Walking With Warner

“You will live three months; not more than a year, the doctor told his young patient. His carefully-guarded statement exploded all her plans in the making for raising and mothering a baseball team. It revealed a truth to her she had suspected, but been afraid to think about because of a family histry she knew only too well.

As for me, I found myself a young Airman looking for a life of normality as a family, living in a place where I was a stranger, and facing a future I knew absolutely nothing about, except that I was a washed-out college student in the Military and facing a future that destroyed strong people of twice my age and maturity. Looking at my bride of four months, I saw a crystal-clear glass vase that had been dropped and shattered into a thousand splinters. Two years earlier. I had graduated from South Haven Central and enrolled in Summer School at Anderson College.

I had completed two terms of fun and frivolity in my newly-found freedom that had resulted in failing grades that prompted me to see myself as a failure and resulted in my enlistment in the Air Force, where I might find another chance to redeem myself. Now, I was a Tech School Graduate, waiting for reassignment overseas from Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. My furlough in Oklahoma with my new in-laws was completed and I reported for temporary duty, until my Shipping Orders arrived.

I knew I had married a bride with fragile health for she was still recuperating from the life-threatening surgery that had derailed her college studies (2-9-47). She was the precocious kid at KVOO Tulsa, the 50,000 Watt Radio Station that broke the announcement across the central U.S. about the death of FDR at Warm Springs, Georgia in 1944.

Our arrival in San Antonio only exacerbated her increasing weakness and resulting fainting spells. She established herself with a Military doctor at nearby Fort Sam Houston and made several trips riding the City Transit Lines unaccompanied to and from the hospital, until told not to return again without my accompanying her. Military Commands are not always coordinated and the next time she had a doctor appointment, my Commanding Officer refused to issue me a Pass. This meant she returned to her doctor alone; again.

As fate would have it, she passed out on the City Transit. The veteran driver remembered her from previous visits and remembered where he had delivered her, which he very faithfully and conscientiously did again. He delivered her at her proper destination in a semi-conscious condition and she gained immediate attention. Her doctor examined her and scolded her for returning contrary to his orders demanding my company. When the Captain called my Commanding Officer to see why I did not accompany her as he ordered; he was told I had already shipped overseas.

This necessitated further conversation in which she explained that I had breakfast with her that morning and then had reported for duty as required (Only later did we learn that I was unknowingly and unofficially AWOL for one lost week that I had not been aware of).

Meanwhile, the doctor called in his superior officer, a leading surgeon and a Colonel in the U.S. Army. The two Officers discussed her case and the Colonel wheeled around, picked up the telephone, and called my Wing Headquarters at Langley Field, VA and asked for his friend, another Colonel. His terse announcement to his friend Joe was, “We call men home from overseas for less than this, and I want a discharge for this patient’s husband – Cancer in the last stages!”

That was how she learned her diagnosis. With that, the doctor informed her the most humane thing you can do is go to the Cancer Institute in Chicago, where they will provide for you as long as necessary, and they will provide your husband with work opportunities. Two weeks later, we boarded the Greyhound Bus in San Antonio with a destination of South Haven, Michigan.

We bid our pastor and congregation at Highland Park adieu, never considering the option of asking special prayer and anointing her for healing. In our private prayers, her prayer had consistently been very simple: “God: if my life is to be taken, I’m ready. If you have yet a task for me to do, by your strength I will do it. Just please, stop the pain.” We walked a day at a time; faith for today; hope for tomorrow.

She prayed her prayer and together we tied a knot in the end of our rope and held on with all that we knew. We rode the cross-country Greyhound and arrived at my home, where we stayed long enough to plan a return to Anderson to school. We did not go near Chicago, until we decided a few weeks later to enroll in Pacific Bible College in far off  Portland, Oregon.

By the time we arrived in Chicago, we discovered we had missed our Portland connection and had to wait what seemed like endless hours. As fate would have it, we followed a big snow storm west of the Rocky Mountains, and all that distance from Chicago, we picked up the passengers on the bus we would have been on, except we arrived late and had a long layover in Chicago. We would have been on the bus that slid off the highway and had to be rescued by the bus we were actually on.

Our Portland days introduced us to two-living-as-one for seventy and one half years. The faith we left with in San Antonio formed the introduction to successful school years, which laid further foundation for forty-five years of pastoral ministry in seven states, serving nine congregations. We clung to our “Faith of our Fathers” in murky days that carried us through five miscarriages and in two live births.

We walked a tightrope between medical bills and the demands for fulltime service in small churches and part-time salaries. We struggled to meet the needs of family life on inadequate income, but faith always proved adequate. In time, we became a growing family, with all the vicissitudes of raising a family and then watching the family expand until it began finally to downsize again.

