In Which I Perambulate

I woke up this morning around 5:30 and decided to take a walk outside. I got dressed and took off.

Behind the hotel (we're in Ohio visiting Anne & Dave) I discovered a good sized hill

This is the hill at the end of my walk. It was dark when I began

I climbed the hill and it was all tall grass; in the distance a line of trees. Cool! It is fun walking in a field in the dark, but I kept on. I reached the crest and looked back

This is our hotel

Shortly after this I discovered water. When I drew near, something began plopping into  the water! Frogs?? Couldn't see what it was, so I pressed on.

I came to a patch of briars and when I went around it I came upon a nicely mowed field. Looked like a park.

The view of the other side of the hill

A lone light! Interesting!

I found a huge parking lot and rather large building. So naturally I walked all around it. The  grounds were incredibly well manicured. And the back of the building had a beautiful surprise:

a panoramic view

This turned out to be the Met Life building.

I headed back to the hotel. A nice two hour perambulation!

The view from the hotel parking lot at the end of my walk. Glorious!

A great start to the day!

Did you used to preach?

After paying for his things, the man asked me, "Did you used to preach?"

I don't even know his name. He comes in often. I know what he's going to buy. I know a little about him, but I don't remember telling anything about me.

I was rather surprised. I laughed and replied, "Yes...I used to be a pastor. How do you know this???"

He said, "Somebody told me some time ago but I don't remember who."

We spoke for awhile about spiritual things and then I had to get back to work.

Boy, do I want to know who told him!!

My girls have awesome names

At the gazebo in York: 

Mary K, Sarah, Erica, Anne

In an e-mail I wrote last night, I explained to a friend the K in Mary K, and that led me to think about my girls and their awesome names. In the Old Testament (and many other ancient cultures) names often described character traits. So, in naming our girls, we came up with names that described character traits that we were trusting God to work in them.

ANNE KATHERINE
I had Anne first. I wanted Ann with an e because it looks better and sounds different than without the e. Then we settled on Anne Katherine. We were informed often that it should be Katherine Anne and not Anne Katherine because "you always put the shorter name in the middle." But she was always Anne.
Anne means full of grace, mercy, and prayer. Katherine means pure.
While she was never called “Annie” I did have a nickname for her, Annie Kathy the blues singer. Don’t know why, just always thought Annie Kathy was a great name for a blues singer....

SARAH ELIZABETH
I had the name Elizabeth picked out, but no first name. We wanted this as her middle name because we were concerned people would shorten this to Beth or Liz or Lizzie and we wanted her to be Elizabeth. One Wednesday night, as we were dropping Anne off at the nursery, the worker asked about names for our soon to come second child. We explained our dilemma and she suggested Sarah Elizabeth. We liked it immediately! And, it was always Sarah with the h. Sounds different and looks better!
Sarah Elizabeth means a princess dedicated to God.

MARY KEALA
I had a friend in Hawai’i named Keala and I always liked the name. Mary has her Mom’s name and I thought it would be cool if we continued this tradition – three generations of Mary! I thought Mary K had a nice ring to it. But, and this is important, it is not pronounced Mary KAY, but rather, MARY Kay.
Mary is from marah and means bitter. Oh my. Keala is Hawaiian and means the way or the path. So our intent was, even when life is hard, she will walk in the Way.

ERICA JANE
We weren’t necessarily finished after out first three, but weren’t planning on another one yet. But we began to have reason to think Mary was pregnant. She was volunteering at the local crisis pregnancy center at the time. She went up there one day and called me shortly after she arrived. I answered the phone, “Hello.” (This was before caller ID.) She said, “Hello, DAD.” It was true! We were blessed with another one! Right away, I came up with the name Jane. It is the feminine form of John and means God’s gift. I wanted to name her Leilani Jane, but this did not fly. So I began to search for an acceptable equivalent of Leilani. I found Erica. It means, princess, conqueror, overcomer. Amen. We were good to go.


I was always certain that we would have girls. One reason was we never had a boy’s name. Well, I had one, Coleus Joel. But for some reason, that was never acceptable.

I love my girls. And I’m convinced they have awesome names. My grandchildren have some awesome names as well, but I will leave that explanation to their mothers!

My girls as beautiful young women: 

Mary K, Erica Jane, Anne, Sarah

What do you want to do?

I woke up the other afternoon, I don’t know, around 5 (remember, I work nights and sleep all day), and was still tired. When I said, “I’m tired”, Mary asked me, “What do you want to do, so you don’t wake up tired?”

I am hearing this question often lately, “What would you like to do?”

My first thought is often, What other kind of job would I like? Where do I even look for such a job? But, I am hearing this often enough that I’m beginning to think this is God prompting me to ask myself, What would I like to do?

Last year, April to be exact, my pastor asked me that and it changed my prayer requests. I got specific, I wanted to have the opportunity to preach and teach. And He answered. I’ve had opportunities to teach a couple of times and preach a few times. Not as many as I would like, but a few. And I’m grateful!

And now the question is coming up again. And I’m persuaded this is more than, What kind of job would you like? 

What do you want to do?

