Here's to Yuri

I nearly missed an important anniversary this weekend. No, mine's in December. Rather, this weekend has been the 50th anniversary of the first man to enter space and return. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched into space in 1961, causing a panic in the United States and a rush to the moon for us.

I was reading the AP article about the original mission and noticed this exchange which I thought worthwhile:

On the eve of the flight, Gagarin and his backup, German Titov, went to bed early and were awakened at 5:30 a.m. Gagarin was joking, his pulse was an exemplary 64 beats a minute and it remained the same after he took his seat in the Vostok.

Before boarding, Gagarin saw Korolyov looking haggard after a sleepless night. "Don't you worry, Sergei Pavlovich, he told the chief designer, "everything will be just fine."

"It was he who was comforting me!" Korolyov would marvel later. He thought of Gagarin as a son, and Gagarin carried Korolyov's picture in his wallet.

Here Gagarin is taking all the risks: there are doubts about what weightlessness will do to his body; doubts about the landing options; doubts about re-entry; doubts about surviving the vacuum of space. All of those would only matter if the launch vehicle worked!

Yet, here is a man, calm, facing those doubts, and looking at another man giving him encouragement. The danger was faced by Gagarin. Had Korolyov made any mistakes in the design, would it have cost him his life? (KGB conspiracy theories aside, ok?) No—the life risk was Gagarin's. It was Gagarin who wrote his wife a farewell letter, Gagarin who had to consider his daughters growing up fatherless in the Motherland.

He comes to the launch pad and speaks comfort. He may never come back and he knows it. Except that he's made his peace with it, well enough to pass good words to another.

What about us? We have our struggles, our scared moments. Where do we stand?

Are we so intimidated by the potential for failure that we don't even go the launchpad? Do we sit quietly, thankful that there are others to take the risks? Or are we willing to step forward and act?

And when we act, can we do so with such commitment to going forward that we inspire the ones that watch? While the full study would take more time than I have, do you doubt that Korolyov worked better from the success of Gagarin?

A final thought---I can tell you the first satellite the Russians launched: Sputnik. The Americans launched Explorer. The Americans launched Alan Shephard in Freedom 7, and orbited John Glenn in Friendship 7. I would have to look up the name of Gagarin's spacecraft. I just don't know. The space lore I've loved for many years just remembers his name: Yuri Gagarin.

Our actions define us, and can define the world we live in. Our actions definitely leave a long shadow across the following generations. What are you leaving?

I don’t live….well, anywhere

A little less than a year ago, Ann and I moved to Almyra, Arkansas. It’s great town with some very wonderful people in it. Moving here, we’ve really only had one major problem. Care to know what it is?

Our address doesn’t exist.

Seriously.

There are some underlying components of this:

1. There’s only about 300 people in town. So, the Post Office doesn’t deliver to the main part of town. Everybody gets a PO Box.

2. In Google Maps, and apparently their underlying source, “Eleventh” Street is spelled as “Elevth” Street. This also confuses such wizard-like objects as GPS receivers.

3. Many companies use the address verification database provided by the Postal Service.

So, what has happened?

Well, we upgraded our cell phones, but they couldn’t send them to us. Why? Our address isn’t real and AT&T won’t ship to a PO Box. Never mind that UPS knows where we are and has no problems with it.

FedEx Express can find us, but FedEx Ground couldn’t even find the street. There have been problems with bank documents, utilities, and even voter registration.

So, while I have a home, a PO Box, and an office address (which, by the way, also doesn’t exist), according to the map-makers of the world, I don’t live anywhere.

What does that mean?

Well, I could try and make a spiritual point of this, refer you to Hebrews 11:8-10, and talk about not being to fixed to this earth.

However, let’s pass on that one for the day. We may pick that point up later. Instead, let’s look at something else:

What’s your source of information? Is it a reliable source?

Are you certain? What is the supporting evidence for your trust?

