Jesus Christ

Aside

A Servant of God

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Clyde Ballard

 

My grandfather, “Grampa,” was always there for me. I don’t think I ever said to him, “I’d like to be just like you when I grow up,” but I wish that I had. I wonder what he would have thought about that, or what his reply might be?

I’d like to think Grampa would have appreciated the complement but encouraged me with a reminder that God makes each child unique, with their own set of gifts–that He designs each child with a life plan specific to those gifts to enable us to live fully in Christ Jesus, to bring hope through Jesus to others and in doing so, glorify God.

Although I don’t know what he would have said, I know what my Grampa modeled for me. I believe he modeled Jesus.

My Grampa had a great yard. He made every leaf its greenest, every flower bloom its brightest and scent its sweetest. But he did something more than just grow everything the way God had intended it to be viewed, but the way God meant it to be shared.

Grampa showed me how to prune and cut and mow and watched and guided with patience as I tried to do what he taught.

He was also at my Pop Warner and Little League games when I warmed the bench. And when the score was high enough, either beyond reach of the other team or out of reach of our own, my coach would put me in. And if I didn’t get to play, Grampa warmed my heart with a pride in me that out shined the pine bench I warmed the last quarter or inning before.

He was as most practices, especially football where I seamed to have the most problems. And I imagine now that he hurt with me when he heard the coach yell at the top of his lungs, “Get with it, Wilber!” Or when my teammates made fun of the way I ran. I was very pigeon-toed when I was young, do there was that. But just as easy pickings was my backside. Wilber’s are blessed (or cursed) with enhanced glutes–we sort of put the “maximus” in gluteus maximus–so when I ran it looked like I was being lifted from the back of my belt loops by some invisible hook in the sky. That invisible hook also prevented me from getting anywhere quickly.

My Grampa would take me to a different park or school yard after or between practices and he’d work on technique with me. He taught me how to point my toes and stretch my legs when I ran. Although I had a lot of work ahead of me, it helped.

He’d also let me practice blocking and tackling him. Grampa wore elastic bandages everyday–he had bad circulation which caused discoloration of his legs and as I found out year’s later, also caused great pain.

On those days we’d practice, Grampa would wrap his legs with an extra two or three bandages, get me set up in the right stance, take a few steps back and encourage me to hit him with all I had. He’d let me have at those tender legs, me in full gear–helmet, shoulder pads, and all the momentum I could muster.

Even at my skill level–very, very low–that had to hurt. And though I was only eight or nine years old, a guy with healthy legs would have been smarting some after one of those sessions, which is why football teams practice with blocking bags and tackling dummies–not 50-something-year-old men with bad legs.

The practice eventually paid off. I made the track team in 8th grade, and as a freshman in high school I started at fullback and defensive end on the sophomore football team. Grampa was at many of those track meets and football games to see the early work pay off, but more certainly the dividends of his prayers.

Grampa died before he got to see me play on the varsity football team as a sophomore, and go on to gain awards and win championships playing football through college.

Though I continued to play and excelled after Grampa died, I missed him on the field and off. I still do and just as intensely, but then, maybe even more now that I’m a Grampa myself. I’d really like to know how he made every leaf its greenest, every flower bloom its brightest and scent its sweetest. Yet he’d probably remind me that I already do, except I do it with the unique gifts God gave me, just the way Grampa had his own specific gifts that enabled him to live fully in Christ Jesus, to bring hope through Jesus to his grandkid’s and in doing so, glorified God.

Peace and joy,
Steve

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 1 Peter 2:21 (ESV)

Surrounded by Evildoers & Mockers?

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joy 11Doesn’t the boy in the photo (not me) look like he’s having the time of his life? Although you may never have ridden your bike as the snow began to fall, I hope there has been a time in your life when you experienced abounding joy! I’m also hoping you’ve had that joy more than once!

One of the times I experienced over-the-top joy was the time I saw my first snow fall. Our family moved from Southern California to McPherson, Kansas when I was in third grade. I attended a two story brick school, with lots of windows for this eight-year-old to daydream through.

Although I sat in a center row, I sat far enough toward the back to keep my eyes on the teacher but mind and peripheral vision out those windows. One day in early December something outside the glass caught my attention. Some white blur moving slightly left to right, but falling! My eyes slashed toward the windows to focus and my head followed to comprehend. What is that?!? “SNOW,” I shouted out as I leaped from my desk chair and bounded to the windows to see my first snow fall, as up close and personal as possible!

“It’s snowing! Look, snow,” I shouted with my nose pressed against the cool window, moving quickly to another pane because my shouts had steamed up the prior.

Just as suddenly as I had realized and broken the silence of study with my discovery of snow fall, I became aware of my lone enthusiasm. I peaked over my shoulder toward the chalk board to see my teacher’s mouth agape. “Was she dumbfounded by the weather as well?” I soon realized that she was reacting to me.

I don’t remember her exact words, but I do remember her tone and the tone of laughter from my classmates as I made my way back to my seat at her direction. One of the comments I do recall, “Haven’t you seen snow before?” I didn’t answer her, at least I knew I shouldn’t do that, but, no, I hadn’t ever seen snow fall.

That was a tough Fall and early Winter. Lots of firsts and no friends to share them with.

In the book, “Life Together”, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that “Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies…On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God.” As Christians, we too are placed smack dab in the middle of a world full of evildoers and mockers. But Bonhoeffer reminds us of God’s consoling promises to His scattered people, “scattered like seed ‘into all the kingdoms on earth’ (Deuteronomy 28:25). ‘I will…gather them; for I have redeemed them;…and they shall return” (Zechariah 10:8,9).

When will that happen? It has happened in Jesus Christ, who died “that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:52), and it will finally occur visibly at the end of time when the angels of God “shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:31). Until then, God’s people remain scattered, held together solely in Jesus Christ,” His Holy Spirit (The Helper) and His Word (The Word became Flesh).

And according to Bonhoeffer, “God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian need another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs a brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.”

Yes, we are to be disciples (Matthew 28:19) but also instructed to encourage one another and build up (Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11, Hebrews 10:25)., and as Bonhoeffer points out, “God Himself taught us to meet one another as God has met us in Christ. ‘Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God’ (Romans 15:7).” He later adds, “Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us…it remains so for all the future and to all eternity.

“The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more everything else between us will recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us.” How amazingly close that is in and through Jesus, so that no one stands at the window watching snow fall alone or any other first!

I pray God’s blessings and joy in Christ and fellowship each day and every day for each and every one of you! “The fellowship of believers,” Bonhoeffer writes, “is woven into the Christmas story, the baptism, the miracles and teaching, the suffering, dying, and rising again of Jesus Christ. It participates in the very events that occurred on this earth for the salvation of the world, and in doing so receives salvation in Jesus Christ.”

Peace and joy,
Steve

twitter/instagram: @stevedubu1