My heart is so full. Knowing the preparation that goes behind the thousands of children who participated in scores of events prior to and at the Lads convention, I’m overcome with gratitude for what parents and grandparents are contributing right now to the church in the latter half of the 21st century. Unless the trumpet blows beforehand, some of the kids who were shining this weekend will still be working and shining for him as the wise and elderly in the body, even as the calendar page is turned to the 22nd century. Faith works…and the faith that worked for the events of this last weekend will still be working for generations. My heart is full for the legacy so many are working to leave.
I will be gone to the brighter side in a few years. But I am praying those living room speech practices, the big allotments of time we spent in reviewing and repeating Bible bowl answers with four of our grandkids, the way Colleyanna achieved getting the rhythm and beat of 4:4 song leading, the verse that resonated in our hearts over and over as Eliza rehearsed it: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!” (James 4:8)—-I am praying that these little things will grow like the mustard seed, into glory from their lives to their Lord. I am praying that the 100 verses memorized by five of my children this year will grow into bigger and bigger faith, because I trust him when he said “Faith comes by hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17)
(l-r) Colleyanna, Lily, Ezra, Ellis, Maggie and Eliza Jane
I trust him! Ellis’s speech was about his favorite thing…nutcrackers. He explained how some nutcrackers are fake. They cannot “really quack de nuts.” He said it’s the same way with Christians. Some are fake and some are real. Then he said that he wants to be like Daniel, who was the real thing. He wanted to follow God even when it was hard. How I am trusting God, that as their parents pour time and the Word into the children, who are my six grandchildren, that the product will be a faith that works! My deepest desire in this life is to be with all of them in the next.
At the Nashville convention alone this year there were 10,000 participants! Ten-thousand PARTICIPANTS, excluding the non-participating people who were attendees. Although, I cannot bear to think about one of these 10,000 being lost, I know the devil is both busy and crafty. He desperately wants to break the chain of faith in your family. But the way that he responds to our drawing near to God is by fleeing. Did you get that? As Eliza’s verse says, the devil flees when we draw near to God! When you pull your children into the Word, you put the devil on the run. How can we be sparse in our time in the Word while we generously give it to soccer, baseball, school work and entertainment? When we draw near to the things of this world while excluding the eternal things, the devil loves it. He doesn’t have to flee. He just presents himself and entices our children through the unimportant things we love. He presents secularism in the schoolwork. He presents worldliness in the entertainment and he presents misplaced priorities in the sports…IF we are doing these things to the exclusion of getting our kids in the Word!
So gratitude from a deep place in our hearts today for the army of parents and grandparents, mentors and ministers who spent massive amounts of time preparing kids for the spiritual stuff that makes life worth living and draws them near to God. They can’t all yet understand the power that is working in them, but they will know, one day soon, that it is the power of an unyielding faith that will lead them over Jordan and safely to the throne. I’ll be waiting with expectation for them!
Ezra and our brother, Roy Johnson
This month, the diggers are studying God’s great sorrow over sin; its tragedy, its destructive power, and its ugly tempter. I ran across this snake tale from several years ago. Still hoping I’ll ever be aware that the scariest snake is always on my porch trying to get right on into my house.
Two More New Groups!
I invited three of the grands and their mama and we went on a firefly hike at the Botanical Gardens earlier this week. It was so enLIGHTening. I know you see what I did there, but it was truly a learning experience for me. Of course, it’s the male firefly, who puts on the show during the mating season. In the common “lightening bugs” as we call them, that inhabit our yards in the months of June and July, the male makes a J-shaped streak of light and the female responds with several little flashes. Then the kids go for them both and try to get them in their jars and put them beside their beds for fall-asleep flashes a few minutes later. It’s a fun phenomenon that we’ve done a hundred times, at least, through the years.
Don’t necessarily let your four year-old (the one who cries when you throw a dead blackbird, from your old log cabin, into the trash can)–I say, don’t let her fall asleep watching a Femme Fatale with her prey. And finally, don’t let your four-year-old hunt frogs near the lily-pad fountain with your good flashlight. There may, in that case, be another kind of moving light in the gardens. And if you do, don’t let the four-year-old try to fish the light back out.
It’s busy at the Colley’s this week, but our agendas are not so pressing and our schedules are not bustin’ out like the devil’s. He is the busiest lion-wolf-snake-bee I have ever encountered. While he has always had the same agenda, I believe his forces are larger and more daunting than they have been in my lifetime. He cannot be in all places at one time (because he walks to and fro in the earth, Job 1:7), but he sure does a good job of stationing his minions in large numbers in key places in our lives. And he puts them on steroids in the lives of our kids.
I know that the devil has always been alert and prowling and sly and…well, just very busy, since that day at the tree. I know he is unrelenting and unfeeling and would rather throw a nuclear bomb than a grenade. He is smart and powerful. I also know, though, that “greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1Jn 4:4). I know.
At the risk of being a pessimist, let me say this: While my conversations in recent days with other Christians have included some things that are bleak and hard to discuss, they have also included evangelism at work, the beginnings of a Digging Deep study within a denomination, the excitement of upcoming assemblies that will include thousands of worshippers, the value of Christian education, tiny children who are learning all of the books of the Bible and many passages for recitation, and during the last two weeks, the opportunity to be with happy Christians and hear many lessons in programs that were extremely, over-the-top encouraging. There are lots of busy people and congregations still peacefully and zealously taking His grace and truth to their communities.