Consider that the next time the next big thing comes along…

 

And if you need directions to my house, drop me an email.

Milk: it does not the Body good

“Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. ” (Hebrews 5:11–12, NASB95)

This morning, reading through Hebrews, I hit this verse. The first thought was the normal one: there were immature people being addressed in this passage, and we have immature Christians in churches, and they need to get mature.

Except that, well, one of the absolute worst things you can do with the Word of God is look at the Word and then not look at yourself. We do much damage to others when we don’t look in the mirror first.

As I looked at this a second time, I began wondering: where am I in terms of having solid food? Am I really past needing milk?

Not that a little bit from time to time isn’t a necessity. We’re all helped by remembering the basics of the Gospel: Christ died for sinners and I am one. That we need each other, and just the overall need for time spent in the Word.

However, there’s more to the Christian walk than the surface of those actions. Let’s not confuse this, though, with pure academia. While there are likely no Christians that wouldn’t benefit from knowing more: clearer understandings of history, theology, language.

It’s the practical things that we need to dig deeper on. How does the Word apply? What are we doing with the knowledge? It’s not simply for us to expand our knowledge, it’s for practical, life-changing application.

How am I taking the Word into my life? How are we doing it in our churches?

Are we delving deeply into theology without internalizing the truth? Without doing anything to put into practice what we’re putting in our brains?

Along the way, a lot of us have internalized the mistaken idea that our minds, souls, wills, bodies, and whatever else are separable. That we can (and even should) learn things that don’t lead to action. That cannot be. If we are truly growing in Christ, our actions will follow our heart.

BookTuesday: Heaven Revealed

Today's BookTuesday selection comes, freely given and freely reviewed, from Moody Publishers. This book, and a copy to be given away to a reader of either my blog or Ann's, were provided in exchange for the review.

What is this book? It's from Paul Enns, and the title is Heaven Revealed. Which you knew from the title of the post-right? Right. Here's a picture with a link to Amazon, in case you'd like to buy this book:

Heaven Revealed: What Is It Like? What Will We Do? . . . And 11 Other Things You've Wondered About

Now, to the question of whether or not you should buy this book. I'll admit that my first reaction to the book's title was wrong. Right now, the publishing world seems to be awash with books about going to heaven and coming back. These books border somewhere between entertaining but questionable to outright nonsense. (Click here to read someone else's review of one of them---I'll be reading that particular book later this month.)

However, Paul Enns is not claiming to be reporting what heaven was like when he dropped in once. He knows people that are there, and he even knows a couple that have seen some things of heaven, and even one who has been there. This book is his effort to help us understand what the people that are there are most likely experiencing, and what those who have seen it said.

Who does he reference that has seen it?

One's name is Isaiah, another's name is John. The one who has been there? His name is Jesus (from Nazareth, thus answering the classic question "Does anything good come from Nazareth?" with a resounding "The only Good does.")

This book is Paul Enns' viewpoint on the Scriptures that discuss what eternity looks like. He works through various passages in the Old and New Testaments, using them to illuminate eternity.

A side note is needed here: he makes clear that his interest is in addressing eternity for believers in Jesus Christ. I found no effort to discuss the end result for unbelievers. This book is not a counterpoint to Rob Bell's Love Wins.

Enns is careful with Scripture, and works to explain his views alongside his personal longings. The book echoes with his longing to be there, to be with her, and to be with Christ. He works through the various questions of heaven: What will we be like? What will we do? Will we know each other?

His answers come through in very comforting language. He sees assurance that we will know each other. That we will not spend all our time sitting on clouds and strumming harps, that we will be useful, fulfilled, and worshipful in all our ways. He traces some of the historical answers to these questions, including referencing the long-running question: "How old will we seem?" (read the book, pg: 131)

In all of this, this book remains one man's understanding of Scripture. While he is, as I said, careful with the text, it's possible that he's not completely accurate.

