Thoughts on the Abundant Life

When I was young, I remember riding with my Dad while he worked accounts on his pest control route. We would ride from Cowpens to Gaffney late in the evening toward some little mobile home sitting off in a field. On the way, he would teach me what he'd learned about succeeding in business. Often he would quote the words of Norman Vincent Peale encouraging me to "think positive," and remove those harmful words like "can't" from my vocabulary. I learned a lot of good things on those rides even if I'd rather been home watching Sanford and Son or the Rockford Files. These talks were different from our Bible discussions. Those talks often included Old Testament references, but ultimately came down to the salvation offered by Jesus Christ...not by works or positive thoughts, but by faith in Christ alone.

These days it seems the topics have been merged. There is so much literature out there now on how to apply Christianity as a formula for earthly success. The "abundant life" through Christ that Paul talked about is now understood to mean abundance in earthly terms...health, wealth and happiness. It all sounds great until you read what the scripture actually says. One passage I find particularly interesting is in The Acts 23-25. Paul and Silas were in Philippi and had stirred up the people in that town with a message that many today might say wasn't very "seeker friendly." Paul often found that the truth of Christ can be considered offensive; it cares nothing for political correctness and very, very seldom pleases the masses. As their reward for preaching the truth, here is what Paul and Silas received: The Acts 23 "And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. The Philippian Jailer Saved 25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." So, to get the picture straight, these fervent believers and doers of the Word were beaten and imprisoned! True, God loosened their chains with a powerful earthquake, but they sang while yet they were still bound...now THAT is the abundant life of Christ. Bottom line is that earthly success is not a guaranteed outcome for the believer. In fact, when you look at the apostles' lives after Christ arose from the tomb, all but one were murdered for their obedience to the Lord. That's hardly success by earthly measure.

What can we conclude? To serve Christ is to be willing to sacrifice all, even unto death if need be, without any promise of earthly reward. To be willing to leave life behind for the sake of Christ means that health, wealth, happiness, and even our own perceived purpose to be has to mean nothing to me in light of Christ Who is to be everything or nothing. I want the abundant life that lets me sing even if chained and persecuted; abundance that leaves me with joy in the midst of sorrow--a joy that surpasses all understanding. To embrace the cross is to be scorned by a world that tells you that your personal health, wealth and happiness is paramount, but it is what we who would follow Christ must do.

The Guest of Honor

I love the holidays, and I do enjoy many of the nostalgic traditions that go with it. For me it all starts on Thanksgiving morning. I sleep in a little, and get up to a good cup of coffee and pass a glance every now and then to the parades on TV. I remember watching them as a child while Mom prepared the turkey for our afternoon feast. After watching a few floats, I'll usually play my guitar for a couple of hours during which time I'll occasionally make a joke or comment about some goofy song and dance number going on in front of Macy's. This year wasn't very different, but I couldn't help but feel troubled in my spirit as I saw the bands and dancers stopping on the star and enjoying a few seconds of the spotlight. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before, but I couldn't miss the striking and complete absence of the very heart of Thanksgiving and Christmas as I watched the parades. There were obligatory references by the hosts to "giving thanks," but an awkward silence about to Whom we are to be thankful. It was so glaring to me that I imagine if Katie Couric would have said the name Jesus, censors would have bleeped it out thinking she was using profanity. Sadly, it seems that, in any context, the name of our Lord if uttered in the public arena has become considered profane. The old mantra of separation of church and state has slowly been extended to imply separation of church and and all things public, even Christmas. The exclamation point came at the announcement that the guest of honor had arrived...Santa Claus. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the jolly old elf, but last I checked the holiday we celebrate every December 25th is not called Clausmas. It appears there is still no room in the inn all these years later.

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I have a great vacation trip, and lots of fun activities planned for my family this Christmas, but I pray that like the shepherds watching their flocks by night, we will not miss the true Guest of Honor this Christmas. And to do my small part, let me echo the words from another of our family's favorite Christmas traditions, A Charlie Brown Christmas, as Linus recites this little reminder about the true meaning of Christmas from Luke 2: 8-14

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them,
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Merry Christmas

Nathan's Official Blog!

Hello friends. I'm pleased to announce that Nathan now has his own blog! We just got home from hiking a section of the Swamp Fox Trail today, and I thought it would be nice to have him share some of his thoughts on our outings. So, rather than me relaying his thoughts, or having him as a "guest blogger," I've helped him set up a site to share his thoughts directly with you while developing his writing skills, and building a library of personal memories.

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on my scoutmaster's scrapbooks from my old scouting days. I scanned each photo and created a music video spanning five years of my scouting experience. I was even able to make copies and share the video with a couple of my friends from the old days, and it is a treasure. I hope to help Nathan create something similar, but in addition to the photos, I believe the journal will add a whole new dimension to documenting these fleeting, but important, days to remember.

