it end at I-95. Many have wondered about that ever since.

          Fast forward exactly 40 years from the road’s completion, and the newspaper now reports on the plans the State has to extend the Sawgrass to I-95. Finally! They have the plans done and have been sharing them with the public. The article said that the Extension is for three miles. It said the cost would be 1.3 billion dollars, yes, billion dollars. That it costs $433 million to pave a mile didn’t make me laugh. As the article ticked off different details, it was the date of  completion that caught me off guard. They plan to start this year, and they estimate (which you know they will not succeed at) to be done in 2032. I read that and went “What, 2032?!  That’s six years! Six years for three miles?!”  The Sawgrass is currently 23 miles long. They started building it in 1984. At the rate the Extension will take to build, they would still be working on the original Sawgrass today! I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about the pace of things at the church.

           Sometimes we need approval to do things from our Leadership Council, which meets once a month. Sometimes we need approval from a Charge Conference which usually meets only once a year. Sometimes we argue about stuff. Sometimes we have to raise money to accomplish whatever the idea is. There can be many reasons why things take a long time in the church, not all of them involve the pastor! But regardless, I felt it comforting to know that the government can work even slower, and that so can business. That call to be patient is for all of us in the church, and I suppose for the government too!

Scared to drive on 10^th Street now,

Craig

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  Romans 8:25 (NIV)

Last week I wrote about the magnificent train station in St. Louis and mentioned that we had just come from an Evensong service at the Episcopal Cathedral when we walked into it.  The AGO, the American Guild of Organists, had descended on the town for their annual meeting, and the Cathedral had to pull all the stops (so to speak) for their musical service.  Five choirs came from around the St Louis area to make a remarkable ensemble of voices that warranted the vast expanses of the cruciform Cathedral. 

     “Evensong” even sounds old.  Started in the mid 1500’s in England, it followed the tradition of Vespers, which started maybe 1000 years before that.  Those early days, and even today, much of the service is chanted.  Chanting doesn’t do that much for me, so the “choral” evensongs are the ones that catch my attention, and my heart.  If you haven’t been to one, you should go.    

For this particular Evensong, every Scripture reading, of which there were many, ended with the person reading the Bible verses saying, “Hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people.”  Then the congregation responded by saying “Thanks be to God.”  Yes, this mimics what we say when the Scriptures are read here at First Boca.  The reader finishes the Bible verses and says “This is the Word of God, for the people of God” after which we all say, “Thanks be to God.”  I like that response because it reminds us that what was just read was not some teaching or story from the preacher or somebody in the church, it came directly from the Bible.  We understand that these words come from God’s perfect will, not from some benevolent human thought.  And the reader focuses the text on those of us who are listening – the word of God FOR the people of God (the listeners). 
            

But then came this variation.  I found the variation helpful on a couple of levels.  For one, it disrupted my routine.  The repetitive nature of what we say can diminish its impact.  “The Word of God, for the people of God” can become just a verbal prompt for us to blurt out “Thanks be to God” rather mindlessly. 
            

So, the reader there in St. Louis followed the Biblical text with “Hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people.”  The first time this happened, I wasn’t following along with the bulletin.  So, it caught me off-guard when suddenly everyone around me all cried out “Thanks be to God.”  I scooted to the back of the church and asked the usher for a bulletin so I would be ready this time.  Now, when they read from the book of Acts, I was ready.  This time, when I heard “Hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to God’s people” I could respond confidently “Thanks be to God!” 

              But I had to think about it.  What did I just affirm?  What was I saying about this Scripture?  The reader commanded us to listen to what was just read as words that the Holy Spirit– that God Himself–was speaking to us.  This became a faith statement.  The reader announced to all of us there that, regardless of what Scripture was read, we understood it as an instrument of the Holy Spirit to talk to us humans.  That Scripture was the Father speaking to His children.  That Scripture was the Son speaking to humankind.  That Scripture was the Holy Spirit, God’s presence in the world today, addressing me.  And it was meet and right to respond to that idea with “Thanks be to God!” 