What of it if he isn't? If he's made errors in his picture of heaven, it's only because heaven will be better. This book will, at the very least, challenge you to rethink heaven, to picture it a little differently than cartoons show it.

All of that will be a good thing.

 

FREE BOOK: Leave a comment either here or at Ann's website, and we'll give away at least one, and maybe two, copies of this book. All comments need to be posted by Sunday, April 10th. Commenting in all places increases your odds of winning….

Sermons: April 3 2011

Morning Audio Link Here

Evening Audio Link Here

Note: Due to changes in servers, older sermons, especially pre-January 2011 will probably not link properly. If you really want to hear those, shoot me a message and I can email them to you.~~Doug

Morning Outline:

Matthew 25:1-13

The Bridegroom as Christ--

What is the story here?

It's a story of preparedness. Of readiness. That's the main point, certainly, that we ought to keep oil on hand for our lamps.

Yet let's dig into this parable, let's consider what's going on here.

First, a few identifications. Parables are meant to make a point. The people and events are generally meant to symbolize a larger group.

So, to the text: The Bridegroom is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's typically hard to find a parable in the New Testament that the King or the Groom or the Chief isn't there to point you to Jesus. Even if the king in the parable is wicked, he's there to point you to the not-ever-wicked King Jesus.

So we see that the Bridegroom has asked these 10 young women to join him for the celebration of his wedding. Who are these 10 a picture of?

They're a picture of the church. They are a picture of those who claim allegiance to Christ----

But there's a problem. What's the problem?

The first problem is the delay of the bridegroom. We all know people who are never on time----those for whom 6 means 6:30, but this is an inexplicable delay. There's the expectation that he would have been there sooner, but he's not there yet.

The second problem is the unpreparedness of the 5 "foolish" bridesmaids--(the word here is young woman/virgin/bridesmaid: unmarried young women were expected to be pure---it's an assumption. A safe one then, would be a better world if it was still a safe one)

The final problem, though, is the neglect of the 5 "prudent" bridesmaids. Here are 5 that are prepared for a delay. 5 that expect the delay. They've brought supplies.

Yet what have they not done?

They haven't said a word to the other five. Let's picture this. Torch in one hand. Jar of oil in the other hand. They look, see their compatriots with a torch in one hand....and what in the other? Nothing?

Yet one of them thinks to herself "I  don't want to be rude"

Another thinks of the hypocrisy that she once forgot her oil, and it would be just hypocritical to point out someone else's faults that are just like hers in the past.

Yet another knows what will happen---at least one of those girls won't know where to go buy oil, and she'll have go, walk her to the shop and spend her time and effort making up for someone else's shortcomings.

Then there's the fourth one. She noticed. She knew, but she wasn't about to say anything. After all, it's not her fault these other five were unable to do the simplest things. That one would need spare oil, well, that should have been obvious.

The fifth, well, she didn't notice. She was there because of her love for the bridegroom and family. Whatever someone else was doing or not doing, she couldn't tell.

Whatever their excuses, the truth is that all ten gathered together, sat, waited, and were there long enough to slumber.

Then the shout comes----the celebration, the fellowship with the bridegroom.

Five bridesmaids get in. Five are left out.

What I want us to consider today is where we stand before the Bridegroom....who are we?

1. Are we bridesmaids? Now, gentlemen, it's a parable: just as we have no man-problems with being part of the "bride of Christ", have no difficulty putting yourself as a bridesmaid....this is a question that you must answer for yourself, but when the Bridegroom makes his invitations, have you responded? {Salvation}

2. Are we foolish? Have we brought our preparation? What is the preparation? {Being a disciple}

     1. A steady supply of what we need: the Word, the Spirit, the Fellowship of Believers---

     2. Do you know you need those things?

     3. If you don't---why not? Are you among the bridesmaids?

3. Are we prudent but selfish? {Making Disciples}

     1. Are you aware that it is your job to make disciples?

     Really: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20

     2. What excuses do you make for not making disciples?

          1. Ignorance?

          2. Selfishness?

          3. Fear?

4. What are we? What is our church about?

     This is what the church is for: that we would make disciples of the nations.  We must not assume that just because a person has walked an aisle and still shows up in church that they are a disciple of Christ---they may not know what they need to be doing! We must, as God's people, work to teach---

By life, by example...

