Somebody Like Me

This morning I am sitting listening to a song called, "Somebody Like Me" by Jason Crabb.  This song is about a homeless man that walks into a church and no one sits next to him, no one ministers to him and when he leaves no one goes after him.  Yesterday a friend of mine and I were listening to this song as we drove to lunch.  He said something that was true but it didn't sit right with me regardless.  He said that he had never seen this happen at his church and that people would have reached out to this guy if they were at his church.  I agree and that would probably happen at my church as well.  The problem is we get all emotional at church and then what happens when we walk out the door?  If we are Christians, what does Christ look like to the rest of the world?  Will Christ stop to help someone?  Will Christ give to someone in need or will Christ make some excuse about why he can't help.  Understand this - The only Christ that some people will ever see is you and me.

Let me tell you about a couple of places where I faced this situation.  One was in the church lobby a few weeks ago.  There is a lady at my church who I have sort of known all my life.  I have been to basically three churches in my life and her family has been at the same three.  The funny thing is we don't know them all that well.  This particular lady has such a sweet spirit.  She loves God and you can just tell.  On this particular morning, she was a Christian and I wasn't.  The interesting thing is that this particular lady has some type of mental disability and while older than me, she acts much younger.

As she walked toward me that Sunday, I didn't want to talk to her.  I buried my head in my phone pretending to be doing something but really I was just hoping that she would pass me by so I wouldn't have to talk to her.  All she wanted was to talk to someone and have them talk back to her with some amount of interest in what she was saying.  I however was too caught up in myself to be Christ.  As someone walked up and diverted her attention, I quickly got up and walked off.  Oh how easy it is to write this blog and have people from all over the world read it but when it came to actually being a member of the body of Christ I failed that morning.  When the reality of that set in, I was ashamed of myself because I know I am better than that.  Have you ever experienced a situation like that?  If so, you know how it feels to have an opportunity to do something for someone else and miss it.  My Father still loves me but He certainly couldn't have been happy with me that morning.  I know I wasn't.

But the Lord had a special way of telling me and showing me how much He loves me.  I don't speak with this person very often but the next morning as I was rounding the corner, here she came again.  This time was different.  I was excited.  I got an opportunity to talk to her and really more let her talk to me and I took it with gusto.  It didn't last very long but I know she enjoyed talking to me and I really enjoyed talking to her.  This particular Sunday, that somebody was me.  It felt great.

Now let's get outside the church walls.  What does Christ look like at Starbucks on Wednesday morning?  Please do not take the rest of this story as bragging because it isn't.  I constantly deal with the feeling that I don't do enough for other people.  It seems like no matter how many people I help, I never feel like I do much and certainly not enough.  Anyway, as I was sitting in Starbucks working this morning, and a man walked up to me who looked dirty.  He handed me a laminated piece of paper that said he was mute and looking for money for food for his family.  He showed me tatoos on his arms with the names of his parents and the dates of their deaths.  I really didn't want to deal with him because I was enjoying what I was doing.  Before he got to me, he stopped at another table to ask for help and they turned him down.  But here's the difference.  This time I purposed in my heart to be someone God could use.  I decided that God could count on me to show this man Christ.  I wasn't going to be relegated to the side lines this time.  I was going to get in the game.  He was going to see Christ give.  I am thankful that Christ gave me the ability to bless him.

Please don't take this wrong.  I, above all people, know that I'm nothing special.  But I do know that I serve One who is beyond special.  As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I want to challenge you to look around you.  If you are a Christian, what does Christ look like to the people who are around you?  Are you helping?  When was the last time you helped someone who could do nothing for you in return?  When was the last time someone saw Christ in you?  In my own life, people don't see Christ enough.

That's the Opinion of the Minion

My Mom vs. Goliath

Today I want to tell you how thankful I am for the drug problem I had as a child.  No, it wasn't the kind of drugs you are thinking about.  My mom drug me to church every week.

The church building isn't there anymore.  It was knocked down by a tornado that hit downtown Fort Worth several years ago and I really miss that church building.  Now don't get me wrong, Jesus isn't in a building and the church is so much more that a building.  The church is the people who go to and from the building every week.  See when people see us they should see Christ in us not in a building.  But that building was a very special one to me.

