Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

I am an old guy, getting older by the day, and feeling it.  Never more so than when I am travelling like the last few days.  “Travelling Man” was the “B side” of a 7 inch vinyl extended version of Free’s “All Right Now” that I owned when I was a teenager.  It was important then to know these details and own the picture version of the sleeve which, of course, I did.  For some reason known only to my deepest psyche I hum that tune when I walk through every airport, railway station, or car rental place.

Today I travelled from Atyrau, Kazakhstan, to Moscow, Russia.  I have much to be thankful for.  I said a prayer this morning, knowing I would be travelling on Trans Aero Airlines, that I would not spend the 2.5 hours silently praying that the Russian airplane would hold it together for one last trip.  When the bus took me out of the check in area and drove me to the plane my prayers were answered better than I could have expected.  There was a Boeing 737 waiting to take me to Moscow.  Believe me, a Boeing 737 is a winged chariot fit for a god compared to some of the planes I get to fly in.  I rested easy.  (more…)

OK, so I went to see John Michael Talbot play a solo concert at a big Roman Catholic Church in the Woodlands. It was several years ago, and I don’t remember a lot of the details. He wore a monk robe, played a classical guitar, and sang a bunch of songs I have never heard before or since. He was great.

He also told a bunch of stories that I have forgotten, but there was one story that has stuck with me. I don’t remember many of the actual details, but I remember the basic idea.  He gave actual names, dates and addresses that could be verified (feel free to research the details).

A wealthy French nobleman became convinced that he should sell all of his possessions and become a missionary to Africa. No one talked him into this, it was his own idea based on what he believed God wanted him to do. His friends tried to talk him out of it, but he had his mind made up. A few garage sales and a splash of holy water, and he was off to Africa.

In Africa he lived alone. His attempts to reach out to the Africans were completely fruitless. Alone, he would pray, read his Bible, and write detailed accounts of his attempts to reach out to the natives. He continued to do this for many years, I don’t remember how many, but for maybe ten or twenty years he kept at it. Not one person came to a Bible study, or a prayer meeting, or was baptized, or showed any interest in what he gave his life up for. He became depressed and disillusioned.

One night a band of men came to his door. They had heard that he was a French spy. They brought guns. They killed him.

The end.

Seriously. The end.

Several years later, after everyone had forgotten that a crazy French guy had ever been there, an African man found the Frenchman’s Journal. As he read the tortured story of a deeply Christian man who gave up everything so that some people that he had never met might hear the good news of Jesus Christ and believe, he was deeply moved. He read about the conversations and rejections by all the people that he had come to help, and an amazing thing happened. The African man found faith. He shared the story with people from his village and they also believed.

Today there is a large missionary outpost/church/community that has been built by the people who found faith through the Journal of the French guy who was killed by bandits.

This story drives me to continue writing songs, and blogs, and makes me want to start keeping a journal.

No sacrifice for the Gospel is ever wasted. AMEN

It is common to think of love and hate as opposites.
Most people live their whole lives thinking that love and hate are as opposite as dogs and cats, salt and pepper or chocolate and vanilla. And they are. They are opposites in exactly the same way. They appear to be opposite, but they are not truly opposite like big and small, light and dark, near and far.

There are many things that God hates, and yet God in His very nature is love.
Love hates.

1st Corinthians chapter 13 is the very definition of love in action, and to do the opposite of those words is not to “hate” someone, but to be impatient with them, be unkind to them, envy them, put them below you, be rude to them, be angry with them, remember their faults, rejoice when they fall, fail to protect them, not trust them, and basically give up on them. Some of these things are pretty subtle, and most of them do not rise to the level of hating someone.

Love is self sacrifice.
We show love to our friends and family through small sacrifices of patience and kindness. Jesus showed ultimate love for us by His complete sacrifice through His life and death.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is selfishness. It is “me first,” “mine!,” “shut up,” and “whatever!” The opposite of love is evil.

We are to live our lives following God. We are to become more like Him. We are to constantly measure ourselves against the standard of who He is. In God’s character we find the truth, and the truth will make us free.

We can not be nicer than God. We must learn what God hates, and we must hate it, too.

Wrote a song about it:

Who is that skinny guy in the Underdog shirt?