The pastor had no idea how an unspoken gesture of advice would affect his ministry. As Sunday night services ended, five men walked to a small room behind the sanctuary of the white-frame church. They sat around the children’s Sunday School table. No one expected the undeserved tongue lashing awaiting them. Deacons’ meetings in the country church usually passed quickly with minimal discussion. But not that night.
Unexpected Judgment
When the meeting neared completion, Clint decided the time had come to tell the other deacons what he thought of their deacon service. The short, white-headed, modern-day Pharisee unleashed a verbal assault on “the lethargic witness and complacent attitudes” of the sheepherder and cattle farmers. Clint made his living in the city and did not have to worry about taking care of animals. The other men, excluding the pastor, had been up since four a.m. because they had to tend their animals before Sunday Services. Nevertheless, Clint’s critical monologue seemed to carry on endlessly.
Unspoken Advice
The young pastor in his first church had never heard such venom, at least not on the church grounds. He squirmed in his seat. Then, as he prepared to rebut Clint’s comments, he felt a knee hit him. Thinking Jerry, the man on his right, was stretching his legs, the pastor moved his legs to give the deacon more room. Not thirty seconds later, he felt that knee hit his leg again.
He turned to his right and looked straight into Jerry’s piercing eyes. The preacher couldn’t miss Jerry’s right index finger resting across his lips as he shook his head from side to side. Clint didn’t notice the body language as he spewed his judgment. The pastor furrowed his head and mouthed, “But.” Jerry shook his head in a universal expression meaning “No,” never allowing his finger to move away from his mouth. Not a word came from Jerry’s mouth, but the advice was clear.
Unknown History
After about thirty minutes, Clint tired of his ugly tirade. No one responded, and the meeting adjourned with prayer. Clint left the room first, giving no one a chance to speak to him. The pastor felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to Jerry, who whispered, “You did real good, Pastor.” The pastor said, “But that was wrong.” Before he could say anymore, Jerry leaned in close to say, “We’ve heard it all before. That’s how he sets up the young pastors. He’s run off several of our pastors by getting them to say something they shouldn’t. Don’t worry about it.”
Unruffled Advice
Years later, a wise deacon passed along the same advice to the now older pastor, only this time he spoke his wisdom. “Act, don’t react.” Nothing stands alone. Words and actions ride on facts and feelings, both seen and unseen. So do reactions. And the reactions do not always hear or see the complete picture. Be wise. Anticipate at least one more fact awaiting discovery.
Those deacons refused to let the littleness of the smallest man in the room chip away at their stature. The advice of Jesus transformed their reactions. “Turn the other cheek.” Jesus did not differentiate whether attacks arrived with words or fists (Matthew 5:39). The men lived in the same community, shopped at the same store, and were determined to exercise Christlikeness with their abrasive brother. They refused to let Clint’s sharp words pierce their hearts. Instead, they remembered who they were in Christ and acted according to his way.
The men who knew Clint would address his objectionable behavior, determining the right time, way, and person to express what they needed to communicate. But they chose to do nothing without first praying for peace in their hearts and wisdom for their approach.
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Posted: March 25, 2024 by Harry Lucenay
How Do You Pray for Family Needs You Don’t Know?
“Are you praying for things in your adult children’s lives you know nothing about?” The question caught me off-guard. As a grandparent, I pray for the family needs of my adult children, their spouses, and my grandchildren by name every day. They live in three different states. These days mark the challenges of the stages of their life cycles. Our relationships are good. We keep up with one another. And when we are together, we enjoy one another. But we do not know about the ebb and flow of emotions, secret disappointments, much less every day’s unspoken needs. We know the joys and anxieties they choose to share.
How to Pray for Family Needs
When my children were approaching their teens, an associate remarked, “You have good kids.” I thanked him. “And yours are grown. We still must maneuver the knowns and unknowns between today and adulthood.” That conversation continues to remind me of the tests families face. If my grandkids inherited half the foolishness their grandfather has, they need my prayers. The other side of foolishness, the lure of evil awaits them. When I consider their genes, I need to put thirty-six hours of prayer into each of the twenty-four hours I have. I want God to guide them in their choices.
To awaken our understanding, let’s think about our lives when we were their age or when our children were the age of their children. We were busy, sometimes overextended financially, and often trying to meet the needs of three children of different ages. Sorting out accusations from reality, attempting to act rather than react, and focusing on the positive instead of the negative. Through it all, we worked hard to encourage. Get the idea? To pray for family needs, we want to remember the many issues we juggled during their season in life.
Avoid Playing God
Our adult children do not need us to “play God” in their lives. Anything we hear or see is only part of the picture. Listening when they want to talk informs our prayers. Jumping to conclusions gives birth to erroneous assumptions. Responding when they request our insights needs to be bathed in prayer and biblical wisdom. Butting in when their decisions are none of our business destroys our relationships.
My dad often told me, “Think, Harry. Think.” How do we pray for family needs we know nothing about? Let’s take off our shoes, put our feet in their shoes, open our hearts, and ask God to show us what we need to put before him.
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Posted: March 18, 2024 by Harry Lucenay
Responding to Your Kids’ Destructive Crisis
Two little boys found an old tape recorder in their parents’ bedroom. After fruitless attempts of punching buttons with nothing happening, the six-year-old decided to stomp around, showing off his cowboy boots. He told his four-year-old brother he was the toughest guy in the house. He kicked the end of the bed, a chair, and the dresser. Then, he strutted over and kicked the window. It shattered, and the crisis unfolded.
