I realized that I have never been to a car show. Somewhere along the way I should have indulged myself in this wonderful experience, but I never did.
As a kid my dad would take me each month to one of those real old-time barbershops that had a revolving barber pole out front and a barber who smelled like hair cream and had a couple of long thin black combs poking up from within his breast shirt pocket. For the pre-cut waiting ritual, before the next barber chair opened up, I would grab one of the car magazines from the table and look at all the latest designs. I was enthralled. I loved the colors and the modifications. To this day whenever there is a car show on television I have to pause my channel surfing long enough to see what's new. But I never went to a car show in person.
I graduated from bicycles into the official family ‚ “car starter and backer out of the garage person”‚ somewhere around fourteen. Our Sunday routine of going to church would have me hitting my dad up for the keys to the family car, an Olds 98, at about 10:15 a.m. Church began at 11 a.m. I started the car earlier than needed just to savor the experience. I tuned the radio, checked my Vitalis soaked hair in the mirror and then backed the monster of an automobile out of the garage at a sub one mile per hour reverse speed. This went on from about age 14 to the arrival of my learner's permit at age fifteen years and six months. When my learner's permit came my younger brother Dwain took over the sacred duty. It was one of those manly passages of life.
When I finally got my learner's permit I became the perpetually begging chauffeur for each and every family outing. “Mom, I know you just got back from the store, but you know we only have about five gallons of milk ‚ I think I need to go get you some more. Wanna go for a drive?” I wonder to this day how my parents survived the experience, in fact, I am in awe of their patience. Cars to a young man are the single most important legal experience he could involve himself in. Cars change everything ‚ even getting to back them out of garages or chauffeuring the family around town on made up errands. You transitioned into the American definition of manhood behind the wheel of a car.
Today, I saw a banner that advertised the ‚ “32nd Annual Southern Oregon Rod and Custom Show”‚ at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Medford, Oregon. Something of that kid in the barbershop started to stir within me and I found myself in line with a bunch of other aging Baby Boomers getting ready to shell out 7 bucks to see some really beautiful cars. What I didn't know when I bought my admission ticket was the chain reaction of memories and emotions that would visit my mind.
When I entered the exhibit hall I experienced one of those “Wows!”that is similar to a kid on Christmas morning when they wake up and run into the living room to see what Santa brought them. I had the same feeling about five years ago when Jan said yes to the purchase of a new motorcycle. I tried to hide my trembling excitement as “we” made the purchase.
Before me eyes were row after row of the most beautiful custom and historic evidences of the American car culture I had ever seen. Coupes, roadsters, concept cars, reworked cars that resembled little of their original plan and a few unaltered and highly buffed stock models.
I like to do exhibit halls systematically. I usually start walking the outer ring first and then work my way, row by row, towards the center of the exhibit hall where the crème de la crème of exhibits is usually stationed. I think you have to be invited to pay more for this cherished position.
As I started to walk down the rows of cars something unusual began to happen. I would stop to view a car and immediately a person I once knew, who had owned that kind of car, would come to my mind. I began to recall the good times I had with those people. Then a mental equation began to take place. I would see a car then add a memory of a person and then that combination became the equation of a prayer for the car's owner.
For the last few years I have begun to explore the purpose of memories and why the memory of a person enters our minds. I have come to believe that God likes to remind us of people to get us to pray for them. Maybe someday in heaven someone will walk up to us and say, ‚”Do you remember that day when your had that thought of me at the car show? I was going through a life-altering event and only needed one simple prayer to put me over the top into hope and victory and your prayer was the one.” I like to think about those possibilities.
With all of this going on in my mind I knew I needed to take some notes so I exited the exhibit hall and went to my car to grab my notebook and a pen and came back inside. I flashed my red ink readmission stamped left hand at the door and reentered car heaven once again. Now with a notebook in hand I could chronicle the different cars, plus the people, the memories and what I might think and pray about them. My exit to get a note pad proved I was a novice writer who still did not understand that you go nowhere without something to write on.
As I began to walk among the cars I began to do my car show math of “car plus people equals a memory of something a long time ago.”
First off I saw a Studebaker Avanti and it reminded me of the day my dad took me to a car showroom in downtown San Jose to look at this new and strange car design. This car was only produced in 1962-63 and looked edgy for the time. Dad is with God now so my prayer was a simple thanks for the trip that day long ago with my dad to the showroom and the burgers we ate together on the way home. I loved to hang out with my dad.
A 65 Mustang reminded me of a kid named Mark in my high school whose parents actually bought him one. None of the teachers drove a car that nice. I prayed that God would reveal Himself to Mark. I didn't know what else to pray.
Then I saw a 1967 GTO, a “Goat” to the lovers of this muscle car. The sight of it brought another high school friend named Bill to my mind. Bill's dad bought the GTO for Bill at an auction real cheap because someone committed suicide in the car and they didn't find the car for a few days. It needed a little work and some airing out. I asked God to touch Bill wherever he was.
Near the entrance to the exhibition hall sat a 1943 World War II vintage Jeep, that was actually used in the battle on the island of Iwo Jima and then later for the U.S. post war occupation of Japan. The Jeep reminded me of my uncle Chick who lived in Napa, California. My uncles real name was Charles ‚ but Chick was way cooler. He had a little 1940-something military jeep he used for deer hunting trips in Nevada. When I was a little guy we would all pile into uncle Chick's jeep and ride the hills of the wine country above Napa. Uncle Chick is long dead, but I thanked God for the great visits we had as a kid. Thanksgiving at uncle Chick and aunt Edith's place was the best ever.
The show displayed a 1966 Austin Healy Sprite, a very little sports car, like the one owned by a friend in high school named Dick. Dick was, and probably still is, the most handsome guy in the world. Girls fell over when Dick walked by. He was what people today would call a chick-magnet. Add the sports car to it and the sky was his limit. I liked Dick. I prayed that whenever he was that life would be a blessing for him.
Then I saw a Thunderbird - one of the early models. This 1955 T-Bird was something to behold. You could fall into the paint job and never get out, it was that deep. It had some huge engine under the hood and the exhibitor actually placed a mirror beneath the car to make sure you knew that he actually polished that place too. At the car show there was always someone polishing something. Ronnie, my growing up best friend who lived behind us in Campbell, California, had one. He dropped a 427 engine in the frame and took me cruising the main drag of San Jose late one Friday night. We completely destroyed any car that wanted to drag that night. You can use the word “we” when you are a passenger in a really fast car. Passengers are responsible for looking bad during the pre race cruising so they share some of the glory. Ronnie and I got in lots of trouble. I prayed that he was doing well without the trouble. Thanks Ronnie.
I never thought of a Chevy Corvair as a show car but there was one in front of me. My bible college roommate, Doug, owned one. Doug was from the Watts area of Los Angeles. He was multi-ethnic, like about 4 or 5 nationalities. He also owned a dog named Amos who had the exact hair color and texture as Doug. If you put Doug and Amos in front of you, except for the face, they looked very similar. Doug loved the Corvair, especially when it started.
I remember taking my future one and only wife, Jan, on a date with Doug and his girlfriend Linda to Burgerville USA in Portland. It was fun riding in the Corvair with two cute girls and Amos and having no real responsibilities in life. Doug ended up in Italy pastoring a great church and blessing the nation of Italy with his faithfulness God anoint my friend today!
At the end of one line of cars was a 1952 Chevy two-door coupe - the same car our neighbors had on Dardanelli Lane. I grew up on this street when the Silicon Valley had not yet been affected by the silicon and was an orchard filled place of beauty. Bob and Betty, our neighbors to the right, were pretty cool to a 6 year old kid. They owned a Chris-Craft ski boat and always had a tan. I am sure they are dead now. The last I heard about Bob was that he barricaded himself in his lake side cabin, with his Chris-Craft moored at the dock, and the Sheriff's Department coaxed him out of the standoff with a six-pack of beer. I prayed that any kids he had would not repeat some of their father's mistakes.
My grandmother owned a 1951 Ford F-1 pickup truck and there was one at the car show. Grandmother was different than most people I knew. In fact she was the most different person I had ever met. She actually hand painted her 51 Ford pickup with a paint brush and house paint one afternoon. Each fender was a different color - pink, turquoise, green and blue. I forget what the body color was but the truck was a real show stopper in town whenever she went a callin' in Los Gatos. The Beverly Hill Billies show in the 1960's never did surprise me much because Grandma preconditioned me for that experience. I thanked God for a colorful grandmother who really loved my mom. and helped me understand what it was like to be a divorced single mom in the Deep South in the 1930's trying to raise a couple of kids without a man around.
The vehicle I paused the longest in front of was a 1966 half ton Chevy pickup. Dad had one he used as a contractor. That truck carried our family of four on its single bench seat into town on Friday nights to eat Broasted Chicken. This truck was a poor mans RV and each summer it would transport us to the world of camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Into this truck I would slowly climb each summer morning with my brother Dwain, neither of us yet fully awake, ready to spend the entire day on the end of a shovel at some job site serving as familial slave labor. Thank you God for pick up trucks and dads. And for broasted chicken.
Car shows have lots of cars that in their time were pretty boring. The 1964 Ford Falcon is what my wife borrowed from her dad to deliver a freshly-baked Strawberry cake to me while we were in the process of breaking up. This car show had one on display. On the day of the cake delivery Jan missed a turn, hit a telephone pole, and launched the cake into the dashboard. She still has a little scar on her lower lip from that attempted delivery. Everyday I thank God for this woman. She still makes everything in my life good and has brought me things more important than cake for the last 35 years.
I learned to drive on my uncle Dan's ranch on Lewis Road in McArthur, California. My brother and I would spend a few weeks during the summer on the ranch sneezing from hay fever while we helped Uncle Dan harvest his hay. Uncle Dan had a 1949 split-window Chevy pickup truck just like one at the car show. Uncle Dan's truck was a dark forest green. That first summer I learned how to launch a vehicle forward in a succession of bronco like lurches as the clutch and gears tried to find their way together. I remember one time actually getting into third gear and going way too fast for the ranch road and getting chewed out by my uncle. Thank you God for putting Uncle Dan in my life and helping me grow up to not be irresponsible with other peoples property.
