A Good News-Bad News Scenario

I have a good news-bad news scenario for you, and it comes complete with a few layers of each. 

It’s good news that the scenario I’ll mention is mostly hypothetical. But even better news is that what it illustrates is, I believe, deeply true.

It’s bad news, and it pains me to tell you this, that you’re on death row, convicted for murder. I hope you think it’s good news that I was quite surprised to hear it and have always thought very highly of you.

It’s good news, even though our friendship makes me reluctant to admit it, that the trial was fair, and the verdict was just. It’s bad news that, yes, you committed the crime. It’s also bad news, from your point of view, that your death sentence is scheduled to be carried out at 11:59 p.m., Thursday next.

I should give you a minute to process this news, good and bad, bad and good. It really is a lot to take in.

But don’t despair! I now have incredibly good news for you. (Note that this is not a deep dive into psychology. We’ll just assume that you would prefer to stay alive.) An amazingly selfless individual has appealed to the governor on your behalf and asked (and this really is incredible) to take your place on death row and be executed on your behalf. More incredible still, the governor has agreed. You’ll soon be free.

Of course, it’s hard to imagine that this would ever actually happen. The scenario is indeed hypothetical, but I thank you for indulging me in order for us to get to this question: If this could really happen and the innocent man was indeed executed in your stead, would his taking your punishment alter your actual guilt in the least? Surely, the answer is No.

Such an act, even if it was not committed by a crazy person (aided by an unhinged governor), and even if it was a completely unselfish act of sacrificial love… Such an act would not, could not, render the guilty truly innocent and the innocent truly guilty. Unless…

 Unless the man making the sacrifice was the fully human, fully divine Son of God. Fully human, he could actually die, executed on, say, a cross. Fully divine, he could literally take on himself and away from those he richly loves all of their sin and guilt. Yes, it would be a completely unselfish act of sacrificial love, but, as opposed to the former scenario, this one would be genuinely efficacious.

Wonder of wonders, the guilty would be completely free, no longer guilty, and alive because, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “God made him [Jesus Christ] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

Why would someone so completely, mysteriously, and genuinely forgiven choose to live as a guilty person? Why would such a person not choose to live with genuine hope, joy, and gratitude?

If this latter scenario is not hypothetical at all but is wonderfully true, then it surely must be the best news of all.

Text Copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Mother’s Day and Love’s Growing Season

Mother’s Day is only a few days away, but my memories of my mother don’t need any calendar or greeting card company’s prompting.

This morning, I was looking at some Mother’s Day-related columns I’ve written in the past, and what follows is mostly one of those with a bit of updating. Multiple sweet memories drew me back in.

I wrote about doing something Mom would have dearly loved, something she taught me to do, with someone she never met but would love with incredible love, someone I believe she will indeed one day meet.

I was planting flowers with our little five-year-old granddaughter Brenley (who’ll soon be sixteen). I knew we were taking a chance. To plant anything in our area before Mother’s Day is to walk on the wild side and live dangerously. But plant we did. Out in the back yard, we dug down into the soil of two whiskey barrel planters, set in our plants, and watered them with water from our rain barrels. We were standing there, our hands covered with mud. Bren was holding the “loppers” as I showed her where to separate our cuttings. And we had time to talk.

That’s one of the best things about being together and planting plants. You’re working for a common goal, looking forward to what God will do to make the world and your little corner of it more beautiful, and you get to talk while you’re in the midst of the worthwhile labor. We dull grownups need to spend all the time we can talking with little people. They still know what’s really important.

And that was when it hit me: “Bren, your MawMaw Shelburne, my mom, would have loved this! She loved to plant things and watch them grow, and she’d really have loved doing this with you!”

Memories flooded in, countless times in my childhood when Mom would take my younger brother and me out to the back yard, and we’d dig, and plant, and water—and talk. Mom was Rembrandt and her yard was her canvas. I think the only things she loved more than her growing plants were her growing kids and grandkids. So, she just grew them all together.

A lot of what Mom knew about growing things, she learned from her parents. Grandmother Key was always on the lookout for rocks with hollows in them, perfect planters for her little cacti. For larger planting projects, the instrument of choice, both for Mom and Grandmother Key, was a grubbing hoe. I remember setting the plants out and then grubbing dams around them to hold the water in. I’d play with my little plastic soldiers around those dams, earthen barricades prone to frequent flooding. Drowning was a far worse danger to my troops than any enemy action.

