bornagainniversary

Today I’m 48 years old.

In the Lord.

It all started on a Sunday in our family room, kneeling in front of the couch. Dad was on his knees beside me. A half-eaten Sunday dinner was cooling on the dining room table…

january 20, 1974

The family, just home from morning worship, was sitting down for a meal of roast and potatoes, and I was all tied up in knots.

About an hour and a half earlier I had a kung fu grip on the back of the pew in front of me and my knuckles were stretched white. I was sitting with my mother a third of the way back on the outside left, facing the platform. Forrest Hills Baptist Church was more packed than normal.

We had a guest speaker that morning, Monroe Parker. I don’t remember too much about the sermon, only that he used scary illustrations about people who died without Jesus. On hospital beds, in car wrecks, every sort of life-shortened tragedy.

It was revival week with the evangelist, so the altar was mostly filled with weepy folk. As the choir started through another verse of Softly and Tenderly, I leaned out into the aisle, still gripping the pew. I chanced a quick look at my mom, who nodded and smiled knowingly, and that was all the motivation I needed to join a trickle of souls to the front.

Ann Plant was an altar worker known well by our family. She met me, saw how miserable I was, and hastily led me to an open spot on the platform steps.

It was already assumed I was saved (I was a really good kid) so she led me in a “rededication of life” prayer. She smiled and hugged me and I went back to my row where mom waited. I forced a smile because I still felt heavy inside. Where was that lightness of step and brightness of spirit I expected?

On the drive home from church, I remember sitting in the backseat between my two sisters. I was very quiet. Positioned with my feet on the hump, I leaned forward and stole glances of my sad self in the rearview mirror. I could see dad‘s eyes occasionally sliding over to meet mine.

Finally, he furrowed his brow and asked if I was okay. I didn’t look okay. It was all so very discomfiting.

For a thirteen year old kid, a trip to a church altar and a vulnerable prayer with an adult should at least earn you some level of peace. Not me. I didn’t feel fixed.

praying with dad

Sunday dinner was not in the least bit enjoyable for a boy who liked to eat. I pushed vegetables around the plate with my fork, worrying over stuff like being killed in a car wreck and lost for eternity. Pretty out-there stuff for a thirteen year old.

Midway through the meal dad and I exchanged looks. He saw the misery on my face. I felt lost and told him so. He looked at mom and she said lunch could wait. Rising from his place at the head of the table, dad set down his napkin and pushed away.

“Let’s go into the family room, buddy” he said kindly. “I think I know what you need.”

I followed dad to our sofa and took my place beside him on my knees. There, father and son side by side, settled the matter of my soul once and for all. I started to cry. It felt for all the weight of the world that what we were doing was right. I exhaled all my pent-up breath and answered my dad, phrase by phrase, in the sinner’s prayer.

Two minutes later, we were done. Dad hugged me and told me I was saved and that I shouldn’t doubt it ever again. And honestly, by the good grace of God, I never have.

There’ve been some touch-and-go moments in my life, but, forty-eight years later (and counting!), the testimony holds because Jesus holds me.

This is my story, and this is my song:

a salvation hymn

I love GOD because he listened to me,
listened as I begged for mercy.
He listened so intently
as I laid out my case before him. Death stared me in the face,
hell was hard on my heels.
Up against it, I didn’t know which way to turn;
then I called out to GOD for help:
“Please, GOD!” I cried out.
“Save my life!”
GOD is gracious—it is he who makes things right,
our most compassionate God.
GOD takes the side of the helpless;
when I was at the end of my rope, he saved me.
Psalm 116:1-6, The Message

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can i have your attention, please?

Luke 18 is all about being heard.

First, in Jesus’s signature story-form, we find a widow hanging on to her last thread of hope; unfortunately, her hope is found in a Gentile judge (not a picture of God, btw) who has little time for her. Nevertheless, through persistence, she at last gets a hearing and a judgment…in her favor.

We transition to a true-to-life episode that contrasts two worshipers at the Temple. One is in his customary pew, spouting off all the religious jargon of a prig (C.S. Lewis’s word), while the other won’t dare set a foot inside the narthex lest he be struck by lightning. One expects he will be heard (he is not), and the other only dreams of being heard (he is), at which we find he gets, not a day in court, but a seat at the table.

Next we see playful Jesus bouncing babies on his knee. The disciples lose their bleep and try to whisk the little hooligans off to their mothers. In no uncertain terms, the Lamb of God lets his men know they had best leave well enough alone. In fact, if they resist the bleatings and shovings of little lambs to be under the watchful eye of the Shepherd, they’d find themselves outside the pen.