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Posted: December 19, 2023 by Harry Lucenay
Are You Listening?
The sound of music surrounds this season. Six words of winter’s announcement caught my attention. “Sleigh bells ring. Are you listening?” Autumn’s leaves still carpet the ground around me. The only sleigh bells ringing here are in children’s Christmas programs. However, the question, “Are you listening?” pinches my ribs.
Dr. Seuss reminds us, “Sometimes you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” Reflections of family gatherings through the years reveal the spirit of sharing that still speaks to my heart. I have warm memories of how people made me feel. How did they make those memories? When they took time to share my joy, they looked up from what they were doing to see what I wanted to show them. They helped me understand how to put something together or showed me how to use something they had given me. What I received consumed me, but the adults knew the real world was far more than stuff. They had talked about that when the Christmas story was read, but the kids seemed to lose the meaning of Jesus’ birth in the wrapping under the Christmas tree.
Little did I realize they would share the most valuable gifts when all the commotion died down. When the excitement settled, the gift of listening, and trying to understand a life beyond anything I knew introduced wonder to my imagination. All these years later, I’d like to listen to those tales again so I could better grasp the point of view of the speaker, sense the feelings, and share the joy of the retelling.
Opportunities for Listening
Maybe this is the year for a phone timeout. Encourage everyone to put their phone in a basket for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day gatherings. Then, put the basket in a closet. Refuse to talk politics. Speak well to and of one another and bite your tongue when you are tempted to correct the tales you hear.
Every family has its customs, and as time passes, the customs change. Let me challenge you to find time to look into the eyes of those around you and listen to them. You may just make a beautiful memory with your eyes and your ears.
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Posted: December 13, 2022 by Harry Lucenay
How to Rediscover Wonder This Season
I stood face to face with a man in the red dirt of a village in Malawi. Was he listening as I tried to introduce him to Jesus? I saw no sense of wonder in his countenance. So, something inside me questioned his interest even as he prayed to ask Jesus to be his Savior. Soon, he headed over the hill, and I turned to another villager.
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Posted: March 22, 2022 by Harry Lucenay
Advice: Unexpected but Well-Received
The pastor had no idea how an unspoken gesture of advice would affect his ministry. As Sunday night services ended, five men walked to a small room behind the sanctuary of the white-frame church. They sat around the children’s Sunday School table. No one expected the undeserved tongue lashing awaiting them. Deacons’ meetings in the country church usually passed quickly with minimal discussion. But not that night.
Unexpected Judgment
When the meeting neared completion, Clint decided the time had come to tell the other deacons what he thought of their deacon service. The short, white-headed, modern-day Pharisee unleashed a verbal assault on “the lethargic witness and complacent attitudes” of the sheepherder and cattle farmers. Clint made his living in the city and did not have to worry about taking care of animals. The other men, excluding the pastor, had been up since four a.m. because they had to tend their animals before Sunday Services. Nevertheless, Clint’s critical monologue seemed to carry on endlessly.
Unspoken Advice
The young pastor in his first church had never heard such venom, at least not on the church grounds. He squirmed in his seat. Then, as he prepared to rebut Clint’s comments, he felt a knee hit him. Thinking Jerry, the man on his right, was stretching his legs, the pastor moved his legs to give the deacon more room. Not thirty seconds later, he felt that knee hit his leg again.
He turned to his right and looked straight into Jerry’s piercing eyes. The preacher couldn’t miss Jerry’s right index finger resting across his lips as he shook his head from side to side. Clint didn’t notice the body language as he spewed his judgment. The pastor furrowed his head and mouthed, “But.” Jerry shook his head in a universal expression meaning “No,” never allowing his finger to move away from his mouth. Not a word came from Jerry’s mouth, but the advice was clear.
Unknown History
After about thirty minutes, Clint tired of his ugly tirade. No one responded, and the meeting adjourned with prayer. Clint left the room first, giving no one a chance to speak to him. The pastor felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to Jerry, who whispered, “You did real good, Pastor.” The pastor said, “But that was wrong.” Before he could say anymore, Jerry leaned in close to say, “We’ve heard it all before. That’s how he sets up the young pastors. He’s run off several of our pastors by getting them to say something they shouldn’t. Don’t worry about it.”
Unruffled Advice
Years later, a wise deacon passed along the same advice to the now older pastor, only this time he spoke his wisdom. “Act, don’t react.” Nothing stands alone. Words and actions ride on facts and feelings, both seen and unseen. So do reactions. And the reactions do not always hear or see the complete picture. Be wise. Anticipate at least one more fact awaiting discovery.
Those deacons refused to let the littleness of the smallest man in the room chip away at their stature. The advice of Jesus transformed their reactions. “Turn the other cheek.” Jesus did not differentiate whether attacks arrived with words or fists (Matthew 5:39). The men lived in the same community, shopped at the same store, and were determined to exercise Christlikeness with their abrasive brother. They refused to let Clint’s sharp words pierce their hearts. Instead, they remembered who they were in Christ and acted according to his way.
The men who knew Clint would address his objectionable behavior, determining the right time, way, and person to express what they needed to communicate. But they chose to do nothing without first praying for peace in their hearts and wisdom for their approach.