Granddaddy Key was often drafted into Mom and Grandmother’s service. He raised more cattle and sheep than plants, but he certainly knew how to grow things. I’m not sure who loved those rare and precious collaborative gardening times more, the father or the daughter. One thing was clear: they loved the time together.

Mom knew that Paradise was a garden, a place to grow love. And love grows forever.

Text Copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

God Has No Unwanted Children

Our parents were tired. That’s the most obvious explanation for, well, a lot.

I’m thankful that they had me, though a “planned” child, I obviously was not. If I’ve done the math correctly, Mom was 42 years old when I was born, and Dad was 44.

Since I am confident that I was no surprise to my Father, it’s never bothered me that I was completely unexpected by my parents—until the doctor confirmed that I was expected. I can only imagine how that news took their breath away. I wonder what they were thinking. My two-years-younger brother has a simple answer: “Oh, they weren’t thinking.”

Math again. If my former calculations are right, Mom was 44 and Dad was 46 when Jim came on the scene. Was he planned? Oh, I think so. I’ve told him many times that he was obviously brought on board to serve as a companion for little Curtis. It’s simple logic, I’ve assured him, and he should find a great deal of peace and satisfaction by facing reality and just accepting that a major part of his purpose in life has been to make my life better.

Our folks already had three children—two boys and a girl. My sister (my next oldest sibling) was 15 years older than me. My oldest brother and his wife could almost have been my parents. That fact, I’m told, added to the surprise and some confusion when the news of my impending arrival got out.

So, obviously, our folks already had one well-established family when Family Number Two took up residence. Mom would later do some math herself and report that she had at least one child in public school continuously for 40 years. Who does that on purpose?

Were they tired? Oh, yes. And that explains why, according to our older siblings, that our parents’ standards slipped a great deal with the second bunch, and pretty much all Jim and I had to do was to stay out of jail. I’m not saying that I completely admit the accuracy of that opinion, but neither would I say that they were utterly without evidence.

I give one example. I won’t go into the details, but Jim and I tried a brief flirtation with organized sports and soon discovered that we had a good deal more fun on our own. During our growing up years, fewer bad guys were blowing things up. Chemistry sets included a wider variety of useful chemicals, and we discovered that the neighborhood pharmacy could augment a toy chemistry set quite nicely.

A real breakthrough for us came when we learned in school how to make a paper mache volcano. The prescribed recipe would produce a little civilized “lava” rolling gently over the top and down the sides of the volcano. But using laudable initiative and employing some creative problem-solving skills, we found that a slightly altered mixture could produce a few seconds of real fire blowing out of the top. After the excitement, imagine a gratifying amount of ash settling gently down around the perimeter.

That led to further experimentation. I still maintain that it was not my idea at all to try the mixture on the top of a neighbor’s new fencepost. To any aspiring young chemists reading this, I simply say that I am in no way suggesting such “research.”

My parents were tired, for sure. I’m not sure if their second family kept them young in many ways or hastened their aging. But, seriously, though neither they nor any of their children were without human flaws, our parents trusted in God’s love and grace, and I will be forever thankful for that.

At best, life can be hard, and none of us gets it right—least of all, folks who think that they do. We are all broken in many ways, and we all do our share of breaking. But I believe this: We all have a Father whose love and grace is absolutely available, no matter how often we fall. Not one of God’s children need ever go to sleep wondering if he or she is wanted or loved.

Text copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

As Time Flies by at the Key Place

My three brothers and I are back down at our maternal grandparents’ old homeplace at Robert Lee, Texas, for a few days.

Since all of us are pastors (a couple are supposedly retired, though they don’t look much like it to me), getting as much as possible done early so we can get out of our respective towns and covey up together is always challenging. And since we all seem to be connected with non-prophet organizations (bad pun), much else often surprises us.

But for around 40 years, we’ve been gathering here at least twice a year, not counting the at-least-twice-a-year trips in our childhoods when Dad would guide the family chariot up the rock driveway outside this house and carry sleeping children in to the pallets prepared for them.

This place has been an incredible blessing, and the folks who’ve allowed us these times away are sweet to realize how much it means to us—and, truly, how much the “Coke County Ministry Conference” has thus blessed them.

The old house itself Granddaddy Key built in 1928. We’ve rebuilt and propped up a good chunk of it, but it’s certainly showing its years. If our calculations are correct, Granddaddy owned this house for 46 years. My brother Gene has now been the actual owner for 50 years. I know Granddaddy and Grandmother would love that we still treasure this slowly decaying old place and eat around their old table. You don’t have to point out the symmetry these days as four decaying old pastors (two in their sixties and two in their eighties) gather here. 

