Pastor John’s Blog

As is often the case in life, it’s easy to start strong, but it’s how you finish that matters. I was feeling pretty good for the first two-and-a-half miles. Then we hit the final push to cross over the Continental Divide at 12,500 feet (just above my head in the photo). That last half mile was nearly straight up. I went from pretty good, then to ok, then to thumbs up, then no response at all. All I could do was think, “just keep putting one foot in front of the other and get this done.” My son later said, “I was getting a little worried when you went non-verbal.”

I often think of that old chipmunks cartoon where each wanted the other to go first, so much so that they always just barely escaped tragedy because of their continual insistence that the other take first place. It makes me laugh, but maybe also cry a little when I think of how often I demand my way first rather than insisting others have their way.

It was one breath taking moment after another. And it was a powerful reminder of God’s majestic, creative hand. All of this tucked away in the middle of the USA, and this only a tiny fraction of the amazing things one can see, all created by God for our joy. I’m often reminded of Psalm 8, a passage I first personally encountered while hiking in college with my youth pastor, Kerry Jones. We stood under a stone arch in the Red River Gorge, the sunlight peeking through, while Kerry read aloud v 3-4: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” The answer in verse 5 is that he does indeed care for us: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

I’ve searched my memory for something to relate it to, and I can’t think of a funeral in my lifetime that had the scale and reach of what we witnessed for Charlie Kirk this past Sunday. Filling an entire NFL stadium for any event is a hard thing to do, let alone having many thousands waiting outside. And with the online reach, it seems as if the whole world was watching. For me the most moving part was watching his wife come on stage. Just merely showing up, let alone choosing to speak, shows her incredible strength of character. When she said “I forgive you” to her husband’s killer, to the murderer of her children’s father, the tears flowed in our home. It was a moving testimony to the power of the Gospel on display for all the world to see. Of course there were political moments mixed in with the event, but I think the Gospel stood apart from the politics and stood out for the world to see. Hearing very public figures taking a very public stand for their faith is something we don’t often see.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book twenty-five years ago called The Tipping Point. The major idea of the book is that there are often ideas in the culture that stay just below the surface, but then all of a sudden something shifts and causes a tipping point to bring it to the forefront. Some examples come from fashion (Vans shoes move from skaters only to mainstream), music (Blues), even things like food (I never heard of ‘gluten free’ growing up).

Sunday we finished our second week in the book of Philippians. Our theme for the series is “Press On.” This comes from our memory verse for the month, Philippians 3:13-14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” The focus of the Christian life is forward facing, pressing onward and upward toward Christ, trusting that He will guide us in all things for His Glory.

On December 1, 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette met for a monumental breakthrough. It was a breakthrough like never before. It wasn’t a breakthrough of a foreign defense, or a scientific breakthrough, but a literal breaking through solid rock. For two years prior to this date, both nations had been operating their own drilling equipment, boring a tunnel underneath the English Channel that would eventually become the “Chunnell.” Graham and Phillipe were the first to punch through the remaining layer of bedrock and shake hands. Though they were 370 feet below sea level, and started drilling over 23 miles apart, the two countries were only 14 inches off center when they met.

I heard about a study recently where researchers presented three scenarios to a group of teenagers and asked which they would prefer: 1)meet up with friends online, 2)meet up with friends in person and have adults organize some activities for you, or 3) meet up in person with no planed agenda and you and your friends figure it out yourself. Think about it for a second and decide which you would prefer….

Option three was the overwhelming favorite. There’s something noteworthy about this in an age when kids often have everything planned out for them by adults in a very professional and controlled setting. I’ve heard some sociologists point out that the “professionalization of kids sports” has led to the problem of kids not learning how to hash out rules of games with their peers, which leads to anxiety in those kinds of situations as one grows up.

I remember my first day of work at the grocery store. Barely 16 years old, the fast paced atmosphere and the energy of working with a team was more fun than expected. I was learning tons every day and meeting new and interesting people. Everything was going great, until I received that first paycheck. $3.35/hour didn’t sound like much when I started, and the pay slip proved that it indeed was not. Though momentarily discouraged, the task remained ahead and I kept with the work for many years.

One summer in Middle School I spent a couple of weeks with my Great Uncle Wayne, helping on his farm in central Indiana. It was a ton of work, but also buckets of fun, learning about farm life, eating huge lunches with lots of fresh corn, operating a small tractor and front end loader and all kinds of other equipment we had only in miniature at home. Probably the highlight though was getting to drive his pickup truck on the road. I hadn’t driven much at all before this, but of course it was something I dreamed about often, anticipating the day when I finally had the freedom to drive on my own!