Widows need justice.

Tax collectors need mercy.

Children need time.

All need Jesus.

And all just want the ear of the King.

As the chapter rolls out, nearing its end, a blind beggar is straining to be heard over the loud din of a gathered mob as the God-Man Jesus passes by. Blind “son of Timothy” (he’s so much an afterthought the poor fellow does not even warrant a name) is not seen and he is not heard – at first. Everyone around him tells the pathetic man to shush as the Holy Man cannot be bothered by someone who is so obviously a wretched sinner. He’s having none of it. The scripture tells us all the bluster just made him “call out even louder.” The man wanted to be heard.

I love the next two words that come next:

“Jesus stopped.” (Luke 18:40)

Let your ears rest on those words and dispel every other noise around you right now.

He stopped.

Earlier, God, as the father in the prodigal story, is seen running. Here, he stops in his tracks.

You have to remember Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on mission to do what he came to do. Earlier in this same gospel we learn Jesus “set himself to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and Isaiah adds color to this with his face being countenanced like “flint” – so hard and firm and resolute was his bent to go forward to Calvary.

He stopped his march,

his mission,

time,

everything.

In that sacred second all held their breath as Jesus turned his piercing gaze from the road ahead to the tragic figure on the fringe of the crowd. Those lyrical eyes looked past the religious, the zealous, the able-bodied, the excited, the would-be followers, all of the rabble, and found him.

The throng had no choice but to part like the Red Sea as the poor man was brought to the Healer. The exchange took all of forty-five seconds, maybe a minute.

After all, what’s a minute delay when there’s a chance to change a person’s life?

Pilate would wait for him.

Judas would have time enough to plan his dirty deed.

The High Priest could use the extra minute to consider his ways.

Barabbas would be cool with it, considering how his fate would turn.

But the Son of Timothy? This was his only shot, and he was going to be heard.

Something else I love about the story is that it sheds light on the earlier scripture about the widow and her repeated appeals to the “unrighteous judge.” If you wait a tick, you’ll find that Scripture interprets Scripture.

That passage you’re struggling to make light of, keep reading; the hidden will come to light. I have often puzzled over that story until one day I realized God is NOT the judge of that parable. Unfortunately, the caustic judge – to many – is exactly who God is to them: obstinate, uncaring, elusive, aloof, mean-spirited, vindictive. This is not the point of the parable, proven by this moment of mercy for the blind beggar on the road outside Jericho.

He called out more intensely on that roadside. He would be heard. He would not take NO for an answer. *That* is the point of the earlier parable. But rather than nagging, you just up the ante.

The key to being heard, to getting the attention of God, is not verbosity but intensity.

God is not listening for a casual, half-hearted, ritual, repetitive, obligatory prayer, but he will stop in his tracks for a cry from a wounded soul.

In 2009 I prayed again and again like a persistent widow for God to do something for me I couldn’t do for myself. Each and every prayer was important to God, and I know he heard, but was waiting to hear the shrill edge of my desperation. That came weeks later as I was “quiet-timing with God” in my van. I simply but straightforwardly said:

If you don’t, God, it won’t. I don’t want to live another day with this. Oh God, I don’t have the strength to ask for it again. I’m tired. I’m desperate. Please…

Do you ever get the inexplicable sense when something shifts in the atmosphere? That happened to me as soon as my prayer trailed off. I didn’t even want to add an amen. I just left it at the Healer’s feet and crawl into his lap. I called out one more time, and I was heard.

God stopped for me.

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard God audibly, but it came pretty close in the front cab of my van.

I’ve heard you, Scott. I will answer your prayer – you won’t like the way the way I do it, but you will give praise to me in the end. I am with you. Trust me, Scott…

It may not have been these words exactly, but you get the gist. I needn’t tell you that my cry was supernaturally, specifically, and spectacularly answered within a few very dark and grueling months. There were moments I felt abandoned and more than a few when I felt fearful of the outcome, but God won the day and my testimony stands as a ‘miktam’ (Psalm 16): archived in holy writ, penned in 24-carat gold. It is my story and I’m sticking to it.

What are you wanting God to stop and do for you? Sometimes the hardest part of ‘faithing’ is in the last half-hour, when it seems like God isn’t going to come through.