That’s why you will find in today’s bulletin this response after all the readings.  It is not our new tradition – I just want to give you the same interruption to the routine so that we will appreciate the inspiration of today’s text.  In his second letter to Timothy, Saint Paul said: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living (2 Timothy 3:16).  I think this is true.  ALL Scripture, every bit of it, is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is useful for us.  I invite you to listen to the Word of God this morning, and to say with conviction, “Thanks be to God!” 

 Reveling in the Word, 

Craig 

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.  James 1:17 (NLT) 

                         The old St. Louis train station boasts some of the most remarkable architecture you’ve even seen. It’s not the biggest station, but close, second only to Grand Central Station in NYC. Majestic, like other stations (shoutout to Cincinnati and Buffalo and even Macon, GA), you just can’t help but marvel at how big the thing was.

​    I say “was” because, like the Chattanooga “Choo Choo” station, it’s now a hotel (and a fair, and a lake, and an eatery extravaganza). But the stained glass window as long as a house still graces the wall above the massive staircase entering the main hall.That, in turn, demands your attention upward towards the vaulted ceilings that soar 65 feet in the air. A painting of the trains arriving at the Mississippi is as big as the side of our church.

​    That train station was the largest train station in the world when it was built in 1894. I can’t imagine what an old farmer, riding to St. Louis for the first time would have thought walking up those grand staircases into that magnificent space. When I walked in, I had just come from a choral Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral a few blocks away.  Aided by the American Guild of Organists that Sunday, it was a glorious hour of divine music. So I walked into that great hall and mentioned to my younger son what that hall would sound like with a big organ. (I even suggested that they should move the Wanamaker organ in Philly’s old Macy’s building there, after all, it started out there!)

​    The idea of a huge organ playing in that hall would be overwhelming. Overwhelming in volume, too; but I think spiritually that hall is a prompt for the imagination to ponder heaven. That old farmer, coming from one world (the farm) into another (the splendor of the station) is a reminder that all of us will board a proverbial train (does the spiritual “This Train” come to mind?), and that what we are headed for is better than what is here. I can’t imagine.

    ​I can tell you that the ticket on that train costs less than what trains cost today (which seems expensive to me) and even less than what the old farmer paid back in the day. It’s free. The invitation God offers for us is free. Not cheap, as we have been reminded by Bonhoffer, but indeed free.

​What train are you on, pilgrim?

Still thinking about the station,

Craig

“The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” — Psalm 121:8 (NIV)

                           In a long line of preschoolers sitting on the sidewalk waiting for their parents to come pick them up, a seemingly random (to a bystander anyway) woman walks by the group, stops, puts her hand out, and up pops a little arm and hand to meet hers. Mom tugs a little at her son to get him and his bag up, and hand in hand they walk off to the parking lot. Another successful day at preschool. 

There is something very tender about that moment. Of all the lined-up children, beautiful and wonderful as they may be, this mom picked one. And by reaching out her hand, she claimed this one, this particular one as her own. I couldn’t see it, but I’m sure they first locked their eyes and smiled. And, of all the other women walking by that morning, teachers and aides and other moms, this boy reached out his hand, signaling that she was his mom. As they walked away, they held hands, a wonderful expression (if you can remember this back in your day) of belonging to each other. The mom reached out and said, “this is my son,” and the son reached out, expressing that she belonged to him, too. 

Someday, 10 or so years from now, that little boy will be a teenager, out on a first date, nervous as can be, walking through a crowded County Fair, and will feel this girl’s hand brush up against his. And then again. And by the third time he’ll reach out to hold the young lady’s hand, and a new sensation will run through him. Is it Iove?  Yeah.  But it’s  that same sense of belonging he had when he was a preschooler, now in a very crowded world, and now with a peer. She now belongs to him, or him to her–no matter, they are now boyfriend and girlfriend. In Spanish, it’s called “jalando” which means “tugging.” You can see where the thought came from. 