And then...their she was. The car of all cars, my first car, a 1957 Chevy two door. Ah, the memories that flooded in as I beheld her beauty. Mine was competition red, with a 283 and a Hurst linkage. A four barrel Holley carb fed that motor loads of cheap gas. The seats had a black leather Tijuana tuck and roll upholstery job. I can still smell the inside of that car. I can feel the clutch tension and the way the gears went together. I can almost hear the sound of KFRC radio playing on the AM dial. There was a lot to pray about regarding the memories associated with this first car. Forgive me God for ditching a Los Gatos city cop late one night. Forgive me God for trying to hit on my girlfriend in an inappropriate way. I found out later that cars, and clothes, don't make the man. Forgive me God for actually selling it for $275.00!
As I walked the hall and bumped shoulders with other aging men like myself, most of us wearing baseball hats and jeans, I bet a lot of memories were firing for more people than just me. I am learning that memories are something we are supposed to use. The memories at not just a mental kaleidoscope for our enjoyment. Memories have purpose. My purpose, actually it was God's purpose, was to get me to pray for people. Sometime I find that I have a memory and savor it without acting on it. Today, I live differently.
As I left the car show and walked out into the parking lot I saw a lot of cars like the one I own, a Japanese import, cars probably not destined for fame. But then I thought that the cars in the exhibit hall, in their past, brought their owners to other events like this one, where similar memories were discovered. As I got into my Subaru Impreza and fired it up I hoped that someday when someone I know visits a future car show, and sees a restored Impreza like mine, that God will bring me to their mind and they will pray for me. I am finding that our memories have a hidden assignment.
In case you are wondering, I would trade my new Subaru Impreza for my old 57 Chevy in a second.
Monday, March 2, 2009
"A Little Boy's Prayer" by Garris Elkins
My father has been gone for over 20 years. Tonight, my thoughts linger around the memories I have of the last months of his life.
When I was a nine year old boy I cried myself to sleep one night thinking that my father would die some day. I don't know why I thought of my Dad dying. Kids think of a lot of deep subjects and no one thinks they do. But they do. It was a traumatic thought for a little boy who saw his Dad as his hero.
As I lay in my bed looking up at my model airplanes hanging from the ceiling above my head I asked something from God. I asked, "God, could you please let me be an old man, at least 39 years old, before my dad dies." I didn't think I could handle it if I wasn't old. To a nine year old 39 was ancient.
I never forgot that night. The years went by and I grew up and parked that prayer in the recesses of my memory. Life continued to march on through the school years, meeting my wife, getting married, having kids, finding a career and simply living life. As the years went on so did the life of my father. He grew old and then he got sick from breathing in asbestos while working in the construction trade in his younger years.
Dad was a composite man, both rough and tender. For awhile he made his living hauling ice blocks into homes in the San Joaquin Valley during the Depression. He hauled ice between construction jobs during the week and then he fought in boxing matches on the weekends‚ the winner taking home 5 bucks. His years as a carpenter and hauling ice made a strong man out of him. He was part of the construction trade in the days when a lot of the work was done without power tools. His biceps looked like Pop-eye the cartoon character.
As the years went on the ministry took me to different cities. Mom and Dad followed us to the first of these places and then realized people who have a calling can end up moving. Mom and Dad stayed in Montana while I assumed a pastoral position in Oregon.
I recall the last Christmas Dad was alive. Jan and I and the kids piled into a little Cessna 172 and flew from the Oregon coast to Kalispell, Montana to spend Christmas with the family. Just before leaving Oregon I bought a 50 pound bag of fresh petite Yaquina Bay oysters and tossed them in the back of the plane. Dad loved oysters and I wanted this to be part of his Christmas joy. Flying up to Montana I knew Dad's health was failing. The asbestos had joined forces with a life of cigarette smoking and this was robbing him of life and breath. I did not know that in 5 months I would return to preside over my father's memorial service.
Our Christmas was great that year. I remember standing over the kitchen sink at my folks home eating oysters and laughing with my Dad and my brother. For the next few days a mound of shucked oyster shells began to grow in the vacant lot next to my parents home. I am sure that in a thousand years some archeologist will excavate that lot and swear that some native tribe must have lived there when the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean was a thousand miles inland. I was so full of oysters that Christmas that I never wanted to see another one ever again.
We had a great Christmas and then we up fired up the Cessna and flew back home. In April I got a call that Dad was not doing well. We flew back to Montana again to be with Dad and by now he was in the local hospital. It was strange not having him at home with Mom. For almost 50 years they had been inseparable like two friends created especially for the journey they had made together. It was good to see my father that first day. Part of me was afraid something might happen before I could get there.
The next morning I was awakened early, before the daylight came over the horizon, and distinctly heard these words in my heart, "Go to your Dad, now, and read him the 23rd Psalm." I quickly dressed and grabbed a little New Testament with the Psalms that I have owned for 40 years and drove to his bedside.
Hospitals are not real busy places at 5:30 in the morning. I walked past the nurses station and into Dad's room. I went over and gave him a kiss. For the last years of my Dad's life I made a commitment to give my rough and tough, ex-boxer, Pop-eye armed dad, a kiss every time I saw him. If you think that is wimpy you wouldn't dare say so in his presence. He loved it when his two sons embraced and kissed him. I learned from my Dad that real men learn to cry and show love. I hope my kids learn that from me.
As I stood at my Dad's bedside the Lord took over the conversation. I was now on assignment from heaven. As a pastor, I had been in this position many times before. I know when God is talking. I began to read the 23rd Psalm to Dad. When I finished reading I stopped not knowing what to do next. Then an unplanned question came out, "Dad, do you know the Lord?"
It seemed like such a crazy question, but I knew I was being led by the Spirit. Dad attended the church I pastored for 5 years in Montana. He heard me ask other people the same question. Why was I compelled to ask this of him now? Then I saw the tears begin to flow from his eyes. There was a long pause. I asked, "Dad, of all the times I gave an invitation for people to receive God's forgiveness you never thought of asking the Lord yourself?" He answered, "No, I was afraid."
In all of my life I never knew my father to be afraid of anything or any man. I knew I had been awakened by the Holy Spirit to meet my Dad in his hospital room and conduct some eternal business. Like I had done hundreds of times before with other people, I began a prayer with my Dad asking him to repeat after me words of invitation and acceptance of God's forgiveness. Dad repeated the fragments of each sentence with a calm and peace that filled the room as tears continued to flow from his eyes.
After Dad voiced his amen, he had a request. By now several relatives were in town knowing dad was near death and wanting to have their last goodbyes. Dad said, "I want you to call all the relatives and have them come down to my room this morning. I need you to talk to them for me." Dad could hardly talk without great pain due to his dying lungs. Every breath was labored and inhaling caused sharp pains to rip through his body. He winced with each breath. He said," I want you to tell them what I did this morning. I can't talk, but you tell them to get right with God."
Within a couple of hours Dad's bed was ringed with relatives as I shared the events that took place earlier that morning. Dad looked peaceful and confident as I shared. His looked around the room and met the eyes of each person who stood there that day. In all my life I never heard my dad pray or really discuss these kinds of things. On this morning Billy Graham would have been honored to be in the presence of this new 80 year old evangelist name Charlie Wayne Elkins.
In a few days we returned home to Oregon and a month later I got the call that Dad had passed away. As I thought back on those last few months I realized how important it was to have heeded the nudge of God's Spirit to get up and go to Dad's hospital bed at that early hour. But there was something else God was doing in me. He was showing me that He hears every prayer.
My dad died in my 39th year of life. It wasn't until a few years after Dad passed away that the Lord reminded me of that night long ago when I was a little boy crying at the thought of my father's death. God reminded me that He heard the prayers of a little boy who cried himself to sleep asking God to keep his father alive until that little boy became an "old man" of 39.
When I was a nine year old boy I cried myself to sleep one night thinking that my father would die some day. I don't know why I thought of my Dad dying. Kids think of a lot of deep subjects and no one thinks they do. But they do. It was a traumatic thought for a little boy who saw his Dad as his hero.
As I lay in my bed looking up at my model airplanes hanging from the ceiling above my head I asked something from God. I asked, "God, could you please let me be an old man, at least 39 years old, before my dad dies." I didn't think I could handle it if I wasn't old. To a nine year old 39 was ancient.
I never forgot that night. The years went by and I grew up and parked that prayer in the recesses of my memory. Life continued to march on through the school years, meeting my wife, getting married, having kids, finding a career and simply living life. As the years went on so did the life of my father. He grew old and then he got sick from breathing in asbestos while working in the construction trade in his younger years.
Dad was a composite man, both rough and tender. For awhile he made his living hauling ice blocks into homes in the San Joaquin Valley during the Depression. He hauled ice between construction jobs during the week and then he fought in boxing matches on the weekends‚ the winner taking home 5 bucks. His years as a carpenter and hauling ice made a strong man out of him. He was part of the construction trade in the days when a lot of the work was done without power tools. His biceps looked like Pop-eye the cartoon character.
As the years went on the ministry took me to different cities. Mom and Dad followed us to the first of these places and then realized people who have a calling can end up moving. Mom and Dad stayed in Montana while I assumed a pastoral position in Oregon.
I recall the last Christmas Dad was alive. Jan and I and the kids piled into a little Cessna 172 and flew from the Oregon coast to Kalispell, Montana to spend Christmas with the family. Just before leaving Oregon I bought a 50 pound bag of fresh petite Yaquina Bay oysters and tossed them in the back of the plane. Dad loved oysters and I wanted this to be part of his Christmas joy. Flying up to Montana I knew Dad's health was failing. The asbestos had joined forces with a life of cigarette smoking and this was robbing him of life and breath. I did not know that in 5 months I would return to preside over my father's memorial service.
Our Christmas was great that year. I remember standing over the kitchen sink at my folks home eating oysters and laughing with my Dad and my brother. For the next few days a mound of shucked oyster shells began to grow in the vacant lot next to my parents home. I am sure that in a thousand years some archeologist will excavate that lot and swear that some native tribe must have lived there when the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean was a thousand miles inland. I was so full of oysters that Christmas that I never wanted to see another one ever again.
