Category: Random Thoughts

The 900th Watchword?

If you were to go to this website and click on the tab watch word, you would find a treasure of devotionals that have been written over the past 4 1/2 years, through all the pandemic to the present time. Sometimes these were posted daily, more recently they have been going out to all those who would like them three times a week. Recently I’ve had cause to review the record of these watchwords only to find that recently I published my 900th Watchword, a devotional entitled “Happiness is a Bird”.

Wow, it’s hard to believe, 900 Watchwords. A marker event where it may be appropriate to remind ourselves of how we got started and what we have gone through, more than four years later still honoring our Lord with these devotionals and essays.

We don’t need to remind ourselves of the isolation of the pandemic, and all the stresses and difficulties that we experienced, only to point out that regardless of what is in front of us, our God has led us by His mighty hand and got us to the other side.

I looked at the first four Watchwords that we sent out just to see where we were and how we approached our need for encouragement, and what was on our minds. Early in the pandemic we were caught up in doing things right, isolating ourselves, separating ourselves from one another, and dealing with the question of to mask or not to mask.

We started with just 16 on our mailing list, and now that number is around 80 or so. The original group were the men from eight different congregations who for years had gathered in Bible study. Watchwords were actually an e-mail designed to encourage each of us to keep in contact with both ourselves and our Lord.

That first devotional was entitled “The Church is Dark” and contained this good thought as part of a commentary: “Here it is Sunday morning and I am at home, my church is dark, and maybe yours, too – but not our hearts for we learned long ago that church is within us, and Jesus is Lord…Even in adversity there are lessons to be learned. The strength that comes from overcoming difficulties with the faith that God is in charge and God loves us. What we were all going through with the virus was not a test, it’s was an opportunity for our ‘hearts to burn’ with the knowledge that He is with us (Luke 24:32). Peace.”

A good sentiment, indeed. In a Bulletin Board announcement from Dan and Gary, members of our group, was the reminder that the phone is perfectly safe to use, and this was followed up by their researching of COVID precautions. Underscoring the important of all of us contributing information and encouragement during this difficult time.

Then, in another Watchword, we read this by Jesse Jordan: “Worship the creator, not the creation… At the end of the day what is your hope??  In three short months, just like he did with the plagues of Egypt, God has taken away everything we worship. God said, you want to worship athletes. I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians?  I will shut down civic centers. You want to worship the actors? I will shut down theaters. You want to worship money? I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market. You don’t want to go to church and worship me? I will make it so you can’t go to church.

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Maybe we don’t need a vaccine. Maybe what we need is to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival where we focus on the only thing in the world that really matters.  Jesus.”

That was a terrific statement. In the midst of it all, we learned to seek His face and to turn back to all that He means — Lord and Savior.

I think that’s enough of a walk down memory lane. The pandemic and all that it meant was not a happy time, but it was a time of self-evaluation, struggle, and we as individuals and we as a nation have not been the same since. If there is a single thought coming away from this posting it would be that God is still in charge and His love continues even when we step on that slippery slope when the little ‘c’ church, us, is dark. Thank you, Heavenly Father Amen.

Paul to the Corinthians — For just preaching the Gospel isn’t any special credit to me—I couldn’t keep from preaching it if I wanted to. I would be utterly miserable. Woe unto me if I don’t. ¹⁷ If I were volunteering my services of my own free will, then the Lord would give me a special reward; but that is not the situation, for God has picked me out and given me this sacred trust, and I have no choice. ¹⁸ Under this circumstance, what is my pay? It is the special joy I get from preaching the Good News without expense to anyone, never demanding my rights. ¹⁹ And this has a real advantage: I am not bound to obey anyone just because he pays my salary; yet I have freely and happily become a servant of any and all so that I can win them to Christ. 1 Corinthians 9:16-19 Continue reading

Thirty years or more ago, 24 members of my church set out on a “Great Experiment”, a commitment to practice five disciplines for just 30 days.  The five disciplines were:

1. We met each week to pray together, and to share our thoughts.
2. We were committed to giving two hours of our time each week to God. This was a form of self-surrender and was not defined except that we let God lead in how that time was spent.
3. We were committed to giving one/tenth of our monthly income to God.
4. We were committed to spending the morning period, 5:30-6:00 a.m., in prayer, meditation and study of scripture. Many in our group started journaling.
5. The fifth discipline involved a form of witnessing to God by reaching out to others anonymously, an act of kindness, an unexpected gift, an expression of support.

By the end of the 30 days, the 24 found that they were changed, in subtle ways, and each one was excited to continue the Great Experiment into the next month.  There was something contagious about the practice of those five disciplines.  What started out as a kind of obligation gradually became a true commitment.  We could feel God leading us.

We continued the Great Experiment, month after month, for eight years!  Along the way, we lost some of our members, so that at the time we made the decision to end the program, there remained six of our original 24.  Also along the way, another group of Great Experimenters began, a gathering of approximately 15, and continued for an extended period.

What we found, at its heart, was as form of pure giving.  Whether it was our time, or our outreach, or our study, it was turning God’s gift around and passing it on.

Pure giving.  In Rachel Remen’s book My Grandfathers Blessings, she tells of a lesson she learned from her grandfather.  The lesson involved the eight levels of “charity” as outlined in the Talmud:

• The eighth and most basic level, has a person grudgingly buying a coat for a shivering person who has asked for help. Gives it to him in the presence of witnesses, and waits to be thanked.
• At the seventh level, a person does the same grudging thing without waiting to be asked for help.
• At the sixth level, a person does this same thing, willingly, without waiting to be asked for help.
• At the fifth level, a person gives a coat that he has bought to another, but does so in private, and with an open heart.
• At the fourth level, a person openheartedly and privately gives his own coat to another.
• At the third level, a person openheartedly gives his own coat to another who does not know who has given him this gift. But the man himself knows the person who is indebted to him.
• At the second level, a person openheartedly gives his own coat to another and has no idea who has received it. But the man who receives it knows to whom he is indebted.
• At the first, and the purest level of giving, a man openheartedly gives his own coat away without knowing who will receive it, and he who receives it does not know who has given it to him.

How do we approach our giving?  Here at Zion we make pledges and a record is kept of our progress in meeting that pledge.  There are practical reasons our giving is handled this way.  But as I consider the eight levels of giving, I wonder where does our tithe fit in?  We say our giving to Zion is giving to God’s service, but where does our  giving sto Zion touch the needs of people in our community?

I think about the Great Experiment and that fifth discipline.  As a group we struggled with this act of kindness each day, and many of our weekly meetings were spent seeking ways to carry out that discipline… anonymously!  And I wonder if we were being too literal, with too little spontaneity, with too much particularity.

Rachel Reimen ends her story with two statements that have such meaning:  “Some things have so much goodness in them that they are worth doing any way that you can.”  I think the five disciplines of the Great Experiment has that quality of goodness that is worth doing. The Great Experiment prepared many of us for what came next – Via Di Cristo!

The second statement is a simple one, loaded with meaning.  It says that “it is better to bless life badly than not to bless it at all.”

Giving.  Think about it and let God bless you, and you in turn, pass it on!

Have a generous, Christian, Christmas season.

For What It’s Worth.

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[NOTE – This article originally ran in our church newsletter, The Teller.]