Three days from hence (9-6-17), it will be two full years that my Irish Cherokee graduated and made her Celestial Commencement. I intentionally and stoically waited with the deceased body and with my own hands I helped place her in the body bag and load her into the vehicle that gave her that final transport. I then watched the vehicle pull away from the house, turn the corner away from Winding Way, and she was gone.

The image is etched into my mind. We had discussed her pending departure and I gave my full consent. I have no regrets that she left and I would not call her back for any reason. I loved her as best as I knew how but I do regret not giving her as much TLC as I now understand she needed, wanted, and deserved.


She was a gifted woman. She was full of the grace of God. She had the discerning of God’s Holy Spirit.  She knew how to communicate with the human heart. Whatever I am today, I am not the man she lived with for seventy years; rather I am the man I was becoming as I lived with her for 70.5 years.

Her family always called her Kit, Kitten, or Kat; thus my familiar url - kitway . She was English, Irish, and First American and what I always knew was that I didn’t want her to go on the war path – Tommie Leora Beatrice Stiles Warner, 3-20-26—9-6-2017 – and this is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

GOD'S ETERNAL CONDUIT OF GRACE

                                                     By definition, a conduit serves as a pipe, passage, or conveyance, for some kind of material being conveyed from one place to another. The ministry Paul “received from the Lord Jesus” testified to God’s eternal conduit of grace. God’s grace filled Paul with joy and inspired him to press forward with the challenge God laid upon his heart (Acts 20:22-24; Philippians 3:12, NASV). 

(Picture shows Pastor Ralph Winans standing on right, with congregants at South Haven, MI 1946, including members of this writer's immediate family).

Bonds and afflictions neither deterred Paul nor dampened his enthusiasm. God’s blessings upon Paul’s life robustly exercised his growing faith and excised his assaulting doubts that would otherwise destroy him. Paul blessed the Lord with vigor, in spite of the potholes that pitted the highway he traveled. His daily experiences provided him assurance of God’s faithful and fortifying friendship (2 Timothy 4:17).

Thus, Paul assured fellow believers, “You know how I was with you the whole time serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials” (Acts 20:18-20 NASV).

 “Bound in spirit” wrote Paul, “I am on my way to Jerusalem.” He did not know what would happen in Jerusalem, but he knew he was God’s messenger. He knew that he was on God’s call list and that his life revealed an extension of God‘s grace. Paul also knew he carried a significant offering for impoverished Saints in Jerusalem.

When I read how Paul carried good news everywhere he went, I sense his hopeful anticipation. In my mind, I hear Paul softly humming a familiar melody that renuinds me, “I’m going higher, yes, higher someday …”¹ His encounter with Christ while en route to Damascus had revealed a Savior who never encountered a sin he could not forgive, a guide that accompanied him everywhere he went.

Paul’s example helps us assimilate others into God’s fellowship as our brothers and sisters in the his Family of Faith. When our leaps of faith stretch our abilities, as often times happens, we know we need not fail, for his Spirit reveals the way to us.

Paul modeled an informed life that reminds us that living for Jesus means more than simply singing the joyful music of happy hymns. Paul’s life revealed a God that personally fortifies individual lives and enables us to press forward on the high road of faithful service, while still trudging along faithfully in the worst of circumstances.

By following Paul’s example, we can face our own contemporary encounters victoriously and keep our relational channels free of extenuating hindrances. When faced with his most challenging circumstances, Paul nevertheless experienced the warmth of God’s presence and never lost hope.

 “Bound in the Spirit,” describes more than a new doctrine, or a strange teaching; it reveals God’s Holy Spirit residing as an internal presence--a Comforter –a daily companion fortifying and affirming Paul’s daily witness.

After Paul discovered Jesus as the only ONE who never met a sinner from whom he willfully withheld grace, Paul spent his remaining days sharing Jesus as God’s eternal conduit. In Jesus, Paul had discovered God’s “only begotten” ONE OF A KIND—God’s eternal conduit of divine grace.

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
calling all of us to follow the example of Paul's life and ministry and invest our own lives in others by serving as extensions of God’s conduit of divine grace.
___________________________________________________
     1 Herbert Buffum, “I’m Going Higher,” Al Smith Collection of Best Loved Solos from Singspiration, Inc.  (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1956). 
_____

WALKING THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS

The Psalmist David practiced a diligent devotional life that provides us one of life’s greatest lessons for restoring the church. He pursed personal holiness by regularly measuring his life against the ruler of God’s Word: I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you (Psalm 119:10,11).

On left are worshipping Khasi Christians meeting at their Assembly Ground near Shillong, Meghalaya, NE India.

When you get as close to God as you can get, you are as far away from sin as you can get.  Remember the childhood story of the Ginger-bread Man? He met a hungry woman whom he easily outran. A very determined man could not catch him. A hungry boy, a bear, a pig, and a ravenous wolf all failed to catch him.