I have said this publicly but I will say it again, Thank you mom for dragging me kicking, screaming and sometimes cussing to church with you every week.  If it wasn't for that, I would hate to think about where I would be today.

So let me tell you a little more about this drug problem.  When I was around 5 years old, we started attending Calvary Cathedral in downtown Fort Worth.  The church started out as a Baptist church that Pastor Bob Nichols bought.  At the age of 5, church was fine but as I got a little older it really cramped my style.  Because of where we lived and just our normal schedule, I did not make many friends at the church when I was young.  (I think I would have made several good friends if I was more friendly myself but that's beside the point.)

The other problem was something I considered much more critical.  Now you have to understand that this was before the days of VCRs and DVRs so I couldn't record anything from TV.  Why is this important you ask?  Because the Dallas Cowboys played at noon and I was a big fan back then.  I hated that I had to go to church and miss part of the game.  By the time we got out of church, the 1st Quarter was always over and I didn't like that.  As I got to high school, I would stay out late and be tired and thus again I didn't want to go to church.  I cussed my mother out more than once (No, not to her face.  I wasn't that stupid) for dragging me to that church.  I even decided that I wouldn't stay in the services while I was there.  Now the church building was pretty big and it had two stories so I decided to hide in the rooms upstairs until the service was over.  This worked out pretty well for several months until the mom of one of my few friends followed me up to my "secret" room.

Needless to say, my mom found out and I got drug out of the room and back down to the service.  I can tell you she was a very unhappy camper when she found us that day.  Now my mom is a little lady but she sure looked like a giant that day.  If David had seen her instead of Goliath he might have reconsidered.  If Goliath had seen her he would have ran instead of running his mouth.  So back down to the service we went.  After a certain amount of time, I finally decided I would outsmart her again.  I didn't want to be there and while she could drag me there as long as I lived under her roof, she couldn't make me listen to a word Pastor Bob was saying.  If anyone from Calvary reads this, let me say how thankful I am for a true man of God like Bob Nichols.  I have nothing but the highest respect and admiration for him. 

So if you were looking out from the pulpit, I was sitting in the very back row on the far right hand side of the sanctuary.  Now our sanctuary was round so the isle we sat on had only three seats.  If you took one of them you did so at your own peril because my brother and I owned them.  There was a strategic reason that I picked these seats.  You could not see my facial expression from the pulpit, there was no one directly behind me, you would have to turn around to look at me if you were in front of me and lastly, if I put my bible on the arm rest of the chair, put my elbow on the bible, and leaned my face on my hand, my head would stay upright and you couldn't see my eyes if you sat to my right.

Why was this important?  Because it allowed me to sleep through every service without getting caught.  Or at least no one woke me up if they knew I was asleep (I am sure that people knew because I snored like a chain saw at a logger's championship).  So I slept back there and my mom kept dragging us to church.  But there was something that really bothered me.  At the end of every service, Pastor Bob would start his closing prayer by saying, "Father, we've heard the word of God today...."  Only I hadn't heard the word so I wouldn't pray that part of the prayer because it would be a lie.  So one day, I decided to stay awake and listen to what he said.  This went on for several more years and Pastor Bob taught me a lot.  Thanks to a mother who wouldn't stop bringing her son to church.

But here's the interesting part.  There were many things that I wanted to do with my time back then.  Church wasn't in the top 100.  I wanted to play outside, hang out with my friends, watch football, etc.  But when the major crises came in my life, when I needed help with my weight, when I was going through my divorce, at every point where I struggled, I never once cried out to the Dallas Cowboys, to my friends or to any other thing that would have taken my time.  I cried out to the One that I learned about all those times mother drug me to church.  I cried out to God.  Never once quoted a Cowboy rushing stat when I needed financial help.  I qouted the word of God and God saw me through my difficulty.  I never once found comfort in any church substitute.  I found comfort by going back to the place where my mother drug me week in and week out all those years.

That's another Opinion of the Minion