Acknowledging the Truth

One of my earliest memories of my parents is the annual tradition at Christmas where they would buy gifts for children who likely wouldn't have much of a Christmas morning surprise. My Dad would dress up as Santa Claus and in an old, pale green, late 1950s International pickup, would go around to families who lived near by with Christmas gifts. I have a mental picture in my head of riding with him, still not sure about whether Santa was real or not - but somehow knowing that the best of Santa happened to live int he spirit of my parents. By 12 years old, or so, I was actually driving the pickup.

Maybe that is what has me thinking these days about the life I live. I have it pretty easy. The garbage gets picked up every week. My neighborhood is safe. I can call "Robert Firewood" as he is listed in my contact list on my smart phone, and get a load of wood to have a nice fire on holidays like today when I didn't have to get up and go to work. Two pretty good grocery stores are within two miles either direction of my house. Fresh vegetables and fruit are plentiful in each. I love the newspaper - despite the fact I don't think the AJC is a particularly good paper - and can drive a mile and buy one any morning I want. When someone in my family needs medical care, I have insurance and providers of every kind surround me.

It is so easy for all of that to become routine. It's the norm. Doesn't everyone live the same way? That's life is zip code 30290! And, because my zip code abuts 30269, a "really well-to-do" zip code, I can excuse my sense of "routine" by comparing life in that zip code to mine!

When I left home just after 7:00 a.m. today to go get a paper - the temperature on my outdoor thermometer was 17 degrees. That's cold. Of course inside my house the temperature was somewhere around 68 degrees, that is what the furnace is set to reach early in the morning.

Zip code 30290 is Tyrone, Georgia. Our garbage service is on Thursday, unless there is a major holiday during the week. When that happens the garbage day is Friday. Christmas and New Year's Day are, of course, major holidays. We try to remember not to put the garbage and recycling cans out on Wednesday evening those weeks.

Both of those weeks this year brought heavy rains on Friday. Driving home on Wednesday evening, I noticed a lot of people in our neighborhood put their cans out that evening - forgetting that the garbage wouldn't come until Friday. I'm not trying to be self-righteous, but it reminded me of how easy it is to forget the lives of those who do things that make ours so much better. When the garbage trucks showed up at our house on those Fridays, it was pouring down rain. I did a little research on salaries for people who work on garbage trucks. It isn't impressive.

Yet, on a cold, pouring-down rain kind of day during the week of Christmas and New Year's, those men faithfully picked up my garbage and recycling. I'm pretty sure my parents would have wanted to buy some Christmas gifts, my Dad dress up as Santa, and go around in his old International pickup and deliver some gifts.

Every morning when I walk into my office, the trash can is empty, the floor has been vacuumed, and the bathrooms are clean. Who does that? Do I care enough to even know?

MLK was assassinated in Memphis while there to help gain a better life for garbage collectors in the city of Memphis who, if you read the history of their work, were greatly underpaid and greatly mistreated. Don't be too hard on Memphis, they weren't the only city like that then - or now.  A recent article about garbage service in King's hometown of Atlanta makes you think if alive, he might be making a speech today. But every week, garbage men faithfully pick up my garbage. That costs me a whopping $4.23 per week!

Those grocery stores that I frequent - are replenished daily by people like the young man unloading ice at a convenience store on a 17 degree morning. They are delivering vegetables and fruit, groceries of all kinds, often picked by migrant workers whose lives are lived in poverty and the overly self-righteous among us want to put in the back of our pickups and take back to Mexico, rather than loading our pickups with gifts of grace to brightened a small child's day.

The most casual reading of the four gospels - any one of them are all together - would show us that if Jesus were living in our time, He would likely be hanging out with the garbage truck workers and picking green beans with the migrants.

God help us - on a day set aside to honor one who saw the world in many ways like Jesus did - to be more Christ-like in how we see those who make our lives so "blessed!"

I'm grateful that I had parents who didn't define generosity on the basis of status, skin color, or some sense of "I'm better than you."

Point Prayer Cards

At our November chapel (held the Thursday before Thanksgiving week) we created a number of opportunities for students to engage in meaningful ways in the worship experience. They could go to a table where there were cards on which thankyou notes could be written. They could go to a different place and receive the Lord’s Supper. They could go to another table and think about their commitment to follow Jesus.

Yet another table had cards upon which they could write prayer requests. As I write this I am looking at a stack of well over 200 cards where Point students wrote prayer requests down in November. The 15^th to be precise. I’ve read through and prayed about these requests.

Here are a few observations:

·         I was stunned by how many of our students have lost close loved ones to death – parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. Their notes reflected a kind of hurt that is heart breaking.

·         Many students prayed for “help from God” in some form or fashion. Perhaps the most moving way that was said was “God, I just need you.”

·         It was encouraging to see how many of the notes either were completely or at least contained a word of thanksgiving in them.

·         We had lots of prayer requests written in Spanish! It is amazing to realize just how diverse our Point community really is.

·         More than a few mentioned parents – both Moms and Dads – who are serving in some branch of the military overseas.

·         We have athletes who wrote words like these: “Lord, please put your hands on my teammates who are hurting.”

·         What about this one? “Lord, help me to seek you fully and to live a life as an example, a light, and in a way pleasing to you?”

·         “Thank you for a second chance, for Point, and for not giving up on me.”

·         “I don’t deserve all your blessings, yet you continue to bless me.”

·         “I need to pass my classes. Please help Lord.”

·         “Thank you for all the good people who work for Point.”

·         “For bringing me to Point University and for the constant support from friends and family.”

This list could on and on, but hopefully what you’ve read above gives you a kind of inside portrait of what happens at Point every day. Just like is true for all of us, Point faculty, staff, coaches, and students aren’t perfect and don’t life in a perfect world.

But reading through these prayer requests again reminds me of what an amazing kingdom outpost Point really is. Students who have the courage to ask for prayer like these students did on the night of 15 November will have the courage to change the world.

As our traditional students plan to return to campus next week and our online students begin new classes starting on Monday, could I encourage you to join with them in praying that God would watch over them, encourage them, strengthen them, and challenge them to be the people He made them to be!