This is a big question. Not simply, What can I do, and arrange? But, what has God put in my heart that He can make possible? As I pray and wait on the Lord for vision, I know this much, I am praying for the fulfillment of Psalm 92:12-15 in my life:

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.  
Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.  
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;  
To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Amen. That’s my prayer in a nutshell, I want to still bring forth fruit in old age.

If you ask me

When the last song was sung, a member of the Praise Team offered words of encouragement from the song and then prayed. The words of a chorus we used to sing in our family devotions came to mind and I wanted to share them. I wanted to testify. But the brethren began to take the projector down and set the pulpit on the podium. Then the pastor was upfront and leading us in prayer. Awkward. And I confess, I don’t really know the rules for testifying in this fellowship. I mean, spontaneous testifying.

More and more I am realizing how strongly I believe such testifying is an important part of church life.

I know how discouraging it can be for the pastor, when he asks for testimonies, and there are none offered. But this is a two-edged sword. When testifying is not a regular part of church life, people are not prepared to testify. I believe we need to develop a culture where testifying is encouraged, welcomed, and sought. One in which it’s not a big deal, an odd occurrence, an unusual thing; in which it’s not awkward, but normal.

I know this can interrupt the flow of the well planned service. But maybe, just maybe, the Holy Spirit has something for the body that wasn’t planned by the leaders. It could happen, y’know!

Let me hasten to add, this is not meant as an attack on the pastor or church! No, no, no! It is true, this is what I believe, but this is more like an “if you ask me” thing. Truth is, I have attended several churches the past few years and none of them seemed to have testifying as part of their body life. I confess further, that the churches I pastored and attended in which testifying was part of the body life all had Sunday night services. While testifying was welcome on Sunday morning, it was much more frequent in the evening service. I know it can be part of a morning service: when I had the opportunity to lead the worship (and preach) earlier this summer, we had a time of testifying. It began with a specific invitation, “Is there anyone here who would like to confess their faith in Christ? Who would like to stand and confess, ‘I believe Jesus is the Son of God’?” It was a blessed time and led to other testimonies and prayer requests. Wonderful!

I believe this is a vital part of a healthy church life. It tells us God is at work among us. And isn’t that awesome?

The right cross I never saw coming

After church this past Sunday, a group of us were talking and the pastor mentioned seeing a man we all knew. He related a little of the conversation he had with him. I know this man better than the others, so they asked me about his spiritual life. I said, “He grew up in church, went to church school, he knows the Bible pretty good, and if you asked if he believes in Jesus, that he is the Son of God who died and rose again, he would answer, Yes.” Then someone asked, “But is he living for the Lord?”

When I was a teenager, I used to box. I’ve been knocked down twice. Once, I was boxing a guy who weighed over 200 lbs. I was maybe 130. He knocked me into the bushes, but that was only because he got his weight behind a punch and pushed me down. Didn’t hurt. One time I was boxing a friend named Roy. Nobody around. He hit me with a right hand. I didn’t go down, but man was I in a daze! Good thing he was inexperienced, otherwise he would have pounced on me….

The point is, that’s how I felt when that question was asked. I don’t think anyone else noticed it, but boy was I dazed! I had several thoughts racing through my head all at once. Is he living for the Lord?

- how do I determine this?

- this isn’t a biblical phrase, what would I use instead?

- would someone say of me, Jeff is living for the Lord?

- I think I know what they mean, but what do we mean by this phrase?

Since that afternoon, I’ve searched for the phrase ‘living for the Lord’ in the Bible. Not there. What do we mean by this phrase? What is the criteria for determining this? But perhaps the better question is, How would Jesus have asked this? And another, How would the apostles have asked this?

Many times and in many places the apostles, in their exhortations, distinguish between real and bogus faith. For example, 1 John 2

4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

So, how do we inquire about someone’s faith? Is he following the Lord? Is he walking in the Spirit? Is he walking in the way of the Lord? Is he keeping the commandments of the Lord?

I confess, I’m still a little dazed. First, by the question on Sunday and now, by my own questions!

Now I know how Naaman felt

Last night I felt terrible. I know this sounds a little odd (but then, what about me doesn’t sound odd?), but I felt my body was telling me I was having issues with my blood pressure. So I asked an EMS friend to check my blood pressure. It was high. High enough to be concerned, so I determined to see somebody about it. And that’s just what I did today, I went to Piedmont East.

I don’t go to the doctor very often, well, hardly ever, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were no other patients yet we had quite a long wait. A long wait. Finally, he came in. He asked a couple of questions, looked in my eye, ear, and checked my pulse. Then prescribed some pills and we were out.

When we got home I told Mary, “Now I know how Naaman felt.”

You say, What??

Yeah, Naaman the leper. Here is his story from 2 Kings 5:9-11

So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

Naaman expected a show. A big production. Something other than, Go and wash in Jordan seven times. I understand that better now. I don’t know what I expected but something more than, “Take this pill once a day.”

I’ve got more sympathy for Naaman now. But you know what, God was rather patient with Naaman. The promise was still there for him, Go and wash in Jordan seven times. . . and thou shalt be clean. He did and he was made clean. Since I felt like Naaman, I got the prescription filled.

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with my story, it's just the last thing I see when I leave each night for work. Always fills my heart with joy.