Faith and Prayer, Healing and Rain

I’ve been thinking some more about this “rain thing.”

I recently wrote about rain—specifically, the heart-breaking, soul-sucking, economically disastrous lack thereof.

And, not long ago, I wrote a column about faith and healing, centering on the wonder-filled account in Mark 2. Jesus is teaching, and a paralyzed man is brought to him, carried on a mat by four friends. The room is so crowded that the only way they can get the man to Jesus is to cut a hole in the roof and lower him down. (A mess, I bet.)

What Jesus does is amazing on every level. First, he sees the faith of the “friends.” And then he says to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

The toxically religious leaders, always ready to throw cold water on any spark of joy lest a fire of it break out, immediately begin to grinch and grimace and, ironically, hit the nail on the head: Who does this guy think he is?! “Only God can forgive sins.” Bingo!

Then Jesus raises the ante. I paraphrase for brevity: “Which is easier? To forgive this man’s sins or to heal him and let him dance out of here? So you’ll know that I have authority to do the former, I hereby do the latter.” And he did.

In the column I wrote, I wondered what most folks might choose if we could only pick one: forgiveness or healing. Jesus asked, “Which is harder?” We might well ask, “Which is more important? Which is better?”

I know. So do you. If you think that means for sure that I know which I’d choose, your opinion of me is higher than my opinion of me.

This brings me to a little thought (maybe thin on a point or two) about rain, faith, and healing.

But, in general, it seems clear to me that God has set up the physics and biology of this world to work pretty predictably and well, though not always as I like. If I kick a door frame and break my little toe, both physics and biology are at work. Not God’s fault. But that my toe heals is his blessing and design. And the rain? It “falls on the just and the unjust” and follows the physical laws of creation. Most often, we’re blessed by it. But hail, floods, and such? Not so much.

Most of the time, I think, God chooses to answer our prayers by helping us deal with what is. And that is a very real answer, though I’d usually prefer “what is” to be changed to “what I want.”

But the fact is, Jesus prayed. He taught us to pray about any concern, any need. He taught us that prayer matters. Relationship matters. We’re kids. God is our Father. We can, we should, ask, and trust that our Father will answer by giving us what we need, what is the very best for us, now and forever.

And so, I pray. For others. For myself. For our world.

When I pray about health situations faced by my family, my church family, and others I love, I pray for healing, and I shoot for the moon, assuming that, since God invited me to ask, why not ask big?

And what about “answers”? That term seems subjective, but you know what I mean.

Do I sometimes get the answer I want? Yes. Always? Not even close. What about “flashy” answers? Rarely. The vast majority are, in my opinion, just as real but without obvious fireworks. (If I always need fireworks, is that less faith or more? Less, I think.)

Do I sometimes pray and then watch the health situation deteriorate, and then hate what looks like the end result? Of course.

But that I don’t see the whole picture, and that I too quickly assume that answers must be obvious to me in the “here and now” to be answers—well, that just proves my nearsightedness and that my basic assumptions about “effective” prayer are often quite wrong.

Am I assuming that great health and longevity here are always the best for me and those I love? I probably am. Is that correct? I doubt it.

But is that what I want? Yes! And I can be white-hot-angry when folks I love are hurting and my prayers seem to be bouncing off the ceiling.

God wants us to be honest about our feelings. Read the Psalms! Am I sometimes angry and disappointed? Yes. But I often need to be reminded that the Bible portrays God as the Father who loves us with a ferocity we can hardly imagine and who knows what needs to be built in us that is a much better “end product” than constant doses of health, wealth, and prosperity could ever produce. In my better moments, I know that I can trust him completely, even if I’m shooting up a hot prayer to heaven’s Complaint Department and my eyes are red with angry tears.

And now, let’s pause to pray for rain. Rain. Right now rain. Lots of it. Now. Please! Has it not been dry long enough!? Would rain right now not be among the very best blessings God could give us? Oh, yes!

I hate this drought, as my Father well knows. I’ve shaken my fist in the dirty face of the wind and used words saltier than “Peace! Be still!” To no avail.