We had a great Christmas and then we up fired up the Cessna and flew back home. In April I got a call that Dad was not doing well. We flew back to Montana again to be with Dad and by now he was in the local hospital. It was strange not having him at home with Mom. For almost 50 years they had been inseparable like two friends created especially for the journey they had made together. It was good to see my father that first day. Part of me was afraid something might happen before I could get there.
The next morning I was awakened early, before the daylight came over the horizon, and distinctly heard these words in my heart, "Go to your Dad, now, and read him the 23rd Psalm." I quickly dressed and grabbed a little New Testament with the Psalms that I have owned for 40 years and drove to his bedside.
Hospitals are not real busy places at 5:30 in the morning. I walked past the nurses station and into Dad's room. I went over and gave him a kiss. For the last years of my Dad's life I made a commitment to give my rough and tough, ex-boxer, Pop-eye armed dad, a kiss every time I saw him. If you think that is wimpy you wouldn't dare say so in his presence. He loved it when his two sons embraced and kissed him. I learned from my Dad that real men learn to cry and show love. I hope my kids learn that from me.
As I stood at my Dad's bedside the Lord took over the conversation. I was now on assignment from heaven. As a pastor, I had been in this position many times before. I know when God is talking. I began to read the 23rd Psalm to Dad. When I finished reading I stopped not knowing what to do next. Then an unplanned question came out, "Dad, do you know the Lord?"
It seemed like such a crazy question, but I knew I was being led by the Spirit. Dad attended the church I pastored for 5 years in Montana. He heard me ask other people the same question. Why was I compelled to ask this of him now? Then I saw the tears begin to flow from his eyes. There was a long pause. I asked, "Dad, of all the times I gave an invitation for people to receive God's forgiveness you never thought of asking the Lord yourself?" He answered, "No, I was afraid."
In all of my life I never knew my father to be afraid of anything or any man. I knew I had been awakened by the Holy Spirit to meet my Dad in his hospital room and conduct some eternal business. Like I had done hundreds of times before with other people, I began a prayer with my Dad asking him to repeat after me words of invitation and acceptance of God's forgiveness. Dad repeated the fragments of each sentence with a calm and peace that filled the room as tears continued to flow from his eyes.
After Dad voiced his amen, he had a request. By now several relatives were in town knowing dad was near death and wanting to have their last goodbyes. Dad said, "I want you to call all the relatives and have them come down to my room this morning. I need you to talk to them for me." Dad could hardly talk without great pain due to his dying lungs. Every breath was labored and inhaling caused sharp pains to rip through his body. He winced with each breath. He said," I want you to tell them what I did this morning. I can't talk, but you tell them to get right with God."
Within a couple of hours Dad's bed was ringed with relatives as I shared the events that took place earlier that morning. Dad looked peaceful and confident as I shared. His looked around the room and met the eyes of each person who stood there that day. In all my life I never heard my dad pray or really discuss these kinds of things. On this morning Billy Graham would have been honored to be in the presence of this new 80 year old evangelist name Charlie Wayne Elkins.
In a few days we returned home to Oregon and a month later I got the call that Dad had passed away. As I thought back on those last few months I realized how important it was to have heeded the nudge of God's Spirit to get up and go to Dad's hospital bed at that early hour. But there was something else God was doing in me. He was showing me that He hears every prayer.
My dad died in my 39th year of life. It wasn't until a few years after Dad passed away that the Lord reminded me of that night long ago when I was a little boy crying at the thought of my father's death. God reminded me that He heard the prayers of a little boy who cried himself to sleep asking God to keep his father alive until that little boy became an "old man" of 39.
"God Remembers Our Promises" by Garris Elkins
In our family I grew up hunting and fishing. Each fall we would make a man-trek into the wilds to pursue deer. I loved the coming of fall. The preparation and plans for the annual hunt was something that occupied my boyhood thoughts from the start of hunting season all the way through the end of the fall.
In my growing up years my dad would say to me and my brother, “Someday I will take you boys on a real hunt.” The “real hunt” meant getting a packer with horses and packing back into some wilderness area for a week and really taking the time needed to do it right.
In the fall of my thirteenth year dad made good on his promise and took me and my brother, who was eleven at the time, on that real hunt. We left our home in Los Gatos, California for the drive across the San Joaquin Valley and up into the High Sierras. Our drive took us through the historic Gold Rush town of Sonora and up Highway 108 to the trail head at Kennedy Meadows.
Farther up Highway 108, the summit of Sonora Pass crosses the Sierras at an elevation of 9,624 feet. At some places the road reaches a steep grade of 26%. The first record of any white man crossing the pass was in 1852. Native American people probably crossed the pass a millennia earlier, but we were the ones who wrote the history books. Eventually a road was surveyed and completed in 1865. Today, at the top of the pass the road still looks like a wagon trail covered with a single lane of asphalt.
After our arrival dad arranged with a packer at Kennedy Meadows to take the three of us and our gear south along the spine of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and deposit us in an area north of Yosemite's northern boundary. As a kid I didn't know that this was one of my dad's “last minute” planned outings. To me and my brother it was a well-planned safari. We arrived at the packers station at mid-afternoon with no reservations.
Our pack string consisted of the packer and his horse leading another horse that carried all our supplies. My brother and I were next in line and dad brought up the rear. Dad used to be a real cowboy so he knew all about horses. They scared me. All that muscle and a mind of their own never did sit well with me.
As we left Kennedy Meadows my thirteen year mind began to wander into those places where young boys live – imagination land. At every turn of the trail and every click of a hoof I imagined a big buck standing near the trail waiting for me. I also imagined bears and other scary things.
As we climbed in elevation we passed rock outcroppings where the trail narrowed and vistas opened up that were covered with granite boulders, a high elevation species of brush, and a few well-spaced evergreen trees. We were approaching the timberline where the vegetation was thinning out.
After what seemed like a couple of hours we came to a bridge that spanned the creek we had been following and the pack horse, the one carrying all our gear, refused to cross. Then I saw the packer do something I had never seen or imagined. He tied the tail of his horse to the bit in the pack horses mouth and the packer's horse literally dragged the resistant animal across the bridge. I kept waiting for the horses tail to snap, but it held and the pack horse was pulled across the bridge. Part of me wondered if this was a repeated routine the pack animal went through each time he had to carry some tender foots gear up the steep mountain trail and across the bridge.
Up we went. The rhythm and sway of the horse and trail was becoming a familiar cadence. These horses were different than the rental horses at summer camp that got a half mile away from the camp corral and then turned around and trotted back no matter what input I gave the reins. These were proven trail animals we were riding. They were so good at what they did that they even took care of kids like me who didn't know anything about horses.
We came to a drift fence. A drift fence is used to hold cattle on the summer range and keep them from drifting off leased government land. This drift fence had a wire gate that was nothing more than a wooden pole at the end of a four-strand barbwire fence with a wire loop that you unhooked to open.
My dad walked his horse up to the drift fence and stopped along side the packer and the pack animal he had in tow. The packer got down to undo the drift fence and handed my dad the reins to the pack horse. Dad tied off the reins of the pack horse onto his saddle horn and began to dismount to stretch his legs. He was placing his foot on the ground when the drift fence let out a squeak as the wire and wood rubbed together. At this squeaking noise the pack horse spooked and pulled away and ran behind my dad's horse trapping his legs with the reins that were still tied to the saddle horn. Dad was pulled underneath his horse.
What took place now went into that slow-motion zone when you are experiencing a life-threatening event. This is where time slows down and expands so you can view the event in unreal time and have an extended opportunity to discover a course of action to help you survive. I remember when our family got in a car wreck and the whole event went into slow motion until the impact. This was the same feeling.
As dad was pulled under his horse, it began to jump up and down in a stomping action. By now dad was directly under his horse and taking the full impact of the hooves into his upper torso. He was stomped repeatedly in his stomach and chest.
Dad used to be a boxer. Months later he would describe watching the horse hooves coming down like the fists of a boxing opponent trying to punch him in the face. As the horse continued to stomp down, dad rolled his head from side to side to deflect each kick like he was in a fight so that the impact would never be direct and fatal. Years later if you looked real close you could still see the small scars on his cheek bones where the horse hooves cut into his flesh with their glancing blows.
Both horses were now on top of my dad stomping him repeatedly. As the stomping was taking place a huge dust cloud began to rise as did the shouts of the packer to his frenzied animals. It was utter chaos. My horse, and the one my brother rode, were getting nervous and moved under us in strange and unfamiliar ways.
As quick as this event happened it was over. Down the trail went dad's horse with the pack horse still attached and bucking. Our camping gear went flying in all directions. The packer yelled something to my brother and me about staying put until he returned with help. We would not see him for another eight hours.
There, in a descending cloud of dust, lay my dad. He was lying in the trail on a bed of sharp rocks that acted like knife attacks to his back in response to the horses frontal assault with their sharp hooves. He was motionless. My little brother and I got off our horses and ran to our dad. He let out a long deep moan of air, his mouth fell open like the dead people we had seen in scary movies, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he was still. One of us, I am not sure if it was my brother Dwain or me, shouted, “I think dad is dead!” That was too much for my little brother. He screamed and ran down the trail yelling for help. It was the loneliest moment in my life. It was also the loneliest place I had ever been. I was miles from the nearest human settlement in the wilderness of the High Sierras kneeling in the trail dust looking down at the body of my dad. My brother was gone. The packer was gone.
For some reason I stood to my feet and walked away from my dad's body and looked up towards a crease in a distant ridge line. To this day I can still see that ridge line in my mind. And then I prayed. My prayer was simple, “God if you will bring my dad back to life I promise I will serve you the rest of my life.” That was the simple prayer I prayed and then I went back to my dad.
As I looked down dad's mouth was still open, his eyes were still rolled back in his head and all the color had drained from his face. He was gray. I reached out and touched his shoulder and yelled, while crying and sobbing, “Dad, wake up!” I did it again and then I heard a groan and he jerked his head up just a bit before the stabbing pain stopped him. Then my dad said, “Are you alright?'' I yelled as loud as I could, “Dad!” and then he passed out again, but at least I knew he was alive.