Consequently, the Gingerbread Man felt quite confident when he met old Sly Fox. I fact, he bragged, “I have already run away from a woman, a man, a boy, a bear, and a wolf. I can run away from you, too!

“Eh?” mumbled old Sly Fox. “I don’t hear well; come just a little closer so I can hear you.”

The confident little Gingerbread Man edged a step closer, trying to be kind to the sly old Fox, and he repeated his story. However, he had to move still closer to make himself heard: “I have already run away,” he said, “from a woman, a man, a boy, a bear, a pig and a wolf; and I can... “

With one snap of his still strong jaws, old Sly Fox clamped his jaws together on another tasty meal, and the Gingerbread Man was no more.

If you want to get as close as you can get to God, you will get as far from sin as you can possibly get (Picture shows a group of pastors
and leaders at FCG Conv. on Luzon in the Philippines).

Seek the Lord with your whole heart. Store His Word in your heart. It will tide the best of us through the worst of times; but know for certain, testing will come.

This, then, is our Lord’s idea of a holy religion. Or, as Mark Guy Pierce, once said: ”It is to make men like God, corresponding to Him, answering to Him. This is the aim and end of every part of it—to make men will as God wills; to make men do as God commands. To think as God thinks—that is, to

love God with all the mind. To will as God wills—that is to love God with all the heart. To do what God commands—that is, to love God with all the strength.”

At left is 1920 scene from Oklahoma Chog Camp Meeting … and this is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com,
believing that through God's Word, our hills and valleys will be levelled into an Interstate called the Highway of Holiness. Once we walk therein, we will experience strength for each today and hope for every tomorrow. Be blessed, friend.
__________

A THOUGHT ABOUT CHURCH PLANTING

In the early 1880s American Methodists were planting  one or two churches every day that rolled around. Dur-ing this time, C. C McCabe headed the UMC’s Church Extension Board. While McCabe rode the rails. he read his newspaper. One day, McCabe read his Chicago newspaper and found a story that greatly interested him.

A Reporter had picked up on a meeting in Chicago of the Free Thinkers Association. Attending that Free Thinkers Association in Chicago was the noted Orator-Agnostic, Robert Ingersol who was bragging about the fact that “the churches are dying out all over the earth; they are struck with death.”

This struck a chord with McCabe and at the very next rail stop, McCabe sent a wire cabling Ingersol, saying, “Dear Robert: All hail the power of Jesus name! We’re building one church for every day of the year, and propose to make it two.”

Some of the singing Methodists got together and wrote a song that went something like this:

              “The infidels a motley band,
              In counsel met and said:

              The churches are dying throughout the land

              And soon they’ll all be dead.

              When suddenly a message came
              That put them to dismay,
              All hail the power of Jesus’ name
              We’re building two a day.

              We’re building two a day, dear Bob.

              We’re building two a day.

              All hail the power of Jesus’ name.

              We’re building two a day.”   

It was sixty years later when Herman Thomas found himself pastoring one of those two-a-day churches in Wisconsin—1941. While out calling one evening, Pastor Thomas met a young engineer, recently moved into his city. The newcomer met the pastor at the front door, saying, “I have some questions you may be able to answer.”

The young engineer listened intently, but briefly; then interrupted his visitor with this question: “Pastor Thomas, can you tell me how I can become a follower of Jesus Christ.”

The following Sunday, that new convert walked forward to profess his new-found faith in Christ. The next week he received baptism. His name was Robert Ingersol III. In 1942 Robert Ingersol IV was baptized in that same church.

This prompts me to imagine that I once again hear the refrain of those early Methodists as they lustily burst forth in song with that earlier refrain,

              “We’ve building two a day, dear Bob.

              We’re building two a day.

              All hail the power of Jesus Name

              We’re building two a day.

I heard Dr Charles Chaney tell this story in Chicago one year as he recalled his challenge to Southern Baptists to increase their three-a-day church plants to four-a-day, or 1,460 x 10. They rounded off Chaney’s number as SBC’s “15,000 Campaign.”

At the time I did my Church Growth study, the Church of God was proposing to plant 750 churches. I don’t remember if we made our goal or not, but this is what I believe, after being in ordained ministry for sixty-eight years: faithfulness to the biblical agenda of church planting will vitalize the church at large as nothing else can!

New church-plants will achieve two purposes:

(1) Fulfill our part of the Great Commission of evangel-izing and congregationalizing our Global Community;
and
(2) Do our part in reversing today’s moral decline by multiplying colonies of righteousness all across our Global Community.   
This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
Reminding church folk that
Church Planting will renew a luke-warm church as nothing else will.

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

What difference does it make, anyway; if any? 

In my case, I was like most people; overstressed about too many things to do and not enough time to get them all done yesterday. Yes, I was in a hurry! 