But could it be that in the face of some deplorable meteorological physics, God can teach us something and build something in us that “rain on demand” could not? (Not that we’ve been anywhere close to “rain on demand.”)

One day, the rains will come (the real thing and not blowing mud), and I will thank him. But even I know that faith which just shows up when I’m in good health, enjoying a nice annual rainfall, and feeling warm, fuzzy, and (I’m afraid) spiritually a cut above my fellow mortals, is cut-rate faith. Not much faith at all. And not the kind my Father knows I need.

 

You’re invited to visit my website at http://www.CurtisShelburne.com, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2022 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Genuine Hope Really Does “Spring Eternal”

Well, if I doubted that spring has pretty much sprung where I live, all I’d need to do is take a look outside. Or just listen. (Sprung though spring may be, only newcomers here will bow to the temptation to set out plants before Mother’s Day.)

But the calendar says spring. And so, as I’m writing today, does the depressing sound of howling wind. All of this means that I’m right on schedule: I’m tempted to jump the gun with my plants. And I’m sitting here writing my annual “It’s Spring! Humbug!” column.

Oh, I love the changing seasons. I like winter, and I love fireplaces and snow, but enough’s enough, I guess. Autumn can be absolutely gorgeous. Summer’s got its own pull, but a couple or three triple-digit temps for me, and I’m done.

I admit that once I’ve made peace with spring’s arrival, I like to see green stuff growing (though I’m in no hurry for mowing).

But, if you’re looking for a bear to renounce hibernation quickly and joyfully, all bouncy and perky, with spring not just as his favorite season but also enlivening his step, look for another bear. Spring makes this bear surly.

It’s not so much the season itself. It’s not even mostly my bear-ish personality, though I’ve already confessed to being happier in “hibernating bear mode” than in “early bird catching the worm” mode. That bird can have the worm. If he chokes on it, it’s not my fault.

I’m also sure there must be many places where spring is amazingly beautiful and its appearance fills folks with hope.

But here, and I really do like living here . . . Too often here, spring means gale-force wind, blowing dirt, and rodents and small children flying by in the brown air. And in this drought, the even-worse-than-usual wind just depresses the life out of me. I despise it. I figure it’s almost miraculous that our entire area has not been completely blown away yet or burned down by wildfire. We’re ripe for it. (Fires did indeed feature prominently in the news today.)

Do I sound surly to you?

I can hear my wise mother calling me out on this. Out of deference to her, I confess that wind, dirt, and drought cannot make me surly. Nor can the mud spatters on my truck, evidence that mud in the air has been as close as we’ve gotten to rain in a long time. I choose to be surly. But surely Mom would give me this much: conditions like this make surliness much more tempting.

No doubt, she’d give farmers and ranchers much more slack. What they’re dealing with is heartbreaking, and I pray for the many being terribly hurt by this pervasive drought. May this wretched weather pattern change sooner rather than later.

I still hear stuff blowing around out there. It sounds miserable. Was that a ground squirrel that just hit the window?

I’ve thought before that perhaps we should pray in retrospect, pray that our forefathers had shown enough sense not to build in a place prone to impersonating a desert.

But they had lots of sense. And courage. And they could teach us a lot about faithfully enduring difficulty. But I think even they would call this an unusually serious drought (and the records show exactly that).

Of course, I pray for rain. And, of course, I really can’t prove a “cause and effect” relationship with rain and my prayers. (A good thing right now, I suppose.)

But I do know that God sends his blessings to me, to us, continually and amazingly, far more and far more genuine than we could ever ask or imagine, in good times and bad. And I do know that the rain will eventually return, and, for that, I will thank our Father from the bottom of my heart, knowing that it is his blessing.

In the meantime, it’s not bad for me to recall that the words “thank” and “think” have a related “root.” I need to think more about the blessings I have, even in the midst of drought, and be immensely thankful for them.

It might not hurt me to think a lot more about the folks whose homes and land are presently burning.