The packer, we later learned, was working his way back to Kennedy Meadows to get help. My brother had run back up the trail to join me. We didn't know what to do except cover dad with our coats.
For the next eight hours, until the Search and Rescue Team made it to our location, my brother and I were alone with dad wondering what to do. We weren't EMT's, we were just kids. Dad was coming in and out of consciousness. The doctors would later say it was a miracle that he survived. Occasionally, throughout the evening, hunters hiking into the backcountry would stop to offer us words of encouragement. No one offered to stay with us.
When the rescue team finally got to us at midnight they had no idea of the extent of dad's internal injuries. They simply bound up his mid-section, put him on a horse and had him ride the several hours down the mountain back to a waiting ambulance. The ride down the trail was excruciating. I watched as my dad would pass out and fall forward onto the neck of his horse and then wake up again to sit straight in the saddle. This went on mile after mile. Later we would learn that most of his ribs had been brokened. One rib punctured a lung causing it to collapse. Breathing is harder at high altitude even with two good lungs. His spleen and other internal organs were bruised. Dad spent several days in the hospital and then my mom to came and drove us all home.
Our family has told that story many times. We were thankful that we did not lose dad that day high in those lonely mountains. As the years went on, I grew up, finished my education, met my wife, got married, had kids, and continued to live life. I forgot about any promise I made to God.
At age twenty-nine I had one of those dramatic Damascus Road experiences with God. Like Paul's experience in the Book of Acts, God came and got a young man whose life was not headed in the direction of God's destiny for him. Out of that experience with God came the calling I have walked in for the last 30 years. Shortly after God met me, He reminded me of the promise I had made to Him at age thirteen when I asked Him to spare my dad's life. He was calling due the promise I had made so He could link that promise with the calling He had placed upon my life.
We all have made promises to God in times of desperation and once the desperation was over we forgot what we promised. We don't forget for evil reasons – we simply move on from the point of our need and forget. But God doesn't forget. God knows He is working with imperfect people, people who forget things. He also knows what it was like to live in one of our bodies and have to face our human frailties. God knows the perfect time to call a promise due. In my case it was sixteen years after the promise was prayed.
David wrote about making promises and vows to God in Psalm 61. This was after his sexual sin with Bathsheba and the sorrows that went along with that sad event. David wrote, 4 “Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings! 5 For you have heard my vows, O God. You have given me an inheritance reserved for those who fear your name. 6 Add many years to the life of the king! May his years span the generations!”
God heard the vows David made from the sorrow he felt for having sinned so horribly. God did not let the failures and detours of David's life stand in the way of fulfilling His destiny for David. David's vow, and his repentant heart, kept him open to God's calling being fulfilled in his life. I Chronicles 29: 28 summarizes David's life with these words, “He died at a ripe old age, having enjoyed long life, wealth, and honor.”
I believe when we make a promise to God that we are saying something to God that He put in our hearts in the first place. All good things start with God. Our promise to God in a desperate moment is what He uses to link us with the good things that are part of the inheritance David spoke of in Psalm 61.
The disciples also made vows to God. As Jesus talked about His coming death each disciple promised to never deny the Lord, but they all did. Peter's denial was the most dramatic but all of them ran away when things got tough.
Matthew wrote in 26:34-36, “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” 35 “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same.”
The vows and promises the disciples made to Jesus would not be fulfilled until after the Spirit fell on the Day of Pentecost. Vows and promises we make to God can never be accomplished in human willpower alone, but only by the power of God's Spirit. The things we promise God are not humanly possible. Each of the disciples would go to their graves having lived a life in line with the vow they made to God. Those vows were fulfilled on the other side of their abandonment of Jesus at His Crucifixion and on the other side of their restoration by Christ Himself. These vows were fulfilled when each disciple yielded to what God had planned for them.
God is faithful to remind us of forgotten promises. Sometimes the fulfillment of a promise lies on the other side of seasons of failure and forgetfulness when our lives resemble little of the promise we made. When He reminds us of these promises He is not reminding us of our failures. He is reminding us of His love.
Most of us are returning prodigals coming home with unfulfilled promises. God is waiting to embrace us, to kill the fatted calf and start the party.
In my growing up years my dad would say to me and my brother, “Someday I will take you boys on a real hunt.” The “real hunt” meant getting a packer with horses and packing back into some wilderness area for a week and really taking the time needed to do it right.
In the fall of my thirteenth year dad made good on his promise and took me and my brother, who was eleven at the time, on that real hunt. We left our home in Los Gatos, California for the drive across the San Joaquin Valley and up into the High Sierras. Our drive took us through the historic Gold Rush town of Sonora and up Highway 108 to the trail head at Kennedy Meadows.
Farther up Highway 108, the summit of Sonora Pass crosses the Sierras at an elevation of 9,624 feet. At some places the road reaches a steep grade of 26%. The first record of any white man crossing the pass was in 1852. Native American people probably crossed the pass a millennia earlier, but we were the ones who wrote the history books. Eventually a road was surveyed and completed in 1865. Today, at the top of the pass the road still looks like a wagon trail covered with a single lane of asphalt.
After our arrival dad arranged with a packer at Kennedy Meadows to take the three of us and our gear south along the spine of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and deposit us in an area north of Yosemite's northern boundary. As a kid I didn't know that this was one of my dad's “last minute” planned outings. To me and my brother it was a well-planned safari. We arrived at the packers station at mid-afternoon with no reservations.
Our pack string consisted of the packer and his horse leading another horse that carried all our supplies. My brother and I were next in line and dad brought up the rear. Dad used to be a real cowboy so he knew all about horses. They scared me. All that muscle and a mind of their own never did sit well with me.
As we left Kennedy Meadows my thirteen year mind began to wander into those places where young boys live – imagination land. At every turn of the trail and every click of a hoof I imagined a big buck standing near the trail waiting for me. I also imagined bears and other scary things.
As we climbed in elevation we passed rock outcroppings where the trail narrowed and vistas opened up that were covered with granite boulders, a high elevation species of brush, and a few well-spaced evergreen trees. We were approaching the timberline where the vegetation was thinning out.
After what seemed like a couple of hours we came to a bridge that spanned the creek we had been following and the pack horse, the one carrying all our gear, refused to cross. Then I saw the packer do something I had never seen or imagined. He tied the tail of his horse to the bit in the pack horses mouth and the packer's horse literally dragged the resistant animal across the bridge. I kept waiting for the horses tail to snap, but it held and the pack horse was pulled across the bridge. Part of me wondered if this was a repeated routine the pack animal went through each time he had to carry some tender foots gear up the steep mountain trail and across the bridge.
Up we went. The rhythm and sway of the horse and trail was becoming a familiar cadence. These horses were different than the rental horses at summer camp that got a half mile away from the camp corral and then turned around and trotted back no matter what input I gave the reins. These were proven trail animals we were riding. They were so good at what they did that they even took care of kids like me who didn't know anything about horses.
We came to a drift fence. A drift fence is used to hold cattle on the summer range and keep them from drifting off leased government land. This drift fence had a wire gate that was nothing more than a wooden pole at the end of a four-strand barbwire fence with a wire loop that you unhooked to open.
My dad walked his horse up to the drift fence and stopped along side the packer and the pack animal he had in tow. The packer got down to undo the drift fence and handed my dad the reins to the pack horse. Dad tied off the reins of the pack horse onto his saddle horn and began to dismount to stretch his legs. He was placing his foot on the ground when the drift fence let out a squeak as the wire and wood rubbed together. At this squeaking noise the pack horse spooked and pulled away and ran behind my dad's horse trapping his legs with the reins that were still tied to the saddle horn. Dad was pulled underneath his horse.
What took place now went into that slow-motion zone when you are experiencing a life-threatening event. This is where time slows down and expands so you can view the event in unreal time and have an extended opportunity to discover a course of action to help you survive. I remember when our family got in a car wreck and the whole event went into slow motion until the impact. This was the same feeling.
As dad was pulled under his horse, it began to jump up and down in a stomping action. By now dad was directly under his horse and taking the full impact of the hooves into his upper torso. He was stomped repeatedly in his stomach and chest.
Dad used to be a boxer. Months later he would describe watching the horse hooves coming down like the fists of a boxing opponent trying to punch him in the face. As the horse continued to stomp down, dad rolled his head from side to side to deflect each kick like he was in a fight so that the impact would never be direct and fatal. Years later if you looked real close you could still see the small scars on his cheek bones where the horse hooves cut into his flesh with their glancing blows.
Both horses were now on top of my dad stomping him repeatedly. As the stomping was taking place a huge dust cloud began to rise as did the shouts of the packer to his frenzied animals. It was utter chaos. My horse, and the one my brother rode, were getting nervous and moved under us in strange and unfamiliar ways.
As quick as this event happened it was over. Down the trail went dad's horse with the pack horse still attached and bucking. Our camping gear went flying in all directions. The packer yelled something to my brother and me about staying put until he returned with help. We would not see him for another eight hours.
There, in a descending cloud of dust, lay my dad. He was lying in the trail on a bed of sharp rocks that acted like knife attacks to his back in response to the horses frontal assault with their sharp hooves. He was motionless. My little brother and I got off our horses and ran to our dad. He let out a long deep moan of air, his mouth fell open like the dead people we had seen in scary movies, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he was still. One of us, I am not sure if it was my brother Dwain or me, shouted, “I think dad is dead!” That was too much for my little brother. He screamed and ran down the trail yelling for help. It was the loneliest moment in my life. It was also the loneliest place I had ever been. I was miles from the nearest human settlement in the wilderness of the High Sierras kneeling in the trail dust looking down at the body of my dad. My brother was gone. The packer was gone.
For some reason I stood to my feet and walked away from my dad's body and looked up towards a crease in a distant ridge line. To this day I can still see that ridge line in my mind. And then I prayed. My prayer was simple, “God if you will bring my dad back to life I promise I will serve you the rest of my life.” That was the simple prayer I prayed and then I went back to my dad.