A couple of us this week spent a little time installing molding around the inside of a window we replaced last year. The old one was . . . decaying. And we even have managed the effort to fill up a couple of bird feeders to entice a few cardinals to come by. What’s a ministry conference without a Cardinal or two?

Other than that minor carpentry and bird feeding, we’ve worked hard drinking coffee, eating hot dogs (lunch) and steaks (dinner), harming few vegetables at all, and discussing, well, pretty much everything. We enjoy a fire in the fire pit when we can and/or burning coals in the little grill. The best “discussing” happens over a fire.

We don’t preach to each other much. It wouldn’t help. As you can tell, relaxation is the main order of “business.”

Call this a confession, I suppose, but some occasional real work does slip in. In an old house once equipped with a wooden fuse box and maybe two circuits, four laptop computers have been humming. One brother is working on another book. One brother is conducting video interviews with mission leaders who are in Malawi, Africa. One is writing a funeral message. And I’m writing this. (For my part, I think I’m working poorly enough that it may not count as real work. I’ll add that to my confession.)

My space for this column is slipping away, as is the time this week at the old Key Place. A Kenyan Christian once told one of my brothers, “You Americans have watches; we Kenyans have time.” It’s an idea worth pondering.

But today, as time (as usual) seems to be slipping by here far too quickly, I find myself immensely grateful again to the God of all our “times and seasons” for just this sort of time and just this sort of place.

Oh, hey! A cardinal just spotted the bird feeder. Some beautiful blessings are hard to miss!

Text Copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

When Idols Rot and Topple Over

We can hardly be too careful when we’re choosing what we’ll worship.

Most folks don’t read the Old Testament prophets for comedy, but the prophet Isaiah made brutal fun of down-on-their-luck idol worshipers who couldn’t afford to commission a metalworker to cast a custom-made god and hire a goldsmith to overlay it. A high-quality idol can be pricey. Instead, the poorer folks were forced to go with cheaper gods by searching carefully for wood that wouldn’t rot and hiring a worker at least skilled enough to set up the cut-rate divinity so that it wouldn’t accidentally topple over. “You really think you can compare the God of the universe with those?” the prophet was asking (see Isaiah 40:18-20).  

Of course, it’s always tempting for humans to prefer gods we can manipulate with magic or smoke or potions or in a thousand ways. Our “god” becomes the god we own and trot out when convenient. Handiest of all is simply to make a god of ourselves. But what if our mirror-idol begins to reflect some serious soul-rot? What if we realize that self-worship isn’t working, and that “toppling over” is more than a theoretical danger?

Author Dorothy Sayers once wrote that many folks “get along surprisingly well” for long periods of time “without ever discovering what [their] faith really is.” And she listed some strategies people have used to busily shove unwelcome and hard questions about their real faith away. (She didn’t even know about earbuds.)

But then, she wrote, came wartime. Blackouts. Bomb cellars. Gas masks. The “threat of imminent death.” Life eventually pushes us into some sort of corner, and the long-avoided questions show up loudly, intrusively. The “fear” stronger than “distractions” demands, “What . . . do you make of all this? What do you believe?”

Wartime. Or the oncologist’s office. Or the cemetery. Suffering is a solvent that strips away easy answers and defies diversion.

We’ve just celebrated Easter and, I hope, felt its real joy. But it is worthwhile to remember that for the three days right after Jesus of Nazareth died, the disciples didn’t know what to believe. Their hopes and dreams had bled out on the cross with their Lord. The tomb seemed to have swallowed—and won. Most of the disciples had scattered like frightened quail.
When they’d finally coveyed up again, it was without room for any ideas of victory. They were in survival mode, jumping at the slightest sound. Their thoughts were racing in endless confusion, their grief rolling over them in nauseating waves. They didn’t look much like the apostles who would later carry the good news to the ends of the earth, the apostles Jesus said would one day sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. The mood behind those locked doors was as bleak as any the world has ever known.

And that’s exactly when, on “the evening of that first day of the week,” the Apostle John tells us that suddenly Jesus “came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:19). Their Lord. Not a ghost. Not a dead man. More fully alive than anyone they had ever seen. And literally bringing peace.

Please, John, tell us more! In the moments between Christ’s appearance and his giving of peace, what looks flashed across the disciples’ faces? I wonder.

But that kind of power. That kind of peace. Oh, that kind of matchless Lord is worthy of all worship. 

