I've Got A Date With A Knife!

And it's all Adam's fault!

Well, this is a first. For me, anyway.

You'll recall my misadventures about a month ago when I fell and broke my arm at work. Laid there for half an hour, I did, until a couple of burly dudes came to my rescue and were able to lift me to my feet again. Well, since that time there have sessions of x-rays and an MRI and so now it has all come home to roost. Somewhere around the first of the month your humble servant will report to a surgical center here in town and I will get to experience the joy of rotator cuff surgery. I had the big meeting with the surgeon yesterday.

"So what's with all the horror stories?" I asked Dr. Heinzelmann. "Every time I mention that I'm looking at having this surgery, all of a sudden everybody's eyes light up with glee and they have stories of pain and torture. One guy told me it hurt a friend of his so bad he cried!"

Dr. Heinzelmann had obviously had this talk before. "Look," he explained matter-of-factly. "It's going to hurt. But some people have different levels of pain. Some not so much, some more so." He went on to explain how it is their philosophy to make all this stuff as easy as possible, and he went on to explain some of their methods of dealing with their patients' discomfort. I came away confident that this guy knows what he's doing.

Of course there is a theological point to all this, and it really is being driven home to me. The point is this. It's all Adam's fault!

Remember Adam? He was running around naked with his wife, Eve, when Eve brought him some fruit from a tree that she wasn't supposed to touch. Why in the world would they touch this stuff? Well, it looked yummy. Since then mankind has ingested all kinds of deadly stuff because it looks yummy. Also, the tempter cooed to Eve, they could be like God! Woohoo!

So they munched.

And they died.

And so do we.

Adam's sin (Eve started it all, but it was on Adam's watch so he gets the blame) gave us this horrorfest world we live in. Why do I have to work for a living? Adam! Why am I turning into this old grumpy guy? Adam! Why do I have any number of physical ailments? Adam! And most of all, why was a simple fall on a snowy loading dock enough to make my right arm crippled up without surgery? Adam! The painful rehab I am about to undergo is all because of Adam.

Thanks, Adam. You dork!

I think I'll just cling to Jesus, my Jesus, who will make all this right some day.

Paul put it so well in his missive to the church in Rome:

Rom 5:18-19 ¹⁸ Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. ¹⁹ For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Yup, thanks to Adam this grumpy old guy has a date with a knife. But thanks to my Jesus, this young at heart believer has a date with a destiny of glory for all eternity in The Presence of Presences. Thank you, Jesus! My Lord!

Closed Circuit to Oak Manorites:

There is a lot going on as we recover from all the cancellations due to the snow and ice storms. Tonight the usual round of Wednesday Night stuff resumes. Then on Thursday Night we see the Ed Marshall Prayer Group. They congregate at the church at 6pm with food, fellowship and industrial strength prayer. On Saturday at 6pm the Dave Whitmire Prayer Group will commence with an agenda featuring more of the same. Our regular monthly board meeting will be held after church on Sunday. Other things are going on, we will advise you of them as the weekend draws near.

Many things are being prayed over by the mighty prayer warriors of Oak Manor, and of course now we need to add your pastor's upcoming surgery. We will update them all on Sunday morning.

The Great Blizzard of 2011

Snow days! Whoa! What week it has been! Record snowfall of historic proportions combined with record cold temps have made this a winter to remember. Or maybe a winter to forget?? There’s nothing like two feet of snow and sub zero temps to really put the kabosh on a southern boy’s spirit! No trash pickup in the city for two weeks now, frozen trash piles up.

But let's not get carried away. I don’t know how it all worked out for you, especially if you have kids cooped up in the house but for Carolyn and I just worked out great! It was just she and I, along with our faithful dog Princess Oreo. The power stayed on, so it was warm and cozy. The TV stayed on, so we had stuff to watch and the internet stayed on so we kept in touch with the world. The pantry was well stocked so we had lots of yummy stuff to eat and so all of this means one thing: it was a time to hit the pause button on life. Time to stop. Sit down. Be quiet. Rest. Snooze a bit. Snow days or not, I think escaping from the hassles of everyday living is something that we all need to do every now and then. Seasons of snoozing and refreshment are good, that way we can hit the hassles of life refreshed and renewed.

Outside was a winter wonderland, and if you’re on my Face Book page you saw poor Oreo literally swimming through two feet of snow in the back yard in a desperate search for adequate bathroom facilities (see above).

