The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for July 28, 2011

"For better or for worse?"  I was at our home in Collinsville.  That's where we raised our kids, made our mortgage payments for 30 years, and to which we often retreat.  Diane called and said, "When you come back to campus, please bring that gallon of paint." Lest I forget, I got it, opened the car hatch, and put it right in.

Moving forward, I'm driving back to St. Louis on a city street.  I was day-dreaming, yes, I admit it, when all of a sudden I came to and had to hit the brakes to avoid a rear-ender.  "What's that smell?" I wondered.  Yup, one gallon of paint all over the back of the car.

How am I going to explain this to Diane?  "Diane, why didn't you put that lid on more securely the last time you used it?" She'll say, "Dale, why didn't you set it on the floor?  Why were you tail-gating?"

So what happened?  Each of us made a feeble attempt to lay blame but instinctively knew it wasn't worth an argument.  Let me correct that.  Not instinctively; it was the result of 38 years of marriage, years of learning it's "we" not "me."  We worked together to clean up my mess.  "The two shall become one."

The Meyer Minute for July 27, 2011

 

The last two days I've shared stories about God changing the lives of convicts.  Isn't that nice?  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like...those terrible sinners.  There's some truth in that very real, very honest reaction I have.  You know the feeling? Here and now many of us really are better citizens than the men and women in prison.  But that's here and now.  What about when you and I enter eternity, when you come before the One who will judge you without comparing you to others?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, One extreme thing must be said.  To forego self-conceit...means...to consider oneself the greatest of sinners.  This arouses all the resistance of the natural man, but also that of the self-confident Christian.  It sounds like an exaggeration, like an untruth.  Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15); he said this specifically at the point where he was speaking of his service as an apostle.  If my sinfulness appear to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all.  My sin is of necessity the worst, the most grievous, the most reprehensible.  (Life Together, p. 96)

The Meyer Minute for July 26, 2011

Michael Anders had a good job, director of housekeeping and laundry at some of St. Louis' best hospitals and hotels.  He didn't drink; didn't do drugs...but he gambled.

Did he gamble!  His debts got so bad he started robbing banks.  One bank he robbed sat between the county police headquarters on one side and the city police station on the other.  And his wife worked at that bank!  When she found out what he had done, she divorced him.

"The day I received my freedom was June 12, 1992.  I was 46.  That's when federal marshals surrounded me and arrested me.  I had the amazing opportunity to go to prison.  I know that word "amazing" may stick out in people's minds, but it was there in prison I met "His Amazing Grace," and my life has not been the same."

Today Michael Anders is a free man who runs CONS, "Convicts Once, Now Saved." CONS is a moving company that hires ex-cons, 300 to date.  "We visit the prisons," he says, "and we're connected to a church that has a passion for helping people coming out of prison."

The wife that divorced him?  "Through God's help he's restored our marriage.  There's no comparison in our relationship now." (St. Louis Business Journal, July 22-28, 8-9)

The Meyer Minute for July 25, 2011

 

On a cold, wintry night in a prison yard, one convict approached another. "David," Rick said, "Jesus Christ loves you and he wants to forgive you."  "There's no way Jesus Christ could love me.  I've done too much evil." David is David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam.  In the late 1970's he murdered 6 people, terrorizing New York City. 

 

The Gospel didn't get through until Psalm 34:6 dropped Berkowitz to his knees, literally.  "This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles." On his knees he asked Jesus for forgiveness.  A "tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders."

 

Forgiveness doesn't mean we escape paying society for our wrongs.  Forgiveness doesn't mean criminals should be released from jail.  Forgiveness means God saves lives.  "I shutter to think what my life would have been like if I never came to Christ.  I honestly believe I would not be alive today.  I probably would have taken my own life."

 

We pray for those grieving in Norway...and pray redemption will also come to that terrible killer.  Today David Berkowitz is known as the Son of Hope.  "No one has done so much bad or so much evil that God can't forgive them." (American Bible Society Record, Summer, 14-15)

The Meyer Minute for July 22, 2011

The daily routine easily becomes too much, assaulted by pressures, struggling with feelings, no sense of satisfying purpose.  The hamster runs mindlessly on its treadmill.  We can identify.

Participating in the church helps Jesus' followers see beyond the cage, to be reminded we live in two time zones, "body here yet soul above" as one hymn says it.  Today offers one of those trandscending opportunities, the day the church calendar honors Mary Magdalene.

Because Mary's hometown of Magdala had a whoring reputation, tradition labeled her a call girl.  Fact is, the Bible doesn't say that.  Mary did have some kind of physical or emotional disease that Jesus healed (Luke 8:2).  Her response to Jesuswas to become one of His most prominent followers.

Had Mary only run the daily treadmill, she'd be no special encouragement to us.  Today her devotion to her Deliverer is what we remember.  "God has set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  The transcendent look outside our cage helps the Spirit reset our clocks, "body here yet soul above, full of faith and hope and love."