What kind of God will we trust? A rotting god won’t do. A god who topples over when life tumbles in won’t do.

Those disciples put their faith in a living Lord: “Then the disciples were overjoyed . . .” (John 20:20).

I believe in him, too. And I rejoice.

Text copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

What “Stuff” Is Worth Storing?

Too much stuff. In our society, that seems to be the exact amount of stuff that most of us have. Not exactly a technical term, two words are nonetheless quite nicely descriptive: too much.

Stuff storage. It’s big business and growing all of the time because, well, see Paragraph One. People who have as much stuff as we do, and are continually adding more to their mounds of stuff, eventually run out of places to put it. Perhaps we don’t want to disappoint archaeologists who will come along mega-decades from now. They like to dig through mounds. So, we keep creating them. Mounds, that is. Of stuff.

But already, smart folks who are not archaeologists have taken wise action. They’ve seen their compadres covered up with stuff that they mostly don’t use and mostly don’t need, and these intelligent entrepreneurs can fill a real need. A need for storage space.

Notice some questions that ripple along the surface of this deep and turbulent subject of stuff.

At least theoretically, some of the stored stuff must be worth something. But my first question is, how much of it is truly of value? And my next is, to whom?

Whether the stuff being stacked in the rented space is worth storing is a question the stacker would have done well to ask earlier, but there seems to be a point where most of us stacking stuff have long ago left that question in the dust. Or there’s so much stuff stacked on top of it, that the question has simply vanished.

What’s the difference between high quality stuff and low quality junk? If you pronounce “garbage” in questionable French with the accent sweetly lifted up from the last syllable, is that vastly different from the one-syllable word “trash”?

We don’t seem to need much temptation to keep adding stuff to the stuff we already have, but isn’t “tempting folks to buy more stuff, a vast majority of which they probably won’t use for long and likely don’t really need anyway” part and parcel of something called advertising? Talk about a big industry!

And so, yes, we have too much stuff. We have vast industries to help us store stuff and to convince us that to be happy we really need more stuff. And, as the whole cycle spins on, we get pulled even farther in by a proliferation of experts who sell “systems,” conduct seminars, do on-site “interventions,” and write books about how to unclutter our lives.

You know where those books end up, don’t you? I’ll bet I have three of them stacked among other stacks in my closet right now as I’m sitting six feet away from its door and writing about not stacking up stuff. That closet is the one I’ve been meaning to unstack and clean up. Way too much stuff.

Jesus got right to the heart of the matter long ago as he pointed to our hearts and warned us (my very loose paraphrase, Matthew 6:19-20) that stacking up too much stuff here is fool’s work. We stack up “treasures” here, and what happens? Moths eat it. Rust corrodes it. Thieves steal it.

Christ’s answer? Well, it’s not “climate-controlled storage” or some sort of stuff-cellar installed under your casket vault. It’s to make sure that the “stuff” is truly treasure, the kind that will last past a grave and still be of priceless value—real treasures of love, mercy, grace, and hope that can only be stored in heaven.

Text Copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Easter, Joy, and the North Pole

It’s almost Easter, and here I am thinking about an almost-Christmas ride to the North Pole. I wrote one of these columns about that ride fourteen years ago. I just reread what I wrote, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll write some of it again.

I started by saying that the North Pole was surprisingly warm on that ride, but it was less surprising when you realize that my wife and I and our sweet little two-and-a-half-year-old giggling granddaughter were riding from Lubbock, Texas, to Brownfield, Texas, on the “Polar Express” train then in service and available. We were enjoying hot chocolate and elves and Santa himself, but, most of all, we were enjoying two big brown eyes wide with delight (even if they did get very sleepy before the journey was over). We made some delightful memories.

And I’m thinking again about this Yuletide tale just before Easter because I’m remembering getting home and then remembering some fine words from C.S. Lewis.

Lewis said he’d been told about a young boy who was heard “murmuring to himself” on Easter morning a poem he’d made up on his own about “chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.” Lewis commented, “This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety.”

He went on to observe that the time would surely come when the boy would learn the difference between the “ritual” aspect of Easter and its “festal” aspect, and then “chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental.”

Then, Lewis wrote, will come a decision as the poem-maker has to “put one or the other first.” And here’s the important point: “If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”

I went on to write that if we discard or ignore the deepest truths of faith, it’s pretty hard to find much deep or lasting joy in Easter eggs and “Jingle Bells.” But for those whose faith is in the Christ of Christmas and Easter, who believe that God did indeed enter our world incarnate at Bethlehem and that death itself was no match for our risen Lord, then we live all year long in the wonderful glow of those deep truths. And those holidays become joyful holy days.