God wants us to feel that same thing with Him. I suppose the prior imagery is more appropriate than the second with God. God is not our peer, and we do refer to Him as Father. But it’s that sense of security–that you’re not alone, that you belong to someone and they to you, that brings a simultaneous smile and confidence in confronting the world. Holding a hand means that the support has doubled (in the case of a date,) but rather exponentially with God. That support brings comfort and security. And in the case of the little boy going home from preschool, a spring in his step. I suppose at the Fairgrounds, too. 

As Methodists, we are keenly aware that God is the one who reaches out first. Like the young girl in my illustration, God reaches out before we are aware of it. We reach out to a hand already opened wide. We just need to take it. The needs we have for that outstretched hand of God can be as varied as we are as humans. But the outstretched hand of God offers all the help we need. King David put it this way: You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11 (ESV) 

Smiling at the thought, 

Craig 

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you,  
“do not fear; I will help you.”  Isaiah 41:13 (NIV) 

             If you go mountain biking, you are going to fall.  It’s just part of it.  Whether hitting roots or missing a landing or getting spooked by a seesaw, you’re going to fall.  When I took my boys riding, the inevitable scrapes and bruises I called “souvenirs,” partly to have them not be overcome by the injuries, but also to normalize the reality.  Whether that was a good thing or not, I don’t know; our younger son sure got some “souvenirs” a couple of years ago.  He lost 2 months of work for the privilege of displaying those.

Last week, it was my turn.  I was riding a mountain bike, but was riding primarily the El Rio Trail, when on the way back, I cut through the back of one of the parking lots at Boca Regional and tried to ram through a long hedge.  Some hedges, low to the ground, you can jump or push through.  Some may resist, but you can bend them.  This bamboo hedge wasn’t quite so compliant, however, and demanded that my right handlebar stay on one side of the hedge and let the other through.  This meant my bike went to the right, and I kept going straight, which sans bicycle, I (with Buzz Lightyear) would like to call it “falling with style” but truthfully it was an ugly example of what Woodie would have called just falling.  Last Sunday, some of you saw the scrapes on my hands as proof of the ugliness.

“Fall” and “ugliness” fit together.  Occasionally somebody will fall with some modicum of grace, but usually a fall ain’t pretty.  Maybe that’s why Christians call the sin that Adam and Eve first committed “the Fall.”  It was ugly.  And yes, like me on my fall, the linear trajectory was downward.  Shel Silverstein notwithstanding, all falls go down.  Adam and Eve’s sin lowered their standing, from a righteous conversational relationship with God to a disobedient distance.  From upstanding innocence to a guilty splat.  From living as eternal beings to the condemnation of being temporal ones.  It was definitely “the” fall, not just “a” fall like the one I took on my bike.

And not unlike the scrapes and bruises that I carry right now, they did not emerge unscathed from their fall.  The wounds of “by the sweat of thy brow,” and the pain of childbearing hurt, but nothing like the deep cut that now separated a perfect God from sinful human beings.

The cuts that I have on my hands and limbs are starting to scab — the first signs of healing.  At some point, one or two of them will not disappear completely, but will become scars, not painful, not a health concern, but a mark of how deep the cuts were.  For Adam and Eve’s fall, it would be a long time till Jesus came, received the bruises Himself, bringing for us the wonderful truth that St. Peter shared: “by His wounds we are healed.”  You and I, because of Jesus, can look at our own sins, our own mortality, and see them not as wounds anymore, but as scars, the healed-by-Jesus wounds that our own falls created.

Sin leaves scars.  A missionary once told me that sin is like a nail that is pounded into a tree.  You can take the nail out, the sin can be forgiven, but there will be a wound left in the tree.  That missionary used that illustration to encourage me to avoid sin altogether.  It was an effective illustration.  What I have learned about wounds becoming scars is that the reminder may stay, but with Jesus’ forgiveness, the scars don’t have to hurt.  We can just look at them and learn.

Which maybe I have to do about bike riding!

Back home,

Craig

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:8-9 (NIV)

              Bet you haven’t heard of Joseph McGrail-Bateup. He hails from Canberra, Australia, which I’ll bet you also didn’t know, is the capital of Australia. And even if I told you he held a Guiness Book of World Records title, I’ll bet you couldn’t tell me for what. (A lot of bets here for a non-betting man!)