Consequently I pulled into my driveway, slammed the gearshift into Parking Gear and hurried in the house – only to discover later that my parked car coasted down the street backwards, ricocheted off the curb and finally planted its solid frame tight against the neighbor’s cement block retaining wall.

My parked car had rolled down the street, crossed a T-intersection, and parked itself while in neutral gear with all four doors locked. My hurried exit and harried behavior could have resulted in a devastating expense, created bad relations with an unknown neighbor, or proved injurious to a pedestrian or a moving vehicle.

Damages, however, proved slight. I had a slightly-damaged fender, but no damages otherwise. I sighed with relief but still—it was terribly depressing.

This was more stress than I needed when I was already in a work overload. Yet, I had to face it; this could have been much worse. Consequently, when I began counting my blessings, my day brightened considerably.

The Apostle Paul recognized our need to look beyond days partly-cloudy interspersed with misty circumstances that often accompany partly-sunny days. He declared, “Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thessalonians 5:16-7 NIV).

Sadie Smithson remains little known, but she illustrates Paul’s wisdom.  This humble seamstress existed entirely outside the socially elite inner circles of the Laurel Literary Society, and she wanted in more than anything in life. Driven by this single overwhelming desire, she scrimped and scraped until she accumulated enough cash savings to take a European tour—only to be caught in Belgium by World War One.

Sadie attempted to escape by hiring an Army Officer to drive her to Paris. While en route, she discovered she was trapped on a battlefield. As she continued her attempts to escape, she saw a shadowy figure crying out into the darkness, “Water, for God’s sake, water!”

Scarcely realizing the enormity of her actions, she stopped. Helping the wounded soldier resulted in spending the rest of the night ripping bandages from her skirt helping whoever she could find.

With the rising of the dawn, a Medical Officer found Sadie and demanded, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I am Sadie Virginia Smithson,” she announced, “and I have been holding Hell back all night.”

Only later, and safely onboard ship and bound for home, did Sadie recount her harrowing adventure. On hearing her story, one of Sadie’s friends casually remarked, “Well. The Laurel Society will surely be glad enough now to have you belong.”

To this, the greatly matured young woman, replied, “But you don’t understand; I’ve been born again. Do you reckon any of those things matter now?”

So, I ask again; what do you think? “What difference does it really make, anyway?”

Go and Preach My Gospel

Youth Assembly Choir | 113th General Assembly 2019

THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

FRIEND KIM RAISED THE QUESTION:  

How has the Risen Savior affected your way of thinking and living....

Easter Sunday found me awaking to the strains of Isaac Watts going through my head, time and again. It comes via his musical response to R. E. Hudson’s poetic meditation. I find it in my old 1940 Broadman Hymnal, edited by B. B.McKinney, longtime Professor at the School of Music where I was blessed to spend five years in Seminary (SWBTS (P. 112). Southwestern was not my church Family but those years affirmed a common faith all Christ Followers share in common – one faith, one Lord, one baptism (Eph 4). Read slowly … thoughtfully … personally, and note the markings.

Alas, and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die? 

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I have done,

He groaned upon the tree?

Amazing pity! Grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide,

And shut his glories in,
When Christ the mighty Maker died
For man the creature’s sin.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
‘Tis all that I can do.
_____ Chorus_____

At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away;
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

But that was not the end! THAT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END. .  In words that may not be quite as well known as those of Watts, are those of Matthew Bridges and George J. Elvey.

Crown Him with many crowns,

The Lamb upon His throne;

Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns

All music but its own!
Awake, my soul and sing
Of Him who died for thee;
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Thro’ all eternity.

Crown Him the Lord of love!

Behold His hands and side—
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his wondering eye
At mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of life!

Who triumphed o’er the grave;
Who rose victorious to the strife
For those He came to save:
His glories now we sing,
Who died and rose on high;
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of heaven!

One with the Father known,
One with the Spirit through Him given
From yonder glorious throne!
To Thee be endless praise
For Thou, for us hast died;

Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days

Adored and magnified.

ALL BECAUSE, He stepped out of the tomb and into my life…I bow in worship.
This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

THE SPLINTER AND THE LOG

Years ago, Pastor Bill Siebert told a story I find quite ageless in its scope and application (VC/7-10-1966).  He described Jim, a man he knew, that was suffering from high blood pressure. Jim felt good and looked perfectly fine, but he had a way of tossing common sense to the four winds and indulging himself on his wife’s good cooking.

The doctor warned Jim he was overweight he needed to exercise some precaution. Nonetheless, Jim loved to eat!  Jokingly, he occasionally remarked, “Oh, well, you only live here once, you might as well enjoy good food.”

But now,  Jim was dead at forty-five. As a leader of youth in the local church, it was Jim that reminded the youth of the bible teaching that raises the question that asks, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own?” (I Cor. 6:19).