As I looked down dad's mouth was still open, his eyes were still rolled back in his head and all the color had drained from his face. He was gray. I reached out and touched his shoulder and yelled, while crying and sobbing, “Dad, wake up!” I did it again and then I heard a groan and he jerked his head up just a bit before the stabbing pain stopped him. Then my dad said, “Are you alright?'' I yelled as loud as I could, “Dad!” and then he passed out again, but at least I knew he was alive.
The packer, we later learned, was working his way back to Kennedy Meadows to get help. My brother had run back up the trail to join me. We didn't know what to do except cover dad with our coats.
For the next eight hours, until the Search and Rescue Team made it to our location, my brother and I were alone with dad wondering what to do. We weren't EMT's, we were just kids. Dad was coming in and out of consciousness. The doctors would later say it was a miracle that he survived. Occasionally, throughout the evening, hunters hiking into the backcountry would stop to offer us words of encouragement. No one offered to stay with us.
When the rescue team finally got to us at midnight they had no idea of the extent of dad's internal injuries. They simply bound up his mid-section, put him on a horse and had him ride the several hours down the mountain back to a waiting ambulance. The ride down the trail was excruciating. I watched as my dad would pass out and fall forward onto the neck of his horse and then wake up again to sit straight in the saddle. This went on mile after mile. Later we would learn that most of his ribs had been brokened. One rib punctured a lung causing it to collapse. Breathing is harder at high altitude even with two good lungs. His spleen and other internal organs were bruised. Dad spent several days in the hospital and then my mom to came and drove us all home.
Our family has told that story many times. We were thankful that we did not lose dad that day high in those lonely mountains. As the years went on, I grew up, finished my education, met my wife, got married, had kids, and continued to live life. I forgot about any promise I made to God.
At age twenty-nine I had one of those dramatic Damascus Road experiences with God. Like Paul's experience in the Book of Acts, God came and got a young man whose life was not headed in the direction of God's destiny for him. Out of that experience with God came the calling I have walked in for the last 30 years. Shortly after God met me, He reminded me of the promise I had made to Him at age thirteen when I asked Him to spare my dad's life. He was calling due the promise I had made so He could link that promise with the calling He had placed upon my life.
We all have made promises to God in times of desperation and once the desperation was over we forgot what we promised. We don't forget for evil reasons – we simply move on from the point of our need and forget. But God doesn't forget. God knows He is working with imperfect people, people who forget things. He also knows what it was like to live in one of our bodies and have to face our human frailties. God knows the perfect time to call a promise due. In my case it was sixteen years after the promise was prayed.
David wrote about making promises and vows to God in Psalm 61. This was after his sexual sin with Bathsheba and the sorrows that went along with that sad event. David wrote, 4 “Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings! 5 For you have heard my vows, O God. You have given me an inheritance reserved for those who fear your name. 6 Add many years to the life of the king! May his years span the generations!”
God heard the vows David made from the sorrow he felt for having sinned so horribly. God did not let the failures and detours of David's life stand in the way of fulfilling His destiny for David. David's vow, and his repentant heart, kept him open to God's calling being fulfilled in his life. I Chronicles 29: 28 summarizes David's life with these words, “He died at a ripe old age, having enjoyed long life, wealth, and honor.”
I believe when we make a promise to God that we are saying something to God that He put in our hearts in the first place. All good things start with God. Our promise to God in a desperate moment is what He uses to link us with the good things that are part of the inheritance David spoke of in Psalm 61.
The disciples also made vows to God. As Jesus talked about His coming death each disciple promised to never deny the Lord, but they all did. Peter's denial was the most dramatic but all of them ran away when things got tough.
Matthew wrote in 26:34-36, “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” 35 “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same.”
The vows and promises the disciples made to Jesus would not be fulfilled until after the Spirit fell on the Day of Pentecost. Vows and promises we make to God can never be accomplished in human willpower alone, but only by the power of God's Spirit. The things we promise God are not humanly possible. Each of the disciples would go to their graves having lived a life in line with the vow they made to God. Those vows were fulfilled on the other side of their abandonment of Jesus at His Crucifixion and on the other side of their restoration by Christ Himself. These vows were fulfilled when each disciple yielded to what God had planned for them.
God is faithful to remind us of forgotten promises. Sometimes the fulfillment of a promise lies on the other side of seasons of failure and forgetfulness when our lives resemble little of the promise we made. When He reminds us of these promises He is not reminding us of our failures. He is reminding us of His love.
Most of us are returning prodigals coming home with unfulfilled promises. God is waiting to embrace us, to kill the fatted calf and start the party.
On the trail that day my earthly father lay wounded and dying. He tried the best he could to keep the promise he made to his boys for a great hunt. On that same day my Heavenly Father was sitting on His Throne directing the scribes of heaven to write down a promise from a thirteen year old boy who needed help. God would later bring that promise back to the boy's memory as he became a man. God is like that – He never forgets the promises we make to Him. He delights in helping those promises become our reality.
"Washing the Face of Angels" by Garris Elkins
My grandmother ran a beer and wine bar in San Francisco in the 1930's. Grandma didn't get into that business overnight. It was the result of a life of hard-nocks that started many years earlier when my grandfather left the house one day to find work and never came back.
Mom has shared with me what it was like to grown up in Alexandria, Louisiana during the Depression, the child of a single parent. You could be shunned in those days if you were divorced. Mom remembered some of that taking place and she also remembers her mother making sure that she and her brother were scrubbed clean each day before they walked to school. Shunning voices didn't need anything more to talk about. At least the Boone kids were clean.
Grandma took in boarders, did laundry and prepared meals for those who stayed the night. Mom remembers that she and her brother each had one pair of shoes that were only worn to church and school. The rest of her childhood years were spent barefoot.
As the Depression deepened my mom's brother headed off for a career in the Navy and she and grandmother left Louisiana for Southern California. Mom had dreams of being the next, soon-to-be-discovered starlet. The starlet thing didn't work out, but years later she was a regular fixture in stage productions in San Francisco. I still have some of her theater flyers and publicity photos from that era.
Soon after arriving in Southern California mom and grandma started a restaurant in Los Angeles called, “Lavert's Southern Belle.” Lavert is my mom's first name and the result of living in French influenced Louisiana. After a short stint in L.A. mom and grandma moved north to San Francisco and opened the beer and wine bar.
This “joint,” as it was called in street parlance, was located in the area of San Francisco near Turk and Eddy Street. In those days is was really rough. Today it is still really rough. Jan and I attended a conference in San Francisco a few years ago and visited this area. We spent most of our time looking over our shoulders.
Recently, I was talking with my mom in our weekly phone conversation about those days long ago. She began to recall memories of her mother. She told me, "my mom used to walk by winos lying in the street and she would tell me, 'Lavert, never forget, that man was once some mother's son.'”
Mom went on to tell me that many times she would see her mom ask a wino, “When was the last time you had a bath?” She remembered that some of those “mother's sons” smelled so bad she would gag if she got too close to them. Grandma would take some of these broken men into the back room of the bar and take one of those big commercial sponges and wash his face like a loving mother might do for a young boy who had returned home after playing outside and getting dirty.
After I finished the phone call and I hung up, I kept hearing my grandmother's words, “Lavert, never forget, that man was once some mother's son.” I thought to myself what great theology my grandmother possessed. Some religious people might not like her because she ran and beer and wine bar in one of the most rundown places in the City. But I think God liked my grandmother a whole lot. In fact, I think she might have been one of His most favorite people in San Francisco in the 1930's.
As you read about the life of Jesus you see Him touching broken people. Jesus wasn't afraid of anything, especially brokenness. When He selected His first disciples He wanted them to see His heart for those the religious establishment had overlooked. When He got mad one day, and cleared out the Temple money-changers, the Word tells us the first people to come back to the Temple were those needing physical healing.
In Matthew 10 Jesus is giving instructions about how to be a disciple on God's mission. He mentioned things that can happen to you when you go in the name of Love. Some of those things can actually get you killed.
As I read chapter 10 of Matthew I didn't notice instructions on how to construct church buildings, how to deliver temperate sermons, make worship comfortable or anything about my IRA fund. What I did notice was verse 42, “And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” The instructions of chapter 10 stood upon those words. Everything Jesus told His disciples that day rested on the foundation of giving Love away.
I think grandma “got it” because she saw people through the eyes of God. Today, when I walk by a wino lying in his vomit and excrement I see a filthy person that makes me want to cross the street to the other side. Grandma didn't cross streets to get away from brokenness. Neither did Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews told us that supernatural things can take place when we meet a wino or a stranger in line at the supermarket. Hebrews 13: 1-2 reads, “Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.”
I believe in a God who is miraculous and shows up and heals impossible diseases, raises dead people and lets us see behind the veil occasionally into the eternal realm. I never understood how people could believe that God created this world in six days and then struggle with a disease leaving a body at a command using the name of Jesus. The Book of Acts never really ended in chapter 28. Our acts in His Name are still taking place today if we choose to see the world around us through His eyes.
Parts of the American church have been spooked away from angels. Some people have been caught up in the whole angel thing and maybe even shifted some of their attention in the wrong direction. Those dangerous and unbiblical shifts still do not diminish the fact that angels are real and are on assignment in the earth today. I believe they were on assignment seventy years ago on the filthy streets of wino town in San Francisco.
You and I will not always know who the angels are because the Bible says that we entertain them “unwittingly.” That simply means we do it unaware. The angels don't always look like we think they should. Sometimes they look like some mother's son who doesn't blend in too well with the rest of us.
As I envision my grandma washing the face of a man “down on his luck,” I wonder if she might have washed the face of an angel?
Mom has shared with me what it was like to grown up in Alexandria, Louisiana during the Depression, the child of a single parent. You could be shunned in those days if you were divorced. Mom remembered some of that taking place and she also remembers her mother making sure that she and her brother were scrubbed clean each day before they walked to school. Shunning voices didn't need anything more to talk about. At least the Boone kids were clean.
Grandma took in boarders, did laundry and prepared meals for those who stayed the night. Mom remembers that she and her brother each had one pair of shoes that were only worn to church and school. The rest of her childhood years were spent barefoot.