The Meyer Minute for July 21, 2011

Excessive heat throughout the country is turning the grass brown.  When that happened thousands of years ago, the writers of the Bible saw truths about God.

Green grass is a blessing.  "He makes grass grow on the hills; He provides food for the cattle" (Psalm 147:8).  Green grass feeds the cattle and thereby we, who use the meat, milk and hides of cattle, are blessed and should give thanks to God.

When you're feeling confident of yourself and career..."As for mortals, their days are like grass...; the wind blows over it and is gone."  Reverence God and His enduring love.  "From everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear Him" (Psalm 103:15-17).

When illness lays you low, look up and pray.  "Do not hide Your face from me when I am in distress.  Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly.  My heart is blighted and withered like grass" (Psalm 102:2-4).

I've always found it curious that adults can be counted on to pay more attention to children's sermons than they pay to adult sermons.  That's because children's sermons are simple, easy to understand, and not obscured by the preacher's erudition.  God is our Father and in the brown grass of summer he is giving us His children a sermon.

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The Meyer Minute for July 20, 2011

Sunday many church-goers heard, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us." Paul wrote that almost 2000 years ago and today we're still stuck with "the sufferings of the present time."

 

On January 14, 1948 Peter Marshall opened the United States Senate by praying, "We are glad, our Father, that troubles are cannibals--the big ones eat up the little ones." He's talking about the "other shoe dropping," about "trouble comes in threes," about "this is only going to get worse."  But Peter Marshall also prayed, "In all things, big and little, reveal to us Thy wisdom and Thy love."

 

It's in our sufferings, the little ones and the big cannibal ones, that God shakes us, "I do care for you!"  In suffering we need hope, and He proves hope in Him works because He raised His Son Jesus from the dead.  Romans 8 continues, "If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."  "Wait on the Lord," the psalms tell us.  And the end of your patient hope?  The ultimate deliverance, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us."

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The Meyer Minute for July 19, 2011

It's customary to begin a letter with some greeting, "Dear Sue, hope  you're well" or some such thing.  When you look at the letters in the New Testament, they're called "epistles," you see greetings like this, "Grace to you and peace."  That's from Paul's letter to the Romans (1:7) and his epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, and to Timothy and Titus all begin pretty much the same way, "Grace to you and peace." But Peter in his epistles puts a spin on that greeting, writing, "Grace and peace be multiplied to you."

 

Now if you're on the receiving end of those greetings...and you are; God intends them for you as much as the recipients long ago...the greeting is welcome.  We all need God's grace, His help for now and forever, and we all want to live with our hearts at peace.  Do you see God giving His grace and peace here and now?  Maybe.  An important teaching of the Bible is that we see what God's done for us in hindsight.  In hindsight we often see that God didn't just give us grace and peace; He multiplied grace and peace.  Looking back, another benefit of aging!  May you look back and see that grace and peace were indeed multiplied to you!

The Meyer Minute for July18, 2011

My friend Bill shared an e-mail about a woman who visited the shop of a silversmith.  The silversmith held a piece of silver over the fire, explaining that the silver had to be held in the very middle of the fire to burn away any impurities.  The woman, a Bible student, had thought of Malachi 3:3 God "will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

She asked the silversmith if he had to be there the whole time and he answered, yes.  He had to hold and keep his eye on the silver.  Otherwise the silver might be in the fire too long and be destroyed.

"How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" she asked.  "Oh, that's easy," he answered, "when I see my image in it."

That anonymous e-mail helps us understand tough days.  "The Lord watches over you" (Psalm 121:5).  And the refining of Christians will achieve its goal.  "He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).  On that day, fully refined, you'll see Him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

How else can we understand this strange statement of James, "Consider it pure joy...whenever you face trials of many kinds?" (James 1:2).

The Meyer Minute for July15, 2011

Tomorrow, July 16 in 1861, 33,000 Union soldiers began marching toward Manassas, 30 miles west of Washington, to fight 22,000 Confederates in the first major battle of the Civil War.  "Many Washingtonians rode out to Manassas Junction in their carriages with their packed lunches in hope of watching the rebels surrender soon after the first shots were fired." (Thomas DiLorenzo, "The Real Lincoln," p.38)

Not so fast!  By July 21 the Union army had been defeated.  Secretary of War Stanton wrote, "The rout, overthrow, and demoralization of the whole army were complete."  Four years later, 620,000 had been killed, the equivalent of 5 million in today's population.

It took time...It took work...Anything else?

The war on terror?  Time and work.

Making your marriage successful?  Time and work.

Raising responsible children?  Time and work.

Developing spiritual resources to withstand trial and temptation?  Time and work.

You're in for the long haul.  Time...Work...and I hope you do it all with prayer, lots of prayer, to the Giver of all good gifts (James 1:5).