F. B. Meyer offers this counsel:

The lock of prayer sometimes turns hard, and calls for strength of purpose. The kingdom of heaven has to be taken by force. Let us pray so that our prayers may reverberate with repeated blows on the gates of God’s presence chamber.

“Repeated blows.”

Maybe, just maybe, the next blow that falls will stop God in his tracks and break the door down. Keep hammering away with your prayers, beloved. You’ll get his attention. I promise. I’ve got scripture and a testimony that proves it’s so.

The Tale Of The Backyard Hawk

^{My Father yielded yet another spectacular backyard blessing just yesterday.}

^{By now most of you know I’m a disabled wheelchair user. Some of you also know I’ve gotten into this photography thing (since May) with near-reckless abandon. I cite the numerous times I’ve gotten stuck in mud and loam attempting the perfect shot as Exhibit A.}

^{As such, I often pray for God to send me specific birds to capture in my lens since I cannot always get to where they are in their natural habitat. Alas, my backyard is a veritable panorama of birds and small wildlife!}

^{I’ve asked for redbirds and He’s brought them. I’ve asked for goldfinches and He’s wrangled some up. Hummers, we now have aplenty. Oftentimes, these aviary eye candy have shown up a day after, within the same week, and some even the the very day of my asking.}

^{God is good.}

^{I believe I know why too. The Creator knows how deeply His flitting and flapping playthings draw me more deeply into worship and He mercifully obliges.}

^{Which has taught me something about prayer: He doesn’t necessarily oblige Himself to deliver on every ask we lay before Him, but is more inclined to answer affirmatively when He knows how the askance will foment our worship of Him, result in thankfulness, and increase our awe of His Kingdom.}

^{Case in point.}

^{Just yesterday, there I was in my Holy Spot, digital Bible in hand and prayer book close by, sniffing delightfully at the pre-Fall air, listening to the warbles, whistles, cantankeries, clicks, and rattles of the menagerie caught in my yard when I felt it welling up in me. I was to ask.}

^{Here’s where you’ll think I’ve come unbuttoned.}

^{Pools of water filled my orbital cisterns. Emotions rose. My heart hopped on a treadmill. My breaths quickened. Something so strong came over me, prompting me to cast doe-eyes at my Papa. I’m not kidding when I tell you my emotional investment in this ask was as profound as the many times I’ve asked for various healings or financial need.}

^{You’ll think it’s stupid.}

^{Well, I’ve brought you this far, may as well take you the rest of the way. Okay, I asked God to give me a close-up glimpse of a hawk. Sandy and I have lived at this address for 22 years and in all that time I’ve only caught sight of one hawk in our backyard – and that was more than five years ago, closer to ten. This is what makes my story more pauseworthy and, dare I say it, miraculous.}

In less than two hours a hawk glided into our backyard, it’s body like a quiet missile to my left. It thudded clumsily onto a branch barely 25 feet from me and the branch sank a good six inches.

Well, hullo there.

^{It was majestic!}

^{I cried out, letting loose my inner child on Christmas morning, slowly fumbling for my camera.}

^{Please God, don’t let him fly away!}

^{Lo and behold, he clung to that branch for a full five minutes, his only movement a slide along the branch so as to – I kid you not! – move clear from some distractful foliage. An unobstructed view. I literally ping-ponged between excitement and fear. My Cooper’s Hawk affected me in a way we might project wondrous joy and abject terror in the Presence of the Almighty at the same time.}

^{Praise and worship erupted in the atmosphere. All birds had absconded, not wanting to be its next meal, but I served as the Sons of Korah Choir all by myself in that ethereal moment.}

^{Some might chide coincidence, but you’ll never convince me. In a very limited sense, I felt like Elijah by the waterbrook, birds sent to feed and be his companions. In those minutes I was fed from the Table of God, a Mephibosheth at the Royal Dinner.}

^{Yes, my Alaskan friends, I know a hawk doesn’t come close to eliciting the majesty of a giant bald eagle, but I’m still enraptured.}

^{God said:}

^{Sure, My son; I’ll flush out a hawk for you! A big one, a terrifying one. Just for you, because you asked. I see that it will move you to worship Me, be glad in Me and increase your awe in Me.”}

^{As for the giant bald eagle?}

^{Oh I’m coming for you, just you wait. I’ll be getting my ask on pretty soon. When the Father prompts me, it’s a done deal.}

^{When it happens, I might even be moved to jump out of my chair.}

^{Won’t that blow y’all’s minds?}