Jim was the leader of a teen-age group that decided to stop smoking. He said, “We have seen films on TV on lungs infected with cancer, and after talking it over we have decided to give it up. Since our parents don’t have the willpower to set us a good example by stopping smoking, we decided to set them one”

Seibert then added this observation: perhaps this will be necessary in the weight department as well! You see, Jim was but forty-five and just a week before his demise the pastor described him as “the salesman that looked more like an all-American halfback.”

Simultaneously, Jim’s two sons stood wide-eyed at poolside while dad vigorously swam the length of the local YMCA swimming pool several times.

It had only been a year since Jim and his family moved into the local community but that move had been a special blessing to the local church and to the Youth Group in particular. The Youth Group jumped from fifteen to sixty-five. That was the way it was with Jim said his boss. He described him as one with a magnetic personality - “He simply draws people to himself.”

Now Jim was dead! Pondering Jim’s departure, Seibert noted the inconsistency of quitting smoking and over-indulging with food and suggested his friend Jim had, in a very real sense, killed himself. He did it, “not with a gun or a rope around his neck” he had “committed suicide with a knife and a fork and his wife’s best cooking.”

It is too easy to emphasize a scripture teaching in one context and be very inconsistent in another context. Perhaps we all need to pray in this manner: Lord: give me the wisdom to live life consistently while also living it fully.

It is simple  to see the splinter in the other person’s eye but, oh so difficult, to see the log in our own eye. This is… walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE, IN OUTLINE

I. INTRODUCTION----------------------------------------1:1-4
II. THE SAVIOR ANNOUNCED----------------------    5—2:52 
              A. Annunciation to Zacharias                                               1:5-25                                                      
              B. Annunciation to Mary                                                        1:26-56
              C. Birth of John                                                                         1:57-80
              D. Birth of Jesus                                                                       2:1-20
              E. Jesus presented  in the temple                                         2:21-40
              F. Visit to Jerusalem                                                                 2:41-52

III. THE SAVIOR APPEARS------------------------------3:1—4:15

              A. Introduction of John the Baptist                                      3:1-20
              B. Baptism of Jesus                                                                  3:21-22
              C. The Genealogy                                                                     3:23-38
              D. The Temptation                                                                   4:1-13
              E. Entrance into Galilee                                                           4:14-15

IV. THE MINISTRY OF THE SAVIOR------------------ 4:16—9:50

             A. Definition of Jesus; Ministry                                         4:16-44
            B. Proofs of Jesus’ power                                                  5:1--6:11
            C. Choice of Jesus’ Apostles                                             6:12-19
            D. Digest of Jesus ‘ Teaching                                            6:20-49

            E. Cross-section of Jesus’ Ministry                                   7:1--9:17                                                         F. Climax of Jesus’ Ministry    

V. ENROUTE TO THE CROSS-------------------------- 9:51—18:30

              A. Perspective of the cross                                                     9:51-62
              B. Ministry of the Seventy                                                      10:1-24
              C. Popular Teaching                                                                 10:25—13:21
              D. Public Debate                                                                       13:22—16:31
              E. Instruction of Disciples                                                       17:1—18:30

VI. THE SUFFERING SAVIOR --------------------------18:31—23:56
              A. Progress toward Jerusalem                                          18:31—19:27  
            B. Entry into Jerusalem                                                    19:28-44
            C. Teaching in Jerusalem                                                 19:45—21:4
            D. The Olivet Discourse                                                   21:5--38
            E. The Last Supper                                                           22:1-38
            F. The betrayal                                                                  22:39-53
            G. The arrest and  trial                                                      22:54—23:25
            H. The Crucifixion                                                            23:26-49
             I. The burial                                                                      23:50-55

VII. THE RESURRECTED SAVIOR -------------------- 24:1-53

              A. The empty Tomb                                                          24:1-12
             B. The walk to Emmaus                                                    24:13-35
             C. The appearance to the Disciples                                   24:36=43
             D. The Last Commission                                                   24:44-49

             E. The Ascension                                                              24:50-53

*** walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

ЧТО БУДЕТ С ЭТИМ МИРОМ - Степан Спиридонов

FINISHING MY RACE

A story that resonates deeply with me is that of John Akhwari. As the story goes, only a few thousand spectators remained in Mexico City’s stadium at 7 pm, Oct 20, 1968. Mamo Wolde, was the 26-year old Ethiopian who had won the 26 mile, 385 yard marathon event just an hour earlier, then the others finished.

As those remaining prepared to leave the stadium, sirens and police whistles suddenly turned every-one’s eyes toward the gate. A long figure wearing Tanzanian colors entered the stadium. It was that of John Stephen Akhwari. Akhwari hobbled around the 400 meter track as best he could. His leg was bloodied and bandaged from a bad fall he had experienced earlier. He grimaced with every step he took.