Please feel free to visit and comment on Nathan's site at: http://nathanscout.blogspot.com/ I'll encourage him to post often, and I'm sure he'll have plenty of adventures to share!

The Hope Diamond

A couple of years back, Nathan and I went to the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. We took in with awe the countless fossils that document the history of the world. We gazed at shark teeth, moon rocks and meteorites, all of which are memorable, but one item remains as set apart in our memory as it is in the museum; one of the world's most prized gem stones, the Hope Diamond.
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It truly is an inspiring wonder to behold. God created this stone ages ago and hid it in the earth where it waited until its time had come. In the 17th century, God revealed this treasure to man challenging him to work with skilfull hands to uncover its true value. It was first crudely cut into the shape of a triangle shortly after its discovery in India's Kollur mine. A Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier obtained the stone around 1660 and it was later obtained by King Louis XIV and fashioned into a pendant of immeasureable value. During the French Revolution the stone was stolen and cut into two pieces. Now only 45 of the original 115 carats have survived history. Still, the value of the remaining gem was considerable, and thanks to the gifted hands of master jewelers such as Pierre Cartier, the value has been restored to a respectable, if not admittedly diminished, level of the original French Blue.

The very name "Hope Diamond" brings to mind another prized treasure that God has bestowed upon man. A diamond in the rough, this great nation, America, was revealed to our forefathers over two centuries ago. Master jewelers such as Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and later, Lincoln, set about cutting and setting this precious gem that would later become a prize set apart from all others. It was a long, painstaking and costly process to create this masterpiece, but God gave us skilfull stewards with a God-steadied hand to cut the facets that would add value to the stone. Sometime soon after the facets of emancipation and suffrage were cut, a shining, brilliant masterpiece emerged unrivaled in human history. This priceless jewel served to protect the freedom bestowed upon us by God alone.

Of late, the last 46 years or so, it has been the desire of many in this country for our masterpiece to undergo change. Aside from an overdue needed facet of civil rights, much of this change has been to the detriment of our own value. Our schools have traded prayers for guns, and our homes have traded families for single parents. We've traded babies for the convenience of choice, and exchanged our churches for entertainment pursuits. Our masterpiece has been abused and I wonder if we're not seeing the beginning of an even greater fall from grace as a nation. Still, my hope is in the Lord. My prayer is that God Himself will restore and reset our diamond, and that He will harden the stone so that it may never again be cut carelessly; that He will steady the hand of any jeweler entrusted with the care of such a treasure; and that if it is stolen and/or damaged, that He, our Hope and the only hope of the world, will hear from heaven and restore our land, America.

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"Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD." Psalm 31:24

The Ashley By Morn

Here's a little poem I wrote a little while back while sitting within sight of the Ashley River. I was inspired after reading Robert Burns's beautiful Sweet Afton, as well as breathing in deeply the cool November morning, low country air.

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The Ashley By Morn

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Gentle is your way by morn among thy sweetgrass green. Your banks are bathed by ringlets warm, so delicate and serene. And rising low above thy tide, a shroud of misty air. A cloak of grey doth all but hide the light of dawn so fair. The shadows that rise like secrets you keep holding night beyond its end...Are but arms of oak that arch and weep, dripping moss like tears of men. Across your reeds the stillness subsides as November breathes her last. And rising with thy sifting tides, your song of twilight has passed. A lingering mist bodes sweet farewell as it clings in final embrace. 'Til lifting as gently as the virgin's veil to reveal your shimmering face. So swiftly comes the heron white to grace among your reeds; To glide where once was only night and walk where waters recede. And there he waits 'til morning's end, a guardian of thy shores; Then leaves when first comes autumn's wind, the coming of night once more. Gentle is your way by morn, your promise doth remain; When shadows fade and light is born above your banks again.

The Pocket Knife

We'd hiked nearly a third of the way up the mountain. I was starting to realize that either Table Rock had grown steeper since my ascent 20 years ago, or that my stamina was not what it used to be. I've come to the conclusion that it's amazing how much a mountain can grow in only 20 years... Anyway, the boy scouts and I were still on the first leg of the hike, and "some of us" were feeling a little winded, so we picked a spot by a huge boulder, took off our packs and enjoyed the morning air. My son, Nathan, was with me, and one of the other scouts, also named Nathan, was bursting at the seams with an energy supply from where I cannot imagine. Big Nathan, as we call him, decided to scale the boulder while we were taking in the scenery. He darted from one edge to the other, and at one point proclaimed that he had found a pocket knife at a well worn resting spot along the rock surface. He brought it down, and sure enough, some hiker had left the knife probably after cutting up an apple on a break. "Lucky find," we all thought and soon mounted up and went on our way toward the summit.