So here we are, two days cooped up away from the world and I was ready for more when all of a sudden work reared it’s ugly head for us both. We dug our way out (or Carolyn and the neighbors did, I can’t due to the broken arm) and we escaped back to the land of the living.

I made it in to work.

I guess I was a little grumpy.

Yup. It is winter.

There is a great book that I’ve been reading by Mark Buchannan entitled “Spiritual Rhythm.” It talks about the different seasons in life, likening the times of our lives to the seasons. Interestingly, it started with winter. I read the winter section. I read it again. I read the spring section. I went back to the winter. I haven’t gotten to summer or autumn yet. I don’t feel summer or autumn right now. I feel winter, I long for spring.

In spring or summer stuff is happenings and things are going well and you feel the presence of God: you feel him working in your life and sometimes it is easy to base your faith on this perceived movement of God and the Holy Spirit. But then comes winter and you feel the presence of the Lord no more. Maybe you just can’t see him (probably). Maybe he really has backed off from you. Either way, where once was power and movement is now … nothing.

Buchannan says in winter it is easy for us to not see God. The dangers here are obvious, as it is in winter that faith can be lost. How do we guard against that? Buchannan has the ready answer. You base your faith not on experiential things nor on perceived leanings and actions, but you squarely root your faith in that one solid anchor that we have: Scripture.

Experiences come and experiences go, but the Word of the Lord is eternal. Good times come and good times go, but the Word of the Lord is eternal. Root your faith on The Word. And that, says Buchannan, is Faith.

Closed Circuit for Oak Manorites:

Winter is hitting us all a hard one. At this point it appears that we will have services on Sunday, but the Board Meeting scheduled for this time and the potluck dinner is on hold for at least a week.

Also on hold this week is the Dave Whitmire Prayer Group. All of the above will probably happen next week.

I would pass on just a couple of our many prayer concerns. Dean Davis had his cataract surgery this past week, so far so good. Janice Whitmire’s dad, Archie fell. He has a black eye and some bruises. Doctors say his diabetes is affecting his balance, and lately he falls easily. Jackie Linzy's surgery is on hold. My appointment with the surgeon has been rescheduled to Monday. I’m afraid of what all he’s going to have in store for me, but on the other hand I’m ready to git r done!

So much more that we are praying about, we’ll update them Sunday morning. I’ll see you then!

Pastor Mackster

The Ghost of Lee George

This is a picture of the Ozark Christian College campus in the grips of the Blizzard of 2011, sent along by Alumni Director Meredith Williams. Ah, the memories...

Ok, so I gotta give a bit of a background here. Lee George was a long time weather anchor on KODE-TV in Joplin. I knew Lee, of course. He was a good guy, and served many years faithfully. One year, though, he missed the forecast by just a bit. He forecast flurries. What Joplin got was one of the biggest recorded snowfalls since they started keeping records. I know for a fact that police patrolled his house because of all the death threats. He never lived that down. He's been dead for many years now. He still hasn't lived it down!

I think it was Thanksgiving Week 1992. I was the weekend weather anchor on KSN-TV in Joplin (my old partner in crime, Ken Ford, was the week day anchor) and I was in the final year of my tenure as a student at Ozark Christian College. It was Tuesday. It was chapel day. Two unsavory characters approached me; they were professors there at OCC and they were worried men. You see, a monster winter storm had us in the cross hairs and was going to hit like tomorrow. That being the case, a lot of the students would get stranded here, they wouldn't make it home or those who tried would run an incredible risk of death and injury and they'd have to keep the dorms open and the caf open, etc etc you get the picture. They asked me to go to OCC President Ken Idleman and make the case that we should close early and get the kids outa here.

So as we walked from his office to chapel, I gave Ken a complete weather briefing. As chapel progressed he and the faculty had an impromptu caucus the end result being for the first time in its history OCC dismissed early and the kids evacuated the place.

It snowed not one flake. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. As I arrived in the early morning to do my morning thing at KOBC-FM there at the campus, I looked into the sullen morning sky.

"Snow!" I bellowed to the heavens. Then I heard it. Yes, I heard it. As surely as I'm here today I heard the ghost of Lee George laughing at me from the grave!

In the interests of full disclosure, the storm went all around us and the students were hammered as they went home and, yes, it was a good thing they got a day's head start. But here on campus, there was awful nothingness!

So here we are in the grips of the Blizzard of 2011. What memories may come?