On seeing the long figure approach the finish, the crowd remaining arose and applauded as if he were the winner. After crossing the finish line, Akhwari walked slowly away.In view of his injury and with no chance to win a medal, one curio

us soul asked John Akhwari why had he bothered to finish the race, why he had not quit the race. He only reply was this piece of wisdom: “My country did not send me 7,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 7,000 miles to finish it.”

Your faith, mixed with good old grit and determination and common sense has brought you this far. Being a good Christian steward means much more than making a good start (cf I Peter 4:10). The biblical writer of Hebrews reminds us “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1). He further reminds us (12:4) of the crowd of witnesses who have already completed the race and crossed the finish line.

And so, what is the message for us? It is the wisdom spoken by this young Tanzania: “My country did not send me 7,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 7,000 miles to finish it.”

From walkingingwithwarner.blogspot.com
Our challenge is to finish well the race to which the Lord of our lives has called each of us.
I for one, plan to finish as best able that which I have started.

What about you?

FOR BETTER, NOT WORSE

Kody & Liz and Austin and Kelsi --Newly-Wedded 

Pastor Boyer delivered a fervent procla-mation of the Church as the Bride of Christ and concluded by requesting a couple seated near the front of the sanctuary to step forward and stand before him. He then led them through their “I Do’s” as he officeated their wedding vows in front of 350 Sunday worshippers at Northside St Louis, MO Church of God.

Following their greeting the congregants while standing beside the Pastor, Associate Pastor Amanda Patton (retired) invited the newlyweds to dinner at her daughter’s home. A happy afternoon followed; complete with an impromptu wedding cake. Later the newlyweds returned to their suburban Belleville bedroom-with-kitchen-privileges, convinced that homes like theirs form the cornerstone of the nation. That was Spring, 1947,shortly after World War Two and we were happy to be together, although BLT sandwiches were the best we could afford at times. Following our military time, we struggled with low income jobs, major health problems and the demands of higher education. Four years into marriage we bought our first car, had our first baby, and simultaneously received that coveted first degree.

Since then, we have observed an increaseingly mobile society decentralize our nation’s families, disconnecting many from their moral moorings. We began as two, in-creased to four, then six. Time watched us transition to nine with a tenth expected and one depart into heaven.

These were years of watching eroding and warping family values, when a quarter-million unwed mothers annually averaged sixteen years of age, forty to sixty percent pregnant on their wedding day. The widening stream of marital melancholy  broadened and deepened into an  overflowing torrent of personal grief, marital instability, abuse and mayhem.

Many Christians  no longer viewed marriage as viable, with little insight into biblical marriage and family life. One troubled teenager confessed,

“I married in haste, and I’m regretting it in leisure. I am seventeen and a half years old. I am five feet ten inches tall. I weigh one hundred forty-five pounds. Physically, I am a woman. And I would have to say – I did say, over and over-that when I married Bill … at age sixteen years and five months, I was mature.”

Marriage follows a courtship that calls for a recipe requiring three ingredients to be anything more than a half-baked cake:

1) Preparation. Look before you leap! Many people prepare better for their driver’s license than for their marriage license.

2) Commitment. The right kind of court-ships do not dock in Reno, meaning that a serious relationship must have a true commitment that results in a mutual covenant.

3) Faith. True marriage builds on a foundation of faith that reaches upward into a triangle that puts God at the apex, where he alone adds the sacredness needed in every wedding vow.

PREPARATION

One cannot make too much preparation in readying to commit one’s self. Simply said, one needs to look before leaping. Humpty Dumpty in LOOKING THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS reproached Alice for her rate of growth. “I never asked about growing,” exclaimed Alice indignantly!

“Too proud?” inquired Humpty Dumpty. “I mean,” Alice responded, “that one cannot help growing old.”

“One can’t, perhaps, but two can,” came the reply, and here is the Ode to Marriage, beautiful and true; “two can.”

Universal, compulsory, standardized views of marriage encourage today’s youth to marry and to value themselves primarily for marriageability, but many waste their energy by valuing themselves only by marital rating and adjustment. Couples contemplating marriage will, however, take comfort knowing Metropolitan Life Insur-ance reported four times as many bachelors die of tuberculosis as married men, three-to-four times as many die of influenza and pneumonia. Widowers and divorced men remain three times more accident prone than husbands.

Jackie Loughery. 1952 Miss America, revealed the innermost aspiration of most young women when she confessed,

“I concentrate on my acting career and hope everyone will forget that I once won a beauty contest. Although getting ahead in show business is my main interest in life, I know in my heart—like all women—that a career at best is a poor substitute for a loving husband.”

Comedian Jack Durant advised  Las Vegas visitors to marry early in the day so a divorce would not ruin their whole day. there is more to life than marriage and more to marriage than sex, and some should not marry until they change, but should the church accept divorce?

Paul’s interpretation of Jesus is, “Let everyone lead the life which the Lord has assigned to him, in which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches” (I Cor. 7:17). The Church needs to be less negative with divorced people and far more positive about premarital preparation.