It might be very good for me to consider what the folks in Ukraine are going through right now. That abomination is harder to make sense of even than a drought, but a wicked misleader continues to let it burn and rage. I’ll bet Christians, and others, there are more thankful than ever for what they had in January. And I imagine that they are thankful indeed right now for any small comforts and aid. I pray for God’s help for them and for wisdom for our world in the senselessness and tragedy.

So I pray. I don’t want to fail to ask for God’s help in opening my eyes lest I let my soul slip into a drought of gratitude.

Last Sunday was Easter, which means that hope really does spring eternal if it is focused on our “Eternal Father, strong to save.”

You’re invited to visit my website at http://www.CurtisShelburne.com, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2022 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

“Good Friday and Easter Free Us to Find Hope”

“Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate,” wrote author, pastor, theologian, and modern-day martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And he continued, they liberate us to contemplate “the ultimate meaning of life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.”

I am quite sure that when Bonhoeffer spoke of the Cross and the Resurrection as “freeing” us, he did so on purpose. If I’m not mistaken, Bonhoeffer’s words above were written while he was imprisoned by the Nazis. In prison, he alludes to the freedom we can find anywhere as we choose to center on Christ’s sacrifice and power rather than focusing always on “our own fate” and thus living fear-molded lives, enslaved even if we seem to be free.

Sometimes I find myself taken by surprise by a stark contrast as I’m listening to a speech or reading an article or a book, and it occurs to me, “There’s depth and wisdom here. This person has a center, a foundation, a universe that’s larger than self. This person is grounded in truth, and I need to listen.”

And the contrast? It’s unmistakable! It’s between what is genuine and deep, and what is a thin veneer or convenient mask. With regard to faith, it’s faith that genuinely seeks God’s truth and thus enlivens the whole heart, mind, and soul. It’s “sold out” to God and not just seeking favor from a sect or a pet set of superficial and divisive traditions. With regard to public discourse, the contrast is between wise words coming from a grounded truth-seeking soul and poison words “offered” by the type of soul-shriveled politician whose main focus and heart’s desire is to divide us, stoke enmity, and by manipulating us, grasp power.

Through the long centuries, this has always been true.

I was reminded on this Palm Sunday (upon which I am now writing) that it was right after Jesus’ raising of his friend Lazarus that the religious leaders of his day began to firmly plot Christ’s death. Why? Because, they reasoned, if they let Christ continue, “pretty soon everyone will be believing in him and the Romans will come and remove what little power and privilege we still have” (John 11:48, The Message).

That is as modern as tomorrow. Any group with great earthly power can quickly find itself controlled by the deep fear that it’s power might quickly be lost. Frightened people—in their sect or office, family or party, city or state or nation, easily become dangerous people.

What happens when such a person comes into contact with a fellow human who is not frightened? Perhaps the latter is a Christian who actually chooses to live his life in the light of the Cross and the Resurrection and thus is truly free to think more about what life really means and what makes it worth living. Perhaps the latter has a security that is soul-deep and not circumstance-shallow. Perhaps the latter’s life is deeper than whether or not her new car is the latest model or his new house is a good deal larger than his last one.

Is it possible to seriously ponder the truth of the Cross and the Resurrection and still live a largely superficial life?

Bonhoeffer was right. Perhaps it won’t take an actual prison to separate us long enough from our toys and trivial “busy-ness” that we ponder what’s truly important. Good Friday and Easter are particularly suited for that. A well-spent Holy Week just might remind us of how holy are all weeks devoted to following the Lord who willingly lay down his rights, chose mercy over hatred, won by being willing to lose, and, giving up life in death, became the Author of life eternal for all who would believe.

Do we want to learn about the “ultimate meaning of life, suffering, and events”? Good Friday and Easter can free us to do that very thing. We don’t have to drown in superficiality. We can find a weight of truth and substance that can keep us from being blown around by the latest opinion polls or ever-present windbags who are always willing to sell truth for a dime’s worth of power.

We don’t have to fixate on what is terminally shallow.