As the Depression deepened my mom's brother headed off for a career in the Navy and she and grandmother left Louisiana for Southern California. Mom had dreams of being the next, soon-to-be-discovered starlet. The starlet thing didn't work out, but years later she was a regular fixture in stage productions in San Francisco. I still have some of her theater flyers and publicity photos from that era.
Soon after arriving in Southern California mom and grandma started a restaurant in Los Angeles called, “Lavert's Southern Belle.” Lavert is my mom's first name and the result of living in French influenced Louisiana. After a short stint in L.A. mom and grandma moved north to San Francisco and opened the beer and wine bar.
This “joint,” as it was called in street parlance, was located in the area of San Francisco near Turk and Eddy Street. In those days is was really rough. Today it is still really rough. Jan and I attended a conference in San Francisco a few years ago and visited this area. We spent most of our time looking over our shoulders.
Recently, I was talking with my mom in our weekly phone conversation about those days long ago. She began to recall memories of her mother. She told me, "my mom used to walk by winos lying in the street and she would tell me, 'Lavert, never forget, that man was once some mother's son.'”
Mom went on to tell me that many times she would see her mom ask a wino, “When was the last time you had a bath?” She remembered that some of those “mother's sons” smelled so bad she would gag if she got too close to them. Grandma would take some of these broken men into the back room of the bar and take one of those big commercial sponges and wash his face like a loving mother might do for a young boy who had returned home after playing outside and getting dirty.
After I finished the phone call and I hung up, I kept hearing my grandmother's words, “Lavert, never forget, that man was once some mother's son.” I thought to myself what great theology my grandmother possessed. Some religious people might not like her because she ran and beer and wine bar in one of the most rundown places in the City. But I think God liked my grandmother a whole lot. In fact, I think she might have been one of His most favorite people in San Francisco in the 1930's.
As you read about the life of Jesus you see Him touching broken people. Jesus wasn't afraid of anything, especially brokenness. When He selected His first disciples He wanted them to see His heart for those the religious establishment had overlooked. When He got mad one day, and cleared out the Temple money-changers, the Word tells us the first people to come back to the Temple were those needing physical healing.
In Matthew 10 Jesus is giving instructions about how to be a disciple on God's mission. He mentioned things that can happen to you when you go in the name of Love. Some of those things can actually get you killed.
As I read chapter 10 of Matthew I didn't notice instructions on how to construct church buildings, how to deliver temperate sermons, make worship comfortable or anything about my IRA fund. What I did notice was verse 42, “And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” The instructions of chapter 10 stood upon those words. Everything Jesus told His disciples that day rested on the foundation of giving Love away.
I think grandma “got it” because she saw people through the eyes of God. Today, when I walk by a wino lying in his vomit and excrement I see a filthy person that makes me want to cross the street to the other side. Grandma didn't cross streets to get away from brokenness. Neither did Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews told us that supernatural things can take place when we meet a wino or a stranger in line at the supermarket. Hebrews 13: 1-2 reads, “Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.”
I believe in a God who is miraculous and shows up and heals impossible diseases, raises dead people and lets us see behind the veil occasionally into the eternal realm. I never understood how people could believe that God created this world in six days and then struggle with a disease leaving a body at a command using the name of Jesus. The Book of Acts never really ended in chapter 28. Our acts in His Name are still taking place today if we choose to see the world around us through His eyes.
Parts of the American church have been spooked away from angels. Some people have been caught up in the whole angel thing and maybe even shifted some of their attention in the wrong direction. Those dangerous and unbiblical shifts still do not diminish the fact that angels are real and are on assignment in the earth today. I believe they were on assignment seventy years ago on the filthy streets of wino town in San Francisco.
You and I will not always know who the angels are because the Bible says that we entertain them “unwittingly.” That simply means we do it unaware. The angels don't always look like we think they should. Sometimes they look like some mother's son who doesn't blend in too well with the rest of us.
As I envision my grandma washing the face of a man “down on his luck,” I wonder if she might have washed the face of an angel?
"When Things Dry Up" by Garris Elkins
There are times when I simply need to “hike it out.” A few times each year I get in one of those mental places where showing up at the office only complicates things. Getting away from everything and everybody and connecting with God in nature helps me hear His voice.
I arrived at the French Gulch Trailhead parking lot at about nine in the morning. After putting on my day pack I connected with the Payette Trail and began to hike along the south side of the Applegate Lake. This lake is located near the California border in Southern Oregon. I wanted to get away from the empty parking lot and civilization as fast as possible. God wanted to talk to me and I really needed to hear from Him.
I have been on this trail a couple of times in the past, so the first few miles were familiar. As I hiked my thoughts ranged back and forth looking for a place to settle to do the God business of the day.
As I rounded one hillside, the trail opened up to a panorama that afforded me a view across the lake. The water was still in the windless morning hours. Some waterfowl created small wakes in the distance as they glided across the water.
My sight was draw to the top of the mountain across the lake and then down its timbered side onto the lake where the mountain was reproduced as a reflection on the water. If I was a landscape painter I would want to set up my easel here.
I continued my downward scan across the remaining vision of the upside down reflection of the mountain, across the reflected blue of the sky to the waters edge.
The water surface of the Applegate Lake was down by at least two hundred feet – the lowest I had ever seen. It was late February and the lake was being drained in preparation for the coming spring rains. I was trying to imagine what the lake would look like filled to capacity. The exposed and descending shoreline resembled little stair steps that were created as the water level went down and erosion etched into the soil.
The Applegate Lake wasn't always here. Before the lake was filled, a small town existed in the bottom of the canyon. The name of that little town was Copper. Copper was located about a mile north of the California-Oregon border at the mouth of Carberry Creek. It had a store and a post office that ran from 1924 to 1932. On the hike out I met two old-timers who told me of some people “who got killed there once” and about an old miner who was attacked “up the back side there” by a cougar. The man later died from his injuries.
I can only imagine how nice it was to have the town of Copper way out here in the middle of nowhere when a miner or a homesteading family needed some provisions or wanted to mail a letter. Today, only fish swim along it's submerged streets. Boats carrying fishermen buzz along hundreds of feet above the abandoned town. The ghosts of Copper-past live today in a sci-fi world of dense green water.
As I looked at the waters edge I noticed a road - an old paved road that I had never seen before, only now visible because of the low water level.
My curiosity invited me to hike down the eroded edge of the lake towards the exposed road. On the way down I walked past the lake bottom debris of old beer cans, frosted donut wrappers, and a personal floatation device cover without the device inside.
Old roads intrigue me. They went somewhere once and carried people across history. My dad was always pointing out old roads to me. They usually skirt the modern highways and are now encroached upon by vegetation or they end up being used as an access road. In 1955, our family rode in dad's new Chevy Apache pickup truck to see relatives in Arizona. Dad pulled over to show us sections of the old wooden road that he used to travel on. These wood sections of roadway were built in the 20's to get the first autos across the sand. Old roads tell stories.
Standing on the section of exposed roadway I wondered what it was like before the new dam stopped up the Applegate River. I could see a family driving along this very road in the 1920's to the new post office in Copper. I imagined a young man parked here and pondering his future like I was doing today, only I was pondering the past.
As my thoughts took a historical track the Lord began to speak to me. This was after all why this hike was happening in the first place. I wanted to hear from God. The impression I was getting from the Lord was that, like this lake, sometimes life evaporates. Levels of what is familiar and known to us will be reduced and things will change. God was reminding me that in the evaporating seasons of life, He is still there, constant and unchanging.
This old road and the emptying lake also reminded me of some of what is taking place in our culture today . Somethings that were once familiar and predictable are now drying up – finances, plans, dreams and options. People are getting nervous in unfamiliar times and that unfamiliarity can breed fear. Fear stops the journey. Fear immobilizes faith.
As the water level dropped, the old road once hidden, now emerged. As the familiar drains away, old trails and ways of past navigation will begin to appear. When the old roadways come into view, travelers in the present can see where people in the past made their way. The road we now travel on, though personal and unique, has been traveled by others.
My parents lived through the Depression. They taught me that joy could be found in times of hardship. Their Depression road was tough, but is was passable. Those roads of history have been buried beneath decades of unprecedented growth and blessing in our nation. As things shift downward, the old roads will appear once again and remind us that ancient ways are still available to those who look with the eyes of faith.
I thought of a rock pile somewhere in Israel. This was the rock pile that was a memorial to a river crossing thousands of years ago when God took His people across the Jordan River into the Promise Land. Joshua chapter four captures that moment in time.
“1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight." 4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
In the years after that miraculous crossing, I can imagine little Jewish kids running over to that pile of rocks and talking and asking kid questions. I can see myself in those kids. They would look at the pile of rocks and then glance over at the Jordan River and back again wondering how in the world anyone could cross that watery barrier on dry ground. Young children in the future would hear the Bible story of that day and their imaginations would transport them back in time and drop them right in the middle of the riverbed. Underneath the moving waters of the Jordan River, God provided a miraculous pathway for an entire nation to walk upon. Under the waters of time are hidden the miraculous pathways of the past, that once realized, bring hope to the hearts of people who are faced with difficult passages in the present.
As I was getting ready to hike back up the eroded face of the lake, I looked down where the water still hides the old city of Copper. There, about ten feet out in the lake and underwater, was a sign on a post facing in the direction of the submerged town. Had it not been mid-February and cold I would have stripped down and swam out and tried to read the words on the other side of the sign. I wondered what that sign might still be saying? “Caution: Sharp Curves Ahead”, “35 M.P.H., or whatever.
We are in one of those seasons of history where God is placing signs along our roadway and I believe that written upon these God-signs you will find the words, “Trust Me.” As our history is someday submerged in the past, someone will walk along the shoreline of our lives and upon a road we once traveled. My prayer is that our lives would tell future generations that we trusted Him. That trust brings hope for the journey.
I climbed back up the shoreline of the lake to reach the trail and hike back to my truck. I was ready to face the present because I paid a visit to the past.