Ah, and we get a very nice added bonus. Focusing on the central truths of those holy seasons, we can add in as many fine Easter and Christmas traditions as we wish. We can hunt the eggs (chocolate eggs are still my favorite), dye real eggs any colors we wish, light the lights, dance around the tree, and squeeze all of the joy out of every moment.

You see, those who know the Source of real joy—not conned by this world’s many counterfeits—need have no fear of experiencing too much of the genuine thing. Joy is a gift our God delights in giving, and his supply is unending.

Easter joy. Christmas joy. All of the genuine joy-glow. (I include grandchild giggle joy, of course.) Joy’s sweet little glimmers. Heaven’s utterly magnificent tsunami of joy. All in God’s time. Let’s thank our Father for all of it. 

Text Copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

When You Need a Friend

One of my three favorite daughters-in-law has written a children’s book called The Rowly Growly Bear. Not in print yet, it soon will be, and I’m very proud of what she’s done.

Danetta is a great wife, mother, and teacher, and a good while ago, she began writing this sweet book. It’s based on a story her father spun for her when she was just a small child. The main character in the book is a little bear—the “Rowly Growly Bear,” of course. And the little bear is looking for a friend.

It’s not always easy to find a friend when you need one, but the little bear works hard at it. He thinks that Mrs. Bird would be a great friend, but she has some serious nest-building to do. It seems that Mr. Fox might be a fine friend, but he’s too busy finding food for his pups.

Ah, but in a surprise twist (I hope I’m not giving away too much here), the little bear meets a caterpillar who is open to friendship. The caterpillar is not much of a conversationalist; in fact, it doesn’t talk at all, but it is surprisingly good at playing “hide and seek.”

All goes well for a time, until… Well, until it’s chrysalis time for the caterpillar who “hides” quite effectively in its chrysalis and then, most surprisingly to the little bear—and perhaps to the caterpillar as well—emerges as a beautiful butterfly and flies away to do what butterflies do.

I won’t give the ending away, but I will say that a very nice little rabbit shows up as the story ends quite happily. Since it is a children’s book, if any rabbits anywhere might actually be eaten by bears who don’t have friendship in mind, that’s not happening here.

I’ll also mention that one of the nice things about the book is that the very talented illustrator Danetta has worked with has been a friend of hers since third grade. Friendship all around.

The little bear in the book is learning a lot about friends, how to find a really good one, and how to deal with the changes in life that affect and color friendships. Those are good things for all of us to know, and it’s great for kids to get an early start as they grow and as their friendships also grow.

Oh, the little bear is right that a real friend is an incredible blessing. To share your joys and your struggles… To experience with a dear friend the good times and good things you both most enjoy and then recall them again and again… To laugh and talk and be amazed later to look at the usually relentless clock and realize that even time itself seems to have surrendered to make room for the joy of friendship… To feel completely safe in the presence of a friend… What a precious gift!

Speaking of gifts, we do well to listen awestruck as Jesus tells his disciples how to love each other: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). We hear, and we know what is coming, that Christ’s love will be written in red blood on a cross and shake the universe.

After we catch our breath, we need to keep listening and be astonished anew at another wonder-filled tribute to divine love as the Lord continues, “I have called you friends.”

What a loving Savior! What a Friend forever!

Text copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

“I Had All the Answers”

“When I was twenty-four years old, I was pretty sure I had all the answers.”

So said one of my dearest and, I think, wisest friends. He’s the kind of guy I always enjoy talking to, not least because in the midst of our “shooting the breeze” laughter, he always gives me something to think about. He’s lived a lot of life and taken both its deepest joys and most difficult sorrows with the kind of faith in God that I aspire to have myself.

After making the statement, or confession, above, he chuckled, “It’s been pretty much downhill ever since.”

I laughed, too, because I knew what he meant. A mentor as well as a friend, he is a deep thinker who has learned the right questions to ask and has never been (well, at least, since he lived past year twenty-four or so) willing to settle for easy and trite answers. As he has sought real answers to real questions, he’s encouraged many others in the same endeavor. If he’s in an analytical mood, which is often, you’d better not say, “Good morning” without being willing to back up your assertion with facts. But laughter will probably follow.