By words, by lessons....

By all that we do----

 

Evening Outline:

s we look at this passage tonight, here are some of the things I think we should consider:

• The Master:
  1. The Master is fantastically wealthy: he entrusts 3 slaves with 8 talents. 1 Talent runs to about 6000 days' wages. If you put that into current American minimum wage: $372,000 per talent. $2.976 million.
  2. To put it another way: He gave to one servant 5 brand new John Deere STS 9770 with Premier Cab and Rice Header, to another 2 of those, and the last got 1.
  3. There are things left unsaid here, but it's a safe assumption that the Master knew what his servants were capable of, because he entrusted "according to his ability"
  4. The Master is not present---however, it's to be expected that he wasn't uninformed of what was happening, either.
• The slaves:
• 1. Left to handle business
  2. Were going to remain slaves whatever happens
  3. The reward is joy, joy shared with the Master and fellow faithful slaves
• The results:
  1. For those who tried---amazing results
  2. For those who didn't----no results.
  3. For those who tried---the joy of their master
  4. For those who didn't----no joy.
• The "us"-> What are we doing with what God has given us?
  • Time?
  • Talents, skills, abilities, gifts?
  • Treasures?
  • Tries?
  • Thoughts?

Blog Preview

I would apologize for my lack of content lately, but instead I'll just go ahead and issue everyone refunds on your March subscription payments. Then, I'll make sure April is really worth the money. Actually, nobody has complained or even really noticed that I didn't blog most of March. I'm not sure if there's been a gaping hole in your lives that you just couldn't bring yourself to talk about or if you were just being gracious. Whatever the case may be, thanks for coming back.

Just as an aside, though, does anyone else get a little aggravated when people go to heavy duty complaining about things like Gmail, Twitter, or Facebook not doing exactly what you want them to do? It's one thing when say, FedEx, doesn't even bother to try to deliver your package: you paid for that service, they should deliver. What did you pay Twitter? Facebook? Not a dime---so take a deep breath and read a book when they go down. Make a <gasp> phone call…

I thought I'd give you a quick look into the coming days:

First of all, BookTuesday will return with a strong month. We've got Heaven Revealed by Paul Enns, The Treasure Principle from Randy Alcorn, Time with God for Fathers by (well, I'm not sure, it's at the office), and nearly most exciting: Max on Life by Max Lucado. Most months, this book would top my list for the month. However, Andy Andrews has a new book coming out on April 12, The Final Summit. This one tops my list of exciting books for the month.

Monday sermon links will continue, and this month those sermons will come from Matthew's recording of the Passion Week of Christ.

Beyond that, now that the house saga is actually, apparently, behind us, I'm hoping to be able to breathe enough to produce some daily thoughts. I've also got school to work on, but I'm hoping to be a little more out put oriented than I have been.

Life moments that are rolling along that will bring some blog thoughts include the tree planting and garden planting. Then there's politics, which I've avoided for a little while, but I'm about ready to say a few things. I'm waiting to see what kind of nonsense the Arkansas Legislature does with state Congressional Districts.

Now, dear reader, a question for you: what type of content do you want to see from me? I will find something to say, certainly, but are there subjects you'd like to see? Matters better left unsaid?

Yes, a blog is primarily monologue, but what type of monologue do you want to hear?

The House Saga

I'm back into a blog habit, but I'm coming back with a bit of wordiness, so if you're busy, skip this. Seriously, it's long.

I want to give an update on our house saga. To do that, let's give you the background: a little over four years ago, we lived in an apartment. We were in Mid-America Seminary Student Housing. We had moved there in 2002, and had been in housing for 4 years. I had been in and out of school due to finances and some other frustrations over those years, but the vacancy ratio in housing encouraged the school to just let us stay put.