Anyway…Joseph McGrail-Bateup makes his living in the air-conditioning world. He should come to work for Lindstrom, “I love those guys!”  Air conditioning has won him no medals. Turns out he can shout louder than anyone else. He already holds the honorary title of Town Crier in the capital city, but now the record books show no one can cry better, I mean louder, than he. At a record of 122.4 decibels. Think standing right behind a Spirit jet plane taking off. Oh wait, you can’t do that anymore. OK, like cutting down a big tree with your big old honkin’ chainsaw.

He broke the record by crying out the word “Now,” which wasn’t as funny as the previous record holder, a woman who cried out “Quiet” at 121.7.  Bet she’s a librarian. He has tried six times to break the record; he gets hoarse for a week every time he tries. I can’t imagine.

In these articles, I try to write about something that happens in real life, and try to apply it to Scriptures, or look to the Scriptures for guidance on how to think about that occurrence (in contrast to preaching where I try to go from the Scriptures to real life.)  But this one has stumped me because I think the Scriptures, both teach us to be quiet–think “slow to speak” in James chapter 1; or “shout it from the mountaintops” in Isaiah 40. Which is it? What Biblical application do we find from this?

I think volume implies intensity. On Good Friday, we remember that Jesus cried out in a loud voice “It is Finished” when he died. He also cried out in a loud voice for Lazarus to come back from the dead just a few days earlier. The angels in heaven cry out in a loud voice “Holy! Holy! Holy!” There is room for volume in the Bible. In college (a Christian college) one day, a friend of mine was mad at me, and he mailed me an insult. It simply said, “Job 13:5.”  I’ll bet you don’t know what Job 13:5 says off the top of your head. I didn’t either. I had to look it up. It reads: “If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.”  I chuckled even though he was fuming.

So, what is it? Nobody likes a loudmouth, Lord Joseph (as he’s affectionately known in Canberra) notwithstanding. And “Silence is Golden” as they say in the movies. But there are times to cry out. Like when somebody is headed towards trouble (think a child running into the street.)  Or when singing praises to God–we can’t sing loud enough for that. Saint James, in that verse I alluded to earlier said: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. (v.19). There’s something about emotion that matters in this. “Loudmouths” talk at inopportune times and for too many people to hear. A word spoken in anger, regardless of volume, can be destructive. A loud word gets attention, whether good or bad. A good word, on the other hand, can be transformative.

So, let’s choose our words carefully. Now!!!

Says the preacher.

Craig

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”  Proverbs 25:11 (MEV)

                 We buried my mom on Monday. (I’ve stared at this sentence for a bit – that’s a big statement! You only write that statement once in your lifetime.)  Spending the day with family kind of meant the whole day was a prolonged service with story after story emerging, different facets of my mom emerging from each person. I will treasure the day as a day of closure for sure, but as a rich day of family connection, of personal connection with the past, a clarifying day of family history.

                      At the end of the day, I took my brother and our wives, to a little beach on a little extension of land that protrudes into Tampa Bay from the banks of the Manatee River. It’s a place where my brother has received many a sunset picture but had never been. The stories of the day continued there as we enjoyed a picnic supper in our beach chairs. God put on a wonderful master’s painting class as we watched the colors of the sun change in rapid succession.

As we talked and watched, mullet jumped here and there, but a lone dolphin stole the show, gently patrolling the beachfront, I imagine fishing for the same food that fisherman way out on a sandbar were seeking. The dolphin came from the left, swam past us, and then almost immediately turned around. Some might suggest that was my mom waving goodbye — I don’t think so, I don’t know that I’ve seen that dolphin before, but dolphins passing by there at that time of day happens often. It’s a thing.

But it was a blessing. I was so happy to have it go by so my brother could see it. There’s something wonderful about the big animal passing by so closely and with such grace. I did thank the Lord for blessing us with that image – like my mother, the people of our lives pass by closely and with grace, and as quickly as they come, so they pass. God’s mercies are new every morning (says Lamentations 3), but they must be savored and given thanks for quickly, because they fade quickly, too. Isaiah 90 comes to mind:

Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death —

they are like the new grass of the morning:

In the morning, it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.