COMMITMENT

Christian marriage brings two people for-saking all others and themselves, to commit to each other permanently. The Old Testament allowed divorce only because of the madness of men’s hearts (cf Mt. 19:1-15 JBP).

The issue was not the divorce per se; under discussion was the man’s role in marriage. Jesus expected the man to make a commitment to his partner that went further than burned toast. Marriage without commitment provides a contract but builds no re-lationship. Contrary to common practice, Jesus protected the women and children, both in and out of marriage. Rabbi Hillel allowed divorce for any cause and Rabbi Shammai allowed it only in for unchastity. The Jews were divided on the issue, but Jesus never veered from his concept of commitment.

“Is divorce too easy?” writer Howard Whitman asked a judge. “I think marriage is too easy,” the judge replied.

Commitment to one’s marriage becomes an act of obedience to God. Although most people are capable of marriage, not many are prepared for it, as Jesus implied: “It is not everybody who can live up to this” replied Jesus, ‘—only those who have a special gift. For some are incapable of marriage from birth, some are made incapable by the actions of men, and some have made for themselves so for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let the man who can accept what I have said accept it” (Mt. 19:12 JBP).

MOST WEDDING VOWS SAY, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Christian marriage builds a three-fold relationship that is social, physical, and spiritual. Parenthood provides fulfillment for the physical needs of marriage and the human task of replenishing the earth. As a law of creation, marriage remains open to all.

From a Christian perspective, the spiritual principle holds: only a total and absolute commitment fulfills the marriage ideal (I Cor. 7:3-4). Ideally, a couple entrusts to each other the very best of what they themselves are, all that they may become, and they leave no back doors open. While society holds the door open for all to marry, not all should marry, not without making some changes.

Christian marriage is a miracle of  God. It requires partnership with God as the medi-ator. There can be no ideal marriage with a selfish spouse. Marriage means a lifetime of sharing love unselfishly, concerning itself with the spouse as unconditionally as with one’s own self.

There can be no ideal marriage with a spouse mocking the marriage-bond by sipping irresponsibly from the cup of  love. Such sin only adds misery to the marriage; meaninglessness to men, worthlessness to women, and casualty to children.  Thinking of the immature, Rosalind Russell once quipped, Too many youngsters are setting out on the matrimonial seas before they have learned basic seamanship.”

The church that takes divorce seriously will constructively work at preparing couples for marriage. When a Christian and a non-believer marry, conflicts of faith just will naturally result (I Cor. 7:32-35). When a Christian single dates anyone s/he would not wish to marry, s/he risks emotional involvement that often leads to serious marital conflict of interest. Churches that take seriously the causes of divorce will take even more seriously the needs for preparation for marriage, since insufficient preparation is a major cause of divorce. As suggested earlier, a driver’s license seem-ingly requires more preparation than a marriage license .

Religious faith pffers another key factor. Some say couples have a six-hundred per-cent better chance to succeed when they attend the same church and when they take their religious faith seriously. Others claim common interests improve one’s chances by fifteen percent However, the divorce rate is said to increase nine times when the couple is acquainted fewer than six months.

Finance and Sex each contribute signify-cantly to marital bliss, or failure. Whether a man winds up with a nest egg or a goose egg may well depend upon the chick he marries. Dr. Irving Sands concluded that premarital sex by females blighted their emotions. A certain gossip columnist reported, “For about fifteen years I have been the confidant of /broadway abnd Hollywood actors and actresses who have opportunities to live a promiscuous … life. And some of them … to the hilt … But when they trust you and let down their hair, they will confess how frustrating and unsatisfying it all is.”

The sex impulse involves the deepest emotional levels and cannot be measured by an IBM computer. Without minimizing the physical side of marriage, the marital re-lationship depends more on the merger of one spirit with the other, than upon glandular satisfaction. This suggests compatibility depends more upon emotion-al satisfaction than upon sexual adjustment.

Immaturity provides a powerful area of marital stress. When emotional adjust-ments are poor, sex problems become exaggerated. “What’s Mrs. Monday kicking about,” Mr. Monday asks. “She’s getting her share. I’m providing her a good income and paying the blls. Does she want the world with a picket fence around it.”

Marriage entitles Mrs. Monday to emotional stability with economic support, a normal sex life and children, companionship and normal social interaction. If Mr. Monday has no will to provide them, he has no right to marry. Even before marriage, experience suggests emotionally heathy girls usually reject sex without love and that persistent petting  does exist among those most neurotic.

FAITH

Looking back; we see our preparation and commitment would have been inadequate without a strong faith. Ideal marriage becomes a conspiracy with God. Greatness did not come to Moses by accident. His parents conspired with God (trusted in time of trouble) and birthed a son through whom God could initiate the Exodus.  Giving personal  priority to God’s will and faithfully maintaining one’s relationship with God does much to build a lasting relationship (I Cor. 7:29-31). Successful marriages seldom happen by accident.