To truly ponder Good Friday and Easter and give ourselves over to both that sacrifice and that joy is indeed to “lay hold of a great hope.”

You’re invited to visit my website at http://www.CurtisShelburne.com, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2022 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

A Column About a New Old Porch Column

As I write this morning, I’m sitting in a comfy fold-out rocking chair on the porch of my grandparents’ old home in Robert Lee, Texas. 

I love being in Robert Lee. My three pastor brothers and I have been coming to this sweet little place at least twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring, for over forty years. That hardly seems possible!

I call it the Coke County Pastors’ Conference. Not only is it an incredible amount of relaxation and fun (particularly since for the last bunch of years we’ve done a lot less actual carpentry work here than we once did), it’s also been for us the best ministry conference we ever attend. For more than a few of those years, our pastor father was also here with us. Sweet memories.

At this moment, my two-years-younger brother is actually working; I’m providing valuable input. The big money is in consulting.

Jim is working with concrete. I’ve offered several suggestions. I am close enough to him that I’ve needed to avoid a little of the concrete dust he’s creating. But I’m far enough away that I’ve not broken a sweat. He seems to be doing a passable job, but I have a column deadline to meet as his concrete cures.

In all of our trips to Robert Lee, steaks play a role. We’ve been doing our part for the cattle industry. That’s appropriate as Granddaddy Key raised cattle, trucked cattle—he had the only cattle truck in Coke County for years and hauled cattle to Fort Worth for folks—and he even cowboyed in Arizona some during his younger days. “Beef! It’s what’s for dinner!” (I suppose I could be a vegetarian, perhaps at gunpoint. But, my apologies, I’d rather just quietly pass away.)

As pastors gather, a little incense (in cigar form) is also offered.

What my bro is working on presently (and I actually have helped some in a minor way in previous stages) is recreating a front porch column. Granddaddy built this house in 1928. It surely seemed a lot bigger in my childhood in the 60s.

You can find houses of this vintage all over a wide patch of geography—kind of a “shotgun” style, the simplest of roof-lines, with a front porch and a column (or two) supporting the roof above the porch (one column in our case). The column was supported on a brick stack that went about one-third to one-half of the way up and then, perched on a concrete platform, had 1 x 4 boards angling up to support the eave on the corner.

A few years ago, we noticed that the brick stack had a pretty pronounced crack in its mortar where the bricks had shifted a bit. We figured the seemingly eternal drought (and consequent porch and house settling) was taking its toll. After considering the situation for a couple of years (one doesn’t want to rush into these things), we decided to rebuild the post and, in the Shelburne way of building, decided to over-build incredibly by making the new column completely independent of the porch and foundation.

Oh, it would look just like the old one, without the crack, but it would be built with a fairly massive and deep Sonotube concrete form underneath, newly cleaned ancient brick (from the original), a few new bricks to replace old cracked ones, the original “mid-pedestal,” and new 1 x 4s.

Among the required temporary frame material as we worked were two roof jacks and accompanying hardware used to hold up that corner of the house while we built the new old porch column.

Maybe about halfway through the project, we found an old picture of Grandmother Key sitting on the porch, possibly in the late 1930s or early 1940s. It’s a sweet picture. But . . .

But the crack in the column that we thought was somewhat new? It was clearly already there in the old picture.

Maybe—just maybe—it was a little worse by 2020? I say that to make us feel better about the work. But a  few hundred pounds of concrete sacks later, it is now most definitely improved.

My brother requests that I mention that he did indeed do the lion’s share of the work.

And we both are of the opinion that the new column will be here long after the rest of the old place has fallen down beside it.

Is there a point to this? I can think of many.

I’m thankful for decades of time spent with my brothers.

I’m thankful for faith and family foundations that are longer-lasting than concrete and are building materials that are incredibly strong.

And I’m thankful that Jim did the work while I wrote this column.

I have so much for which to be thankful. Yes, indeed.

You’re invited to visit my website, and I hope you’ll take a look there at my new “Focus on Faith” Podcast. At the website, just click on “Podcast.” Blessings!

Copyright 2022 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.