The most significant of the natural signs that evening come in the sunset itself. When there is not a cloud in the sky, the colors change, uniformly, but without much flare. Too many clouds and you can lose the sunset altogether. This evening, many clouds, and different kinds of clouds, enriched the sky. It was a complicated and nuanced canvas that God painted that evening. And full of symbolic meaning for us.

My brother told a wonderful story about a group of kids that came from the US for a missions trip to Costa Rica that my dad and he were helping. At the end of the trip, they took them to the Pacific side of the country, and they watched the sunset. Some pubescent (and not bright) boys loved the sunset so much that they resolved to get up early and watch the sun rise. To their credit, they woke before dawn, sat down at the beach where they had been, waiting for the sun to rise. It started to get bright, they got excited, but they never saw the sun. Until it was visible through the palm trees behind them, that is. You may be laughing, as I was when he told the story. Why?

Because you know that from the beginning of time, until it someday comes to an end, the sunrise is as predictable as the sunset. It happens every day. Without fail. But yes, one in the East and one in the West. And that evening, the evening of the day we buried my mom, the sun set on the life that we knew with her, her presence as regular as the sun’s rising in the morning but not anymore, punctuated by the beautiful sunset. The complexity, and the beauty, of the sunset that evening, and the promise of the sun rising tomorrow (always a symbol of resurrection) put an exclamation point on the day, on my mom’s life, on the grace of God though it all.

Grateful,

Craig

From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.

Psalm 113:3 (NIV)

When you walk the same path over and over, you get to know the terrain pretty well. You know where the path dips, or turns, where a downed tree has been left to rot, what street is coming up, etc. Sometimes you notice something for the first time (like the etching of Glades Rd.); even though it’s been there a long time, sometimes you notice something new (and wonder if it had been there all along).

This sign falls under the latter category. When I go for a longer walk, I aim for Delray Oaks Natural Area Park. Delray Oaks doesn’t boast much acreage, doesn’t offer (I was going to say many) any amenities. Off a small parking lot, a paved path meanders into the woods. And that’s it. Oh, and a slender vertical sign about as tall as I am. You can’t read what it says on this page, so I’ll tell you what it says: No pets, no bikes, no collecting, no fires, no camping, no animal feeding, no drones. Could they have not made the sign longer? It doesn’t say no littering. Can you do that? It’s quite a welcome sign, isn’t it? I carried no pet or bike or drone, intended to do none of things it said I couldn’t, but it still felt off-putting. It almost said No Entrance.

I wonder what kind of signs we post for the world to see. In our personal lives do we have a bunch of “no’s” that people have to penetrate before they get to know us? “No, I won’t meet you for lunch. No, I don’t go out much. No, I’m busy with…” Do our personal lives look like the welcome sign at Delray Oaks? What about our spiritual lives? “No, I don’t have time for a Bible Study. No, reading the Scriptures in the morning doesn’t interest me. No, serving at a food kitchen isn’t my thing. No, church is too early, too long, too hard to get dressed for, too…”  And what about our church? “No, we don’t need any help. No, you can’t sit here, or bring that in or…” What are the invisible signs we post at the entrances of our lives? I could probably go on to wonder the same about our professions, neighborhoods, etc.

I really like Delray Oaks Park. It’s an oasis of shaded walkways in an otherwise completely urbanized concrete and asphalt slab. It gets hot on the sidewalks of Congress Avenue, and Delray Oaks feels great to the urban pedestrian.

Likewise, we, as people, have a lot to offer the world. Each one of us has unique gifts to offer the world if we allow the world in. And God has a lot to offer if we say yes to His invitations to know Him and His will better. And our church, my goodness, our church has a lot to offer to any who might test the waters and come in. In each of these cases we need to be careful to not don the Delray Oaks sign but put on God’s “YES!” sign. God’s grace starts with acceptance, a divine “Yes” for any and all.

Do you want to know God better?

Back from the hike,

Craig

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.

And so, through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 1:20 (NIV)