“What does it mean to be a spiritual person?” he once asked. I’ve spent years trying to hone the answer to that question, and it’s been good for me. It’s kept me from buying our society’s general view that if you enjoy sunsets, birdies, and mountains, you are “spiritual.” That answer is too thin and wispy. Most easy answers are.

The big questions are the hardest; they are also the only ones that ultimately matter. Does God exist? Is God both loving and good? Can we have a real relationship with the God of the universe? Who is Jesus Christ and what is the meaning of the cross? How can a loving God allow pain in this world? Why do good people suffer? Does prayer really matter? And so on.

In our lives, the answers to such questions are far more practical than many people tend to think. They make a difference in how we face each day and meet joys and sorrows. They make a difference in how we do business, greet a newborn, face a funeral, listen to a diagnosis, make vows at a wedding. They color how we live, and they shape how we die.

Oh, once we’ve lived much past whatever “twenty-four” might be for each one of us, we usually are much more aware of not having “all the answers,” but we’ve learned a lot more about how important the big questions are and what big answers really matter. Being less “full of ourselves” means that we have a lot more room in our souls for some humility.

As blessed as I’ve undoubtedly been in my life, I’d tell a much younger me that life will be both a lot harder than you think—and a lot better. Both. The sorrows will be deeper than you can imagine, but so will the joys.

And I would tell that younger me not to dodge the big questions. I’d say, “You may not like to hear this, but when you’re older, you will have many more questions than you do now. The good news is that you’ll also believe you have good and tested reasons to trust in two big answers: God is good, and God is loving.”

And I’d say, “By the way, don’t buy the popular notion that faith is unreasoned or unreasonable. God is big enough to allow us to ask questions even about his goodness and his love—and his very existence. How very good and loving of him!”

Text copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Flat Tires and Some Perspective

Flat tires. I don’t know anyone who enjoys them.

Does anyone enjoy the raucous rumble of tire rubber flapping against the road and your vehicle’s fender wells?

Do you relish the opportunity to make the suddenly crucial decision as to how long to glide your once-smooth-now-loudly-limping ride to a stop? You’re actually faced with more than a few decisions that could well be discussed a bit—but not when you have scant seconds to make them.

It’s clear that you’re stopping but how quickly and where? Safety needs to be paramount, so you want off the road far enough. Nobody enjoys the roar and rocking motion as other perfectly operating crafts fly by feet away in a blur of terrifying wake turbulence. But you don’t want off the road so far that you bury up to your bumpers in sand or mud or get lost in tumbleweeds. And you’d prefer not to destroy the tire or rim if such hasn’t already happened.

Some flat tire psychology, even PTSD, might be at work. Perhaps some of the multitude of feelings flowing along with your adrenaline-charged blood are due to previous experiences. Do you enjoy berating yourself, maybe yet again, for not conducting a serious inspection of your tire-changing equipment and its location and use? Didn’t you promise yourself last time… Maybe it really would have been a good idea some time ago to conduct a trial run in the relative comfort of your driveway, but who thinks that far ahead?

Maybe you now remember the specific gut-wrench that came from a long-ago flat tire experience when you finally had the spare tire on and, as you began lowering the vehicle while your stranded family watched, discovered that your fear was more than theoretical. The spare was headed to the ground. All the way. About as flat as the tire you’d taken off. Time for Plan B. And that was what exactly?

No, I can’t think of many lovely memories connected with flat tires and automotive marooning. But I do think of a lesson or two from it, and, not least, I find it pushing me toward some perspective.

Flat tires happen in this fallen world. Sometimes we drive in our lives into places and situations we surely would have been wiser to avoid. Sometimes we just pick up a nail. But living very long at all in this world should produce in anyone who has ever been stranded by trouble a tendency to be merciful toward others presently in trouble.

And perspective matters. Flat tire sorts of problems can be intensely frustrating, and yet most of us can quickly think of much more serious difficulties—even tragedies and suffering and trials so terrible and heartbreaking that we wonder how anyone could survive them.

Without making too much of life’s flat tire problems and much too little of life’s tragedies, it’s true to say that the Lord Jesus was being utterly realistic and covering an incredible range of “tribulation” when he warned his disciples, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). That simple statement squares with the reality we see around us in this fallen world—from its annoyances to its heartbreak. 

But I think Christ’s is the perfect perspective when, after warning us to expect trouble in the territory, he continues, “But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

If we think the Lord is making light of pain, we certainly don’t know the suffering Savior. And we’ve forgotten some very important nails and a cross.

Text copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.