However, MABTS was relocating and building new housing in the process. For the first time, student housing would be within walking distance of the school, and this was (and is) a great thing! The school, though, sold the existing apartment complex. The low rent was going to go to a market-value rent. Which was going to be about $900, according to the management that said "they still weren't sure." So, with Ann pregnant, me working two jobs, we went house hunting.

At the time, she had a job she liked, I had a job I loathed, and I had the opportunity to preach. I was hopeful to get back to school somehow, and we expected we'd be in the Memphis area for several more years. So, we bought a foreclosed upon house in Horn Lake, Mississippi. We had one picked out, but while Ann was having Steven, someone else bought it. We found a different one that was an almost identical floor plan, but actually in better shape, and the same price.

So, since the payments were going to be less than the $900/month rent, Horn Lake schools weren't bad, and Mississippi homeschool regulations were something we could deal with, we bought the house. Closed on it, September 15, 2006. We now had a first mortgage for 80% of the house price, a second for 20% of the house price, and an additional cash loan we took out for supplies to fix up, clean up, and make the house home. Steven was 36 days old, and for the next two weeks his mommy and daddy were obsessed with cleaning, painting, flooring, and moving. By September 30, we were in the house. Angie's third birthday got celebrated in there somewhere, with a seriously stressed family.

We painted. We put in laminate floors in one room. We planted trees that spring, filled in the giant divot in the backyard where previous owners had left a blow-up pool for too long. We priced fencing and didn't do it, though we planned to.

Yet life changes. Within two years, actually 22 months, we moved from the house to Monticello, Arkansas, where we rented a house. This came from a necessary job change, which is a whole different blog post. We were unable to sell the house, but instead rented it to some friends who hoped to get their credit improved enough to buy it. Since they were going to buy it, we told them to paint and treat the house as their own.

We set the rent at just enough to cover our expenses, and told them that if those expenses (mortgage, 2nd mortgage, insurance and taxes) went up, we'd have to raise the rent. We all expected that it would take about 12 months for them to buy it.

Then the housing and credit markets went, well, splat. That would be the highly technical term for it---splat. Like so many eggs dropped off the roof. They weren't able to buy in 12 months. The insurance and taxes doubled on the house, retroactive to the first day it was a rental, so the escrow account went negative, and our house payment went up by $200. So, we raised the rent. We tried to sell the house, but with renters in it, it wouldn't sell. Plus, we were trying to get enough to pay it off and the loan we had taken to improve it.

No good.

Another year later, and the house payment went up again, because the taxes and insurance went up, again. Apparently, even though housing values were plummeting for normal people, the government was valuing the house higher and the "replacement cost" of the house was going up---the insurance for the house valued it at $60,000 more than we paid for it. Apparently, unemployed construction workers are expensive to employ.

So, rent went up again. Renters, recognizing that they were in a bad spot, moved out. See, the credit market issue had them on a treadmill: one application, they were denied because they needed a credit score of 650. Six months later, they had a 650 and needed a 680. Then it was 720. As it was, they were not going to get there, and they didn't want to keep paying rent on the house---at the rent we had reached, they could rent an apartment with some amenities, like pools and playgrounds.

We were then faced with putting the house on the market. And with not having any income to help cover the house payment. So, we went into scrimp and save mode, but the job change that put us in Almyra, Arkansas, as good as it was, did not put us where we had a spare $1000 a month in income. Who does? However, a very gracious church family helped us with the first month, there were some other circumstances that got us through the second, but the house was still not even being looked at.

I couldn't get it rented for enough to pay the payments, much less provide for the need to maintain it for renters.

So, I called the mortgage company and asked what my options were. The first mortgage described a process that sounded as fun as a dental drilling that would enable us to sell it for less than we owed, called a short sale. I told them we'd think about it and talk to the second mortgage company.

