"Storms"

     It doesn’t take but a glimpse at any news channel to become completely depressed with what is going on around us in the world.  There are those who are living a life of terrorism bring death and destruction to the innocent.  There are political factions that cannot seem to agree on anything.  I’m convinced if one political group were able to come up with a fool proof plan guaranteeing the safety, health, and welfare of all people the other side would vote against it because it wasn’t their idea.  We live among people that are offended by all things on all sides.  In a time that we should be well past accusations of racism those are still being made by people of all colors and nationalities.  This storm of unrest does not reside only within the boundaries of our country but is found throughout the world.  Did you notice a calm in the storm?  For a very short time there was calm.  It occurred with the resent hurricanes.  A true storm of nature brought great destruction to many people.  There were outpourings of all kinds for those who were in need.  Stories of those who risked their lives for the benefit of others.  Money, food, and man power that was given with no thought of receiving in return.  Unfortunately, as things return to normal we return to what seems to be normal for our society, we return to the storms that rage around us every day.  Maybe the answer, in part not the whole, lies in caring for others and thinking less of ourselves.  When I was a child I looked forward to times of gifts at Christmas and birthdays like all children do.  The excitement, the joy of receiving.  Now that I have children and grandchildren of my own, there is nothing that compares with the joy of giving, it far exceeds the joys of receiving.  Christ came to this earth and in so doing gained nothing for himself and gave all for us.  Hebrews chapter two verse nine talks of how he was made lower than the angels that he may taste of death for all men.  When we, like Christ, stop thinking of self and focus on the well-being of others there is no room for what offends me, what I want, and what I think.  We as people pull together and seem to come through in a physical crisis but totally ignore the storms that are fueled by selflessness and hatred that rage all around us.  Be the calm in the storm, when we care for others there is less time for what offends, upsets, or enrages me.

"Labor Day"

     It was a typical summer morning in the Oklahoma countryside.  It was already hot, there was the occasional call of a meadow lark and you could smell the dust from the field that stretched out before us.  My two brothers and I stood and looked at the bales of hay that went to the horizon with dollar signs in our eyes.  Hauling hay was not anything new to us, we had been doing it since we were old enough to use a hay hook and drag a bale but this was different.  This was not a job for our Dad or relatives this was for someone else, you know a paying job.  We had already spent the night before discussing what we were going to do with all the money we were going to make.  The field had well over a thousand bales of hay and we had been told we would be paid three cents a bale for every bale we put in the barn.  Not apiece, three cents a bale to be split three ways.  We were the perfect hay hauling team, my youngest brother who was now just old enough, if he set on the edge of the seat, to reach the peddles of the two-ton truck.  The middle brother would ride on the flat bed and stack as I walked along and threw the hay up to him from the ground.  Sometime later we had a man pay us a nickel a bale and we knew we would be rich.  There is nothing like that first paying job, feeling that you have arrived and now were taking your place in the world.  We felt like grown men, even though we were all less than twelve.  We each try to obtain the things we need by the work that we do each day.  Yet as we do so our greatest need cannot be earned by our labor and sweat.  Strangely enough it has been given unto us freely.  I neither earned it nor deserved it, there was nothing on my part that made me worthy of it.  The apostle Paul put it like this in Romans 5:6-8, For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Many often confuse the works that a Christian does as an effort to earn their salvation.  It is far from it, for I will never be able to repay the debt that was paid on my behalf.  A Christian works not to earn or to pay back, but it is an out pouring of love for what has been done for me.  On this Labor Day let us continue to work for the Father out of love, for I will never be worthy of the price that was paid for me.  I was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.  I work not to earn or repay but to say, “I love you also.”