I hadn't really thought much more about that knife until one evening not long ago I caught a show on one of the science channels about the dinosaurs. The narrator, matter of factly, informed the viewer that these incredible creatures had evolved separate lines from one common cell in the depths of our great oceans. The concept that something had "created" the creature or even created the cell never even merited a single thought. No, scientists luckily found evidence of the dinosaur preserved in fossilized stone, and their resounding conclusion is that the giants appeared by adding random chance with random elements against the backdrop of billions of years. What an incredible faith they have!

Back to the knife. I can't help but wonder how many scientists would come to a similar conclusion upon finding Big Nathan's knife. Could not nature, given random chance, elements and time litter the earth with various steak knives, fishing knives, carving knives, etc.? Truth is, the very idea of nature producing such objects without intelligent direction is ludicrous by any reasonable standard. Nathan knew what he'd found; he had found a knife. There is no doubt, zero, none, that it was lost by another hiker. No reasonable person would seriously argue that this simple, inanimate object made by the hand of man could ever be produced by random chance, elements and time. The knife cannot speak, still through its design, it proclaims the existence of its creator. How much more can that be said of the astonishing complexity of the living creature? Are we to believe that by chance that which the mind of man cannot even conceive and hand of man cannot duplicate, simply came to be? Simply said, this cannot be.

All of creation proclaims the existence of its Creator. The creation is His, the design is His, we are His, and of this there is no doubt!

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Romans 1:20

Legends of the Fall

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Crisp nights, red leaves, corn stalks browning in the field all inspire the warmest feelings inside me. Just thinking about it makes me want to go to Cracker Barrel and have an apple dumpling by the fire. Fall comes a little later in the low country, so we've traveled up to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee twice already this month just to shop for apples and sample the leaves. The first trip was up to Hendersonville where we stopped at a farm store called GrandDad's Apple Farm. They had the BEST mulled cider and fried apple pies. Nathan enjoyed me pulling him around the pumpkins in one of the store's wagons; even our dog, Nienna, enjoyed the change of scenery.

On the way back down, we stopped in Edneyville, NC. My ancestors, the Lyda's, on my Mom's side founded that little mountain apple farming community back in the 1800's. The old stone church, St Paul's Episcopal, still stands serenely in the valley. Across the road is a small cemetery surrounded by apple orchards. I took Nathan there to see where his great-great grandfather, Mark Lafayette Lyda and great-great grandmother, Minerva Lyda are buried. A few stones down the row we came upon Mark's father's, Isaac Monroe Lyda, white stone marker. It identifies him as a Confederate soldier who fought with the 25th NC Infantry in the Civil War. Within sight of Isaac Monroe's stone is an obelisk marking the graves of Nathan's great-great-great-great grandfather and grandmother, Jacob and Annie Lyda. On the stone is a memorial to his stature at the time of his death in 1860; the words "The Pioneer" are nobly engraved under his name for posterity to know of his significance to the community. I only learned about that line of my family as an adult, so it was a wonderful thing to be able to share with pride this heritage with Nathan. We also stopped by there this past weekend with Kristin, so hopefully a tradition of honoring our heritage in this way has been sewn anew for the next generation.

This past Monday, we drove up to Nashville for a couple of days. I've been slowly plugging away on an instrumental guitar project featuring some of my favorite hymns. I'm working with an amazing Nashville session bassist, Dave Pomeroy, and we are recording the project in his studio. It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally starting to get to the post-recording phase, at least where I'm concerned. I may call in some musician help on a couple of songs, and there's the mixing and mastering stage, not to mention the duplication stage that's still a little beyond the horizon, but I can say that progress has been made enough to where I'm starting to get a little excited. I'll post more on it as it finally takes shape, but any prayers out there for the project are greatly desired and appreciated!

In other music happenings, I was blessed to play the prelude music for my lovely cousin, Kristin's and her new husband, Russell's, wedding at the beautiful Second Presbyterian in downtown Charleston. Congratulations to you both and a special thanks to Pam and Bubba for asking me to be a part of your special day! Thanks also to my daughter, Kristin, for setting up the two Starbucks in-store events...I really enjoyed it!

On the way back down from Nashville, we spent the night in Gatlinburg and retraced our steps through Edneyville again as I mentioned before. Kristin made the trip too, so except for Marcus, we were all together. Marc's over at our place today watching Shrek and listening to music when he's not devising plans to raid the pantry! I try to not take for granted any of these precious times when we can all be together whether we're driving through the mountains or just sitting around watching SpongeBob on a rainy afternoon. I know that if I'm not careful, I can work and plan for happiness my whole life and miss the gift that I have right in front of me. One of the things I like about blogging is that it gives me a moment to pause and thank the Lord for all I've been given.

Enjoy the season as we enter soon the formal time of Thanksgiving. I'll have to let Nathan tell you about our October camping trip soon. I'll leave most of it to him, but as a preview I'll share that he earned his first merit badge!