Today is Holly’s birthday. As always, we could hear the birds singing as we walked into the restaurant for our traditional birthday breakfast. (I’m sure you can see pictures of Holly at www.loispierpont.com). Dan and Wes preached their first sermons this past weekend. Dan will preach again on Wednesday night. Pictures of that may surface there, too. Hope will be nine next Lord’s Day. [Read more…] about Holly’s Birthday
The Greening of the Year
The One who with the Father and the Spirit spoke the worlds into existence has promised that as long as the earth remains the cycle of the seasons will continue. We are again on the brink of warm, sunny days and evenings among the flowers in the yard. We’re in the greening of the year. It’s like the whole world is blushing with young love.
There are things around us that are dark and disturbing and I would give you an account of them if I thought you needed it – but the ubiquitous media stream evidence of human depravity into our homes, and cars, and businesses, and offices non-stop. We don’t need any more detail. Unrelenting evidence of sin’s curse surrounds us. Stories of greed, lust, murder, theft, perversion, betrayal, pride, violence, tragedy, sports, and weather are tucked between breezy adds to sell everything from insect repellant to insurance from laundry soap to ladders from luxury cruises to cemetery property. Young chirpy model-types in short skirts and perfect teeth sit between talking heads in suits and chat about the mayhem that plagues our earth as if they were swatting flies away or brushing ants off the table at a picnic. But once-in-a-while, when the evil hits close to home, or when the tragedy touches a friend, or when a series of painful things hit us at once, we are tempted to be overcome by the evil around us.
How to Keep From Being Overcome By Evil
How can we keep from being overcome by evil? Knowledge of evil will not overcome evil. Brute force will not overcome evil. Law will curtail evil but the law cannot overcome evil. Legislation will not overcome evil. First-century Christians in Rome must have had a sense of evil pressing in on them. Paul reminded them of the teaching of Jesus and said, “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (see Romans 12:21)
We must be those who overcome evil with good. We cannot allow our spirits to be dragged into the swamp of despair. I am among those who will continually strain to hear the sounds of spring on an April morning. I will continually trust that He who conceived such wonder and such beauty and such life and spoke it instantly into being can push back evil like spring overcomes winter every year. I long for that day. Until then I will conspire with others who would overcome evil with good. I will speak and tell and write good words. Good words are powerful words. I will conspire with others to do good deeds. Good deeds are powerful deeds. They are powerful enough to overcome evil.
When in the evening in the greening of the year I sit in our yard and breathe in the fragrance of spring my heart is filled with hope again that one day evil can be overcome by good.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
April 14, 2008
Janice Meredith Wilson
I brought this post to the top of my site because I mentioned it in my message Sunday morning. Be sure you follow the link at the end of my essay.
Do you know who Janice Meredith Wilson is? You should. Let me get on my soapbox here for a minute and then I will introduce her to you.
The guest list for lecturers at the National Cathedral in Washington D. C. is heavily weighted toward an odd amalgam of men and women, writers and preachers, educators and media persons who almost always speak with robust confidence about questionable things. The same people treat with detached skepticism the simple, straightforward claims of the Bible. In other words, the people who speak at the National Cathedral are often sure of things that Christians have historically been doubtful about and doubtful about things that have historically defined Christianity.
I know I’m speaking in direct tones here, but I would not recommend that you surf onto their site and start watching lectures unless you have a strong stomach and a stalwart faith. None of us have enough time on our hands to watch people talk on and on about what they DON’T believe, no matter how sophisticated, popular, elite, educated, or well-spoken they are.
But there have been a few exceptions. On December 6, 2005 the powers that be at the National Cathedral invited Janice Meredith Wilson to lecture. From what I can tell it was one of their best decisions in recent years. I watched the lecture on my computer.
Janice Meredith Wilson is the name of the author who is known by the pseudonym, Jan Karon. She is the author of the Mitford series of novels about an Episcopal pastor from a delightful fictitious village in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains called Mitford, North Carolina. There are nine books in all. They tell a warm story about a community of people and a pastor, his wife, his dog, and her cat. The books are entertaining and insightful, they are descriptive and delightful. Her depictions of people make you laugh and cry. Her descriptions of food make your mouth water. Her insights on the things of God make you want to pray and serve and love and give. Though fiction they are accurate and tasteful in their treatments of human nature and Janice is able to accomplish all this without resorting to profanity, offensive violence, or sexual innuendo.
She did in her address at the National Cathedral what she did in her books. She told her story in a compelling and clear way weaving into the story spiritual insights and biblical truths. It is an art and she is a skilled artist. She told how she came to the place where she knew her life was empty and she called on the Lord Jesus to forgive her sins and take over her life. She so tastefully and boldly proclaimed Christ and the gospel that I literally jumped to my feet and cheered her on.
We may not be asked to speak at the National Cathedral, but we all have our pulpit, our lectern, our microphone, our street corner, our place at the table in the coffee shop. We all have our moment on the stage. We all have our circle of influence. When the time comes-follow Jan Karon’s example. When you have a brief moment in the lights don’t forget who your God is. Don’t forget who your creator is. Don’t forget the One who is your hope and your salvation. Don’t forget the One who is your life. Don’t forget the One in whom we live and move and have our being. With a winsome spirit, with the bold confidence of someone who is handing out one hundred dollar bills, with graceful poise, stand up and make Christ known.
He is the way, the truth, and the life and when you proclaim his name it will have the ring of truth in the hearts of those whom God is calling to himself. He is at work in the hearts of people, do your part and make Him known.
Ken Pierpont
Brook Place
Hinsdale, Illinois
January 16, 2007
Faithful as Daffodils in Spring
I took this picture this morning before the little flowers had their heads up. Soon they will be stretching toward the sun.
It’s been raining on and off for a couple days, but these are the soft April showers that bring May flowers. I’ve never been here in the spring of the year before. Yesterday morning when I turned off Pennsylvania onto the church property I noticed a row of daffodils all along the south side of the building. You can see them when you come on Sunday. [Read more…] about Faithful as Daffodils in Spring
Parenting
My brother, Kevin has posted a link to a helpful message on parenting. Check it out here.
Churches are Built on Sacrifice
When I was about five years old my parents helped to pioneer a church plant in West Michigan. At first we met in temporary quarters and had Sunday School classes in the home of one of the members, but one summer the men of the church gathered to build a church building. Working together night after night – into the autumn of the year – they built a modest but attractive colonial building of red brick. My friends and I played in the nearby woods, pelted each other with dirt clods, and tried the keep the construction site tidy. When the men finished they were as proud of their little church as it is legitimate for Christians to be. They trained flood-lights on the steeple so people traveling on the Interstate would see it.
One Saturday night I was with Dad at the church. He was finishing the bulletin. Walking through the fresh, new, building he said, “Do you see this carpet? It was given by a family in the church whose son died in Vietnam.”
Only my dad knew where the money for the carpet had come from. I was not to tell anyone. (Since that was over forty years ago and I have not revealed the family name I have taken the liberty to tell the story now). This farm family had taken insurance money from their son’s death and used it to buy the carpet for the church. Every Sunday I sat in church and I thought of that strapping young man working the farm upon which our house sat. He was 18 and I was five. It seemed to me there was almost nothing he couldn’t do. But he went to fight in Vietnam and no one ever saw him alive again. He died there.
When you pass a church at night on the highway, you have no idea the sacrifices that have been made to make that church possible.
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