Successful marital partners strive consistently for excellency of self: “Make love your aim,” advised Paul (I Cor. 13). There can be no conspiring with God without worship-ping together--regularly. The couple that marries for keeps will avoid the obvious dangers of falling out of love.

When God holds his rightful place in the marriage, the two equals can submit equally and mutually. Husbands will love their wives realistically, but sacrificially, purposefully, willfully and absolutely (Eph. 5:22-31). Wives will be subject to, but never inferior to, their husbands. He is subject to, but not superior to, his wife. The law legalizes marriage and provides a protective environment for procreation, but marital stay-ability comes only through God’s presence to make the relationship a mutual journey of faith.

The marriage that puts God first becomes a quest with each spouse walking the High-way of the Kingdom of God. Without God, marriage as man’s masterpiece easily crumbles into a meaningless muddle that lacks in preparation, in commitment, and in faith with which to maintain it.

This is walkingwithwarner

remembering the three to twelve months Medical expertise promised my bride of four months. God alone transformed months into years, until they became 70.5 years and he honored her “I do” and agreeably called her home_____ 

AN ISSUE WITH ALCOHOL

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After I retired from pastoral ministry, it became my opportunity to travel with Michigan Interfaith Council on Alcohol Problems (MICAP) for about six years. That organization has roots in the Michigan United Methodist Church and I spent many weekends travelling throughout southwest and mid-Michigan, mostly in UMC congregations, but also a few others that had concerns about alcohol problems. I learned much about the issues of alcohol and gaming (gambling).

Fairly recently, The  Kentucky Bluegrass region experienced one of those horrendous accidents that once more reminded me why I feel so strongly about alcohol-related problems. In this case, a Michigan family-of-five found itself headed back to Michigan in the early-morning hours. Following their Florida vacation, the Issam Abbas family was struck head-on by south-bound driver as they approached Lexington headed north on I75. If memory serves me correctly, this family was the family of a Michigan Physician.

As a result of the crash, a family of five was killed--deleted from existence by a wrong-way Kentucky driver from nearby Georgetown.  Forty-one-year-old Joey Lee Bailey was also killed in the accident—6 people in total—a complete family. After-the-fact Toxicology Reports revealed that Bailey had a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of .306 and was at fault. He had driven at least six miles during which others narrowly avoided being struck by him.

Bailey’s BAC was .304, nearly four times the legal limit for drinking and driving, a total of six members of one family are dead because of one man’s determination to exercise his right to drink and drive. There was a time when such a tragedy was defended on the basis of it being accidental but that is no longer true, no matter how much, or how little, you demand your right to justify drinking alcohol.

The drinking of alcohol is a debatable subject among people of strong religious conviction and I would never argue the issue of alcoholic beverage on the basis of one’s religious view. I do contend, though, that drinking alcoholic beverages is a both a matter of personal choice and a moral-ethical question, Moreover,  we know enough about human health and the effects of alcohol on the body today to know that alcohol is not only a depressant, it is highly damaging to certain organs of the human body .

The simple truth is that we know far too much about alcohol today to legitimize it as an acceptable social practice; it is NOT. It is an illegitimate product that destroys human bodies, breaks up families, and rips apart the fabric of our society. Its effects on the human body are sufficient to make it an ethical question when we are choosing whether or not to drink, and especially to combine it with another drug, or insist on the right to drink and drive.

To drink and drive is unquestionably anti-social behavior as illustrated in the willful, self-destructive behavior of Joey Lee Bailey of Georgetown, KY and the Muslim family of five from Michigan that he murdered by driving the wrong way on I75 in Lexington at 2:30 a.m. We know the average American taxpayer pays out four dollars for every dollar of revenue gained when Municipalities license alcohol by the drink and rake in the tax dollars. This makes government (which is us) equally responsible, for we all want the tax dollars to recover part of our costs.

But you say, you cannot charge him with murder. YES I can. He chose to take that first drink and he had no guarantees after that. Alcohol is a proven depressant. The very first drink you take, even .03 lite beer, begins reducing your self-control and your inhibitions. It means with every drop you drink, you speed up just a little bit in your down-hill slide of self-control, and from there-on it is downhill ALL the way. Many states have awakened to this truth and no longer allow DUI as an allowable defense.

As a pastor, I have gone to the Tavern and taken a friend to my home and helped him sober up after he called me at an obnoxious hour asking my help. As a family member, I am but one of seventy-five million Americans affected by having a problem drinker in the household. I think I have about seen it all.

From walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com – 

How long, or Lord; how long dare we justify the social acceptability of this anti-social practice that justifies murder and excuses the offender while ignoring the civil right of the victim?

_____