I arrived at the French Gulch Trailhead parking lot at about nine in the morning. After putting on my day pack I connected with the Payette Trail and began to hike along the south side of the Applegate Lake. This lake is located near the California border in Southern Oregon. I wanted to get away from the empty parking lot and civilization as fast as possible. God wanted to talk to me and I really needed to hear from Him.
I have been on this trail a couple of times in the past, so the first few miles were familiar. As I hiked my thoughts ranged back and forth looking for a place to settle to do the God business of the day.
As I rounded one hillside, the trail opened up to a panorama that afforded me a view across the lake. The water was still in the windless morning hours. Some waterfowl created small wakes in the distance as they glided across the water.
My sight was draw to the top of the mountain across the lake and then down its timbered side onto the lake where the mountain was reproduced as a reflection on the water. If I was a landscape painter I would want to set up my easel here.
I continued my downward scan across the remaining vision of the upside down reflection of the mountain, across the reflected blue of the sky to the waters edge.
The water surface of the Applegate Lake was down by at least two hundred feet – the lowest I had ever seen. It was late February and the lake was being drained in preparation for the coming spring rains. I was trying to imagine what the lake would look like filled to capacity. The exposed and descending shoreline resembled little stair steps that were created as the water level went down and erosion etched into the soil.
The Applegate Lake wasn't always here. Before the lake was filled, a small town existed in the bottom of the canyon. The name of that little town was Copper. Copper was located about a mile north of the California-Oregon border at the mouth of Carberry Creek. It had a store and a post office that ran from 1924 to 1932. On the hike out I met two old-timers who told me of some people “who got killed there once” and about an old miner who was attacked “up the back side there” by a cougar. The man later died from his injuries.
I can only imagine how nice it was to have the town of Copper way out here in the middle of nowhere when a miner or a homesteading family needed some provisions or wanted to mail a letter. Today, only fish swim along it's submerged streets. Boats carrying fishermen buzz along hundreds of feet above the abandoned town. The ghosts of Copper-past live today in a sci-fi world of dense green water.
As I looked at the waters edge I noticed a road - an old paved road that I had never seen before, only now visible because of the low water level.
My curiosity invited me to hike down the eroded edge of the lake towards the exposed road. On the way down I walked past the lake bottom debris of old beer cans, frosted donut wrappers, and a personal floatation device cover without the device inside.
Old roads intrigue me. They went somewhere once and carried people across history. My dad was always pointing out old roads to me. They usually skirt the modern highways and are now encroached upon by vegetation or they end up being used as an access road. In 1955, our family rode in dad's new Chevy Apache pickup truck to see relatives in Arizona. Dad pulled over to show us sections of the old wooden road that he used to travel on. These wood sections of roadway were built in the 20's to get the first autos across the sand. Old roads tell stories.
Standing on the section of exposed roadway I wondered what it was like before the new dam stopped up the Applegate River. I could see a family driving along this very road in the 1920's to the new post office in Copper. I imagined a young man parked here and pondering his future like I was doing today, only I was pondering the past.
As my thoughts took a historical track the Lord began to speak to me. This was after all why this hike was happening in the first place. I wanted to hear from God. The impression I was getting from the Lord was that, like this lake, sometimes life evaporates. Levels of what is familiar and known to us will be reduced and things will change. God was reminding me that in the evaporating seasons of life, He is still there, constant and unchanging.
This old road and the emptying lake also reminded me of some of what is taking place in our culture today . Somethings that were once familiar and predictable are now drying up – finances, plans, dreams and options. People are getting nervous in unfamiliar times and that unfamiliarity can breed fear. Fear stops the journey. Fear immobilizes faith.
As the water level dropped, the old road once hidden, now emerged. As the familiar drains away, old trails and ways of past navigation will begin to appear. When the old roadways come into view, travelers in the present can see where people in the past made their way. The road we now travel on, though personal and unique, has been traveled by others.
My parents lived through the Depression. They taught me that joy could be found in times of hardship. Their Depression road was tough, but is was passable. Those roads of history have been buried beneath decades of unprecedented growth and blessing in our nation. As things shift downward, the old roads will appear once again and remind us that ancient ways are still available to those who look with the eyes of faith.
I thought of a rock pile somewhere in Israel. This was the rock pile that was a memorial to a river crossing thousands of years ago when God took His people across the Jordan River into the Promise Land. Joshua chapter four captures that moment in time.
“1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight." 4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
In the years after that miraculous crossing, I can imagine little Jewish kids running over to that pile of rocks and talking and asking kid questions. I can see myself in those kids. They would look at the pile of rocks and then glance over at the Jordan River and back again wondering how in the world anyone could cross that watery barrier on dry ground. Young children in the future would hear the Bible story of that day and their imaginations would transport them back in time and drop them right in the middle of the riverbed. Underneath the moving waters of the Jordan River, God provided a miraculous pathway for an entire nation to walk upon. Under the waters of time are hidden the miraculous pathways of the past, that once realized, bring hope to the hearts of people who are faced with difficult passages in the present.
As I was getting ready to hike back up the eroded face of the lake, I looked down where the water still hides the old city of Copper. There, about ten feet out in the lake and underwater, was a sign on a post facing in the direction of the submerged town. Had it not been mid-February and cold I would have stripped down and swam out and tried to read the words on the other side of the sign. I wondered what that sign might still be saying? “Caution: Sharp Curves Ahead”, “35 M.P.H., or whatever.
We are in one of those seasons of history where God is placing signs along our roadway and I believe that written upon these God-signs you will find the words, “Trust Me.” As our history is someday submerged in the past, someone will walk along the shoreline of our lives and upon a road we once traveled. My prayer is that our lives would tell future generations that we trusted Him. That trust brings hope for the journey.
I climbed back up the shoreline of the lake to reach the trail and hike back to my truck. I was ready to face the present because I paid a visit to the past.
"Prophesy Hope to the Seed" by Garris Elkins
“But as a terebinth or oak tree leaves a stump when it is cut down,
so Israel’s stump will be a holy seed.” Isaiah 6:13
This verse hung in the air as I read it and contemplated the current financial environment that is creating fear in the hearts of people. As I read this verse the Lord spoke to me, “I am raising up a host of prophets who will prophesy hope to the seed that remains in the stump. I never leave a stump without a seed. This seed contains the DNA of My life. It is activated and brought to life by hope. Raise your voice and speak hope to the seed that remains. The seed is waiting for the sound of hope. Do not focus on the stump. The stump only carries the seed. This present devastation is temporary. Words of hope are anchored in eternity. Rise up and stand before the stump just as my servant Noah did when I asked him to build the Ark. You will look foolish to those who only see the stump, but I will grow the seed and the tree will stand again. Prophesy to My seed.”
This word from the Lord has a cultural context that we need to understand. We are in a time when the word of hope will have a new level of power and anointing.
In my years of ministry I have been able to travel to many nations. I have seen the church in a western affluent setting and I have seen the church in jungles and worshipped in open-walled huts sitting on split-rail pews that were tree logs in their former lives.
In our western cultures we have discretionary time. This time is that extra part of our day that is not devoted to simply surviving – getting water, finding food and avoiding disease. In this extra space we have the opportunity to read, play sports, watch TV, go on vacation, buy things, and develop the skills required for a hobby. Entire portions of our culture supports itself from the existence of this core of time.
The shrinking of this discretionary core of a culture effects everything. A consumer culture survives on the financial well-being of people who live and recreate within this core. If you don't believe it, talk to car dealers today who used to bank on people buying new cars every few years, or the clothing manufacturer who hasn't seen the volume in sales of casual attire he used to see, or the small town business owner whose profit margin is gone along with the shoppers who used to shop as a form of recreation.
People in many developing countries have only one set of work clothes to wear in the field during the week and then an old suit or a hand-me-down dress that was given to them from some western missionary clothes bin. They wear their “good clothes” to go to church on Sunday. For these people there is no discretionary middle. Today, some of these people are not only found in third world nations – they live among us as the working poor in our communities.
The cultural shift in which most of the western world now finds itself is a time of great opportunity for the church. As the core of leisure time shrinks and the ability to fund that time also diminishes, many people will come face to face with a growing emptiness that can lead to fear and panic. Something must fill that void. This is the time for the Church to speak into the emptiness and prophesy hope.
Just as there remains a natural DNA in the stump of a felled tree in a forest, there remains in each life, felled by crisis, the DNA of God that is waiting to bring resurrection life to what appears to be dead.
As Isaiah was receiving his call as a prophet, the majority of the people in his world did not fully understand God and did not live for Him. That did not stop God. He was waiting to bring His love to His people if they would turn back to Him. It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. He always works with the willing remnant seed. That is why He ended Isaiah 6 with the words of verse 13, “But as a terebinth or oak tree leaves a stump when it is cut down, so Israel’s stump will be a holy seed.”
As you walk in your city today God will bring you face to face with people whose lives resemble tree stumps. We live in a culture of fallen trees. God has sent His Church into the streets to prophesy hope to the seed that is housed in a decaying stump of human brokenness.
As the old tree stump rots away a new season of growth will emerge because words of hope activated the seed within.
This verse hung in the air as I read it and contemplated the current financial environment that is creating fear in the hearts of people. As I read this verse the Lord spoke to me, “I am raising up a host of prophets who will prophesy hope to the seed that remains in the stump. I never leave a stump without a seed. This seed contains the DNA of My life. It is activated and brought to life by hope. Raise your voice and speak hope to the seed that remains. The seed is waiting for the sound of hope. Do not focus on the stump. The stump only carries the seed. This present devastation is temporary. Words of hope are anchored in eternity. Rise up and stand before the stump just as my servant Noah did when I asked him to build the Ark. You will look foolish to those who only see the stump, but I will grow the seed and the tree will stand again. Prophesy to My seed.”
This word from the Lord has a cultural context that we need to understand. We are in a time when the word of hope will have a new level of power and anointing.
In my years of ministry I have been able to travel to many nations. I have seen the church in a western affluent setting and I have seen the church in jungles and worshipped in open-walled huts sitting on split-rail pews that were tree logs in their former lives.