The second mortgage short sale process sounded like having a tooth extracted without anesthesia and through your ear. So, Ann and I just didn't want to do it. Then a very generous person offered to no-interest loan us the money to make house payments while we tried to sell the house. So, we thought we'd cut the price on the house to just enough to pay what we owe and then figure out how to pay closing costs beyond that.

Meanwhile, the church family had graciously helped us paint the house inside and out, it looks great. Well, except one interior wall that I just couldn't get straight, and the floors have never looked good. Even the one I had put laminate down, well, I know how to do laminate better now---but that was rough.

That was December. On my birthday, I get a call from the realtor that "I think I'm going to sell this house today!" Naturally, this was almost the best news I could have gotten. Until she told me the price the house was being advertised at: $25,000 too low to pay it off. I asked why, and was told that the first mortgage company had told her to lower it for short sale purposes.

Except we never really approved of having it short-saled. In fact, since the house payments were covered, we kind of hoped to sell it full price. And I knew that the second mortgage company was going to be a beast to deal with on short-sale paperwork.

However, once a house has had its listing price cut down, the truth is that it's not going to sell for $25,000 higher. Not when that's a 20% increase. So, reluctantly, we started doing the paperwork.

To say it was a frustration would be an understatement. We filled out pages upon pages, cried and yelled, and proceeded. The whole situation felt hopeless. More than once, I came within 1 digit on the phone of just calling the mortgage company and telling them to foreclose it and be done.

Finally, after an excruciating 2 months of paperwork, we had the approvals. We used up the balance of our income tax refund to fund what little we could to make second mortgage company happy enough to refinance what we owed them, and were able to close on the house last week.

The final toll was that the first mortgage company "wrote off" the balance we still owed after closing. They held our most recent mortgage payment because they wouldn't approve a short-sale unless we were delinquent. They never told us this, we were never delinquent, but they forced us into delinquency. The goal being to make sure our credit was punished, because after the write-off, counting the fees they charged us for that one 'late' payment, interest, points paid at closing, they have only profited $16,000 in four years. Plus the tax credit under TARP/HAMP/Fannie/Freddie whatever, which was about $2000.

The second mortgage wrote off nothing, but instead modified our loan so that we can keep paying them off. Fortunately, the interest rate is better than I expected, and a lot better than cash advancing a credit card to pay it off.

The long-term implications on this? I don't know. I have no idea if we'll be able to buy a house in the next 7 years. I don't even know if I'll be able to get a car loan soon.

I do know what we've seen: mortgage companies have bizarre rules and will strangely help someone 3 months late but not someone that calls and says "I'm not late yet, but I'm out of options." That real estate is a mess and that needing taxpayer bailouts may have forced mortgage companies to be more helpful but they're certainly not friendly, nice, or compassionate. Our real estate agent went above and beyond even as what she was getting 3% of kept shrinking, so that was a positive.

We've seen how gracious our church family is, and how good God is to provide. We tried very hard to ask people to pray and also make clear we weren't asking them to pay. Folks were still more helpful than would be considered reasonable. We are truly indebted beyond what we can pay back, even after we repay the payment help. There has been such evidence of grace and help, just with the prayers and encouragement around here, that we knew we weren't alone in this. We had some dark moments from it. Not every joke about burning the place down was really a joke.

It's over now. We're very grateful that we live in a house owned by the church---while it keeps us from having a long-term equity plan, it's exactly what we need. We now have some clarity of where we sit financially, and while it's not Dave Ramsey-approved, it's progress.

We stopped by the house after closing on it. Ann hadn't seen it since the church men had helped me paint the outside. It was an emotional moment---we sat there and wept a little for the dreams that died when we left that house, and wept a little more for the love that had gone into making it as beautiful as it is now. Hopefully the new owners will enjoy the house.

Us? We got to come home and be with the people that love us enough that they helped us when they didn't have to. And we get to love them back and look forward to as many years together as they can stand.

Doug