In our western cultures we have discretionary time. This time is that extra part of our day that is not devoted to simply surviving – getting water, finding food and avoiding disease. In this extra space we have the opportunity to read, play sports, watch TV, go on vacation, buy things, and develop the skills required for a hobby. Entire portions of our culture supports itself from the existence of this core of time.
The shrinking of this discretionary core of a culture effects everything. A consumer culture survives on the financial well-being of people who live and recreate within this core. If you don't believe it, talk to car dealers today who used to bank on people buying new cars every few years, or the clothing manufacturer who hasn't seen the volume in sales of casual attire he used to see, or the small town business owner whose profit margin is gone along with the shoppers who used to shop as a form of recreation.
People in many developing countries have only one set of work clothes to wear in the field during the week and then an old suit or a hand-me-down dress that was given to them from some western missionary clothes bin. They wear their “good clothes” to go to church on Sunday. For these people there is no discretionary middle. Today, some of these people are not only found in third world nations – they live among us as the working poor in our communities.
The cultural shift in which most of the western world now finds itself is a time of great opportunity for the church. As the core of leisure time shrinks and the ability to fund that time also diminishes, many people will come face to face with a growing emptiness that can lead to fear and panic. Something must fill that void. This is the time for the Church to speak into the emptiness and prophesy hope.
Just as there remains a natural DNA in the stump of a felled tree in a forest, there remains in each life, felled by crisis, the DNA of God that is waiting to bring resurrection life to what appears to be dead.
As Isaiah was receiving his call as a prophet, the majority of the people in his world did not fully understand God and did not live for Him. That did not stop God. He was waiting to bring His love to His people if they would turn back to Him. It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. He always works with the willing remnant seed. That is why He ended Isaiah 6 with the words of verse 13, “But as a terebinth or oak tree leaves a stump when it is cut down, so Israel’s stump will be a holy seed.”
As you walk in your city today God will bring you face to face with people whose lives resemble tree stumps. We live in a culture of fallen trees. God has sent His Church into the streets to prophesy hope to the seed that is housed in a decaying stump of human brokenness.
As the old tree stump rots away a new season of growth will emerge because words of hope activated the seed within.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
"Shouting Grace at Jericho" by Garris Elkins
When the children of Israel entered the Promise Land ten cities stood as obstacles in their way. The first of these cities was Jericho.
In Joshua 6: 2 God said, “I have given you Jericho.” Jericho was a promised victory. Israel was not yet an army – they were simply a group of desert wanderers with a promise. They had no army. Their resources had worn thin from years in the desert. Their only weapon of warfare was their obedience to God.
The Church stands before in a similar posture. We are facing a Jericho that is standing in the way. The world systems are unstable. Financial fear is trying to lure the people of God into it's fear. There are a lot of walls standing in the way of promise. God is positioning His Church to bring down those walls just as He did in Jericho. We all know the story of Jericho. This was a walled city. There was no way in. God instructed Israel to march around the city once for six days. On the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times, shout, and then they would have the victory.
The shout was the focal point in the story. 1.5 million voices would rise together. This was a shout of grace. A shout that said, “Our only hope is if God shows up.” This shout of grace was wonderfully desperate because Israel had no way into Jericho unless God did for them what was impossible for them to do in their own strength. That is the nature of grace. Grace releases God's favor. Favor brings the victory. When we shout grace at our Jericho, God releases a supernatural favor that no wall can withstand.
What we miss in reading this story of Jericho is the size and dimension of what took place. The city of Jericho covered only six acres of ground. If you consider the outer fortifications the size of the entire city was only 9 acres in total.
At the time this event took place, the children of Israel numbered about 1.5 million people. This is the relative size of cities like Dallas, Philidelphia, Phoenix and San Diego. Try to get the image of what took place at Jericho. A city of nine acres was surrounded by 1.5 million people. The inner ring of people that surrounded Jericho were made up of the priests followed by the men of war and then the people of the nation of Israel. Tens of thousands of people deep as far as the eye could see were a rotating mass revolving around only nine acres. There was no single file line of people. This was a mass of humanity.
For six days no one spoke a word. For six days Israel walked around the city only once each day. On the seventh day they walked around the city seven times. This was not a silent event. You don't move this many people quietly. The sound of 1.5 million people marching was powerful and loud. The earth shook. The dust cloud alone from so many feet pounding the earth would have looked like a dust storm of all dust storms.
On the seventh day, at the completion of seven circumnavigations of Jericho, 1.5 million voices raised and shouted at the walls of Jericho and the Word says the walls of the city fell straight down. This was no timid shout. This was an aggressive and prolonged shout as Israel closed ranks over nine acres of land. I see people running forward and shouting with arms up-raised. 1.5 million people rushed straight ahead and closed the gap over the rubble that used to define the city of Jericho. This former obstacle vanished off the map.
Where are your walls of Jericho? Those walls will not fall by human wisdom and reasoning. Another church program will not do it. Only the shout of grace will bring it down. The shout of grace in obedience to God was the weapon of supernatural warfare for Israel. When we shout grace we are making a statement that unless God shows up we won't be able to move ahead.
God is asking His people to position themselves in unusual prophetic postures to perform unusual acts of obedience. God is asking us to shout grace to the walls that stand in the way of His promise. This is not a timid shout. It is loud and without apology. It comes after days of prolonged obedience and marching in the dust. Many individuals and ministries have been on a long dusty march, but now a plan for victory is before us. The plan for this season is the same plan for victory in all of recorded history – the battle plan is always a plan of grace. The cultures we live in are waiting to see God's miraculous provision demonstrated in His people. We are the ones who possess the shout of grace. The sound of grace is waiting to be echoed in every city and every nation upon the earth.
Today, as you stand before the walls of your Jericho shout out loud the word “grace.” With that shout of grace will come the dismantling of the walls of those encampments that stand in the way of the promise.
'What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"'" Zechariah 4: 7
Gather your mounting bills and shout grace over them.
Stand with you spouse and shout grace into your future.
Shout grace over a wayward child.
Assemble your ministry team and shout long and hard the word of grace to every obstacle that stands in the way of your vision and calling.
Stand on the high places of your city and shout grace over the broken and lost.
Once you shout the grace of God walk straight ahead and see the glory of God. Under your feet will be the remains of fear and impossibility.
In Joshua 6: 2 God said, “I have given you Jericho.” Jericho was a promised victory. Israel was not yet an army – they were simply a group of desert wanderers with a promise. They had no army. Their resources had worn thin from years in the desert. Their only weapon of warfare was their obedience to God.
The Church stands before in a similar posture. We are facing a Jericho that is standing in the way. The world systems are unstable. Financial fear is trying to lure the people of God into it's fear. There are a lot of walls standing in the way of promise. God is positioning His Church to bring down those walls just as He did in Jericho. We all know the story of Jericho. This was a walled city. There was no way in. God instructed Israel to march around the city once for six days. On the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times, shout, and then they would have the victory.
The shout was the focal point in the story. 1.5 million voices would rise together. This was a shout of grace. A shout that said, “Our only hope is if God shows up.” This shout of grace was wonderfully desperate because Israel had no way into Jericho unless God did for them what was impossible for them to do in their own strength. That is the nature of grace. Grace releases God's favor. Favor brings the victory. When we shout grace at our Jericho, God releases a supernatural favor that no wall can withstand.
What we miss in reading this story of Jericho is the size and dimension of what took place. The city of Jericho covered only six acres of ground. If you consider the outer fortifications the size of the entire city was only 9 acres in total.
At the time this event took place, the children of Israel numbered about 1.5 million people. This is the relative size of cities like Dallas, Philidelphia, Phoenix and San Diego. Try to get the image of what took place at Jericho. A city of nine acres was surrounded by 1.5 million people. The inner ring of people that surrounded Jericho were made up of the priests followed by the men of war and then the people of the nation of Israel. Tens of thousands of people deep as far as the eye could see were a rotating mass revolving around only nine acres. There was no single file line of people. This was a mass of humanity.
For six days no one spoke a word. For six days Israel walked around the city only once each day. On the seventh day they walked around the city seven times. This was not a silent event. You don't move this many people quietly. The sound of 1.5 million people marching was powerful and loud. The earth shook. The dust cloud alone from so many feet pounding the earth would have looked like a dust storm of all dust storms.
On the seventh day, at the completion of seven circumnavigations of Jericho, 1.5 million voices raised and shouted at the walls of Jericho and the Word says the walls of the city fell straight down. This was no timid shout. This was an aggressive and prolonged shout as Israel closed ranks over nine acres of land. I see people running forward and shouting with arms up-raised. 1.5 million people rushed straight ahead and closed the gap over the rubble that used to define the city of Jericho. This former obstacle vanished off the map.
Where are your walls of Jericho? Those walls will not fall by human wisdom and reasoning. Another church program will not do it. Only the shout of grace will bring it down. The shout of grace in obedience to God was the weapon of supernatural warfare for Israel. When we shout grace we are making a statement that unless God shows up we won't be able to move ahead.
God is asking His people to position themselves in unusual prophetic postures to perform unusual acts of obedience. God is asking us to shout grace to the walls that stand in the way of His promise. This is not a timid shout. It is loud and without apology. It comes after days of prolonged obedience and marching in the dust. Many individuals and ministries have been on a long dusty march, but now a plan for victory is before us. The plan for this season is the same plan for victory in all of recorded history – the battle plan is always a plan of grace. The cultures we live in are waiting to see God's miraculous provision demonstrated in His people. We are the ones who possess the shout of grace. The sound of grace is waiting to be echoed in every city and every nation upon the earth.
Today, as you stand before the walls of your Jericho shout out loud the word “grace.” With that shout of grace will come the dismantling of the walls of those encampments that stand in the way of the promise.
'What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"'" Zechariah 4: 7
Gather your mounting bills and shout grace over them.
Stand with you spouse and shout grace into your future.
Shout grace over a wayward child.
Assemble your ministry team and shout long and hard the word of grace to every obstacle that stands in the way of your vision and calling.
Stand on the high places of your city and shout grace over the broken and lost.
Once you shout the grace of God walk straight ahead and see the glory of God. Under your feet will be the remains of fear and impossibility.
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