Bittersweet Farm

I heard a young man say once: “There are two ways to enter a room. You can see ‘Here I am!’ or you can say ‘THERE you are!”

If you want to have the best year ever in school this year, walk in the door every morning saying; “There you are!”

You desire to be loved and liked. Devote yourself to loving others. Challenge yourself to show interest in others. Decicate yourself to serving others. Commit to listening to others. Don’t look for people to love you, look for people to love. Don’t try to find people to serve you. Find people to serve. Don’t try to get people to listen to you, find people to listen to. Don’t try to get them interested in our life, be interested in their life.

The Apostle Paul understood this and wrote about it in 2 Cor. 13:15 “I will most gladly… spend and be spent for our souls, though the more abundantly I love you the less I am loved…”

Five Ways to Love:

1. Love by Giving. (John 3:16) “…for God so loved the world that he gave….”

2. Love by Serving. “…even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”” (Matthew 20:28) “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3–4, ESV)

3. Love by Listening. James 1:19-20  So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Proverbs 18:13  He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him. Proverbs 29:11  A fool vents all his feelings,  But a wise man holds them back.  Proverbs 10:19  In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise. Proverbs 17:28  Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; When he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive.

4. Love by Encouraging. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15

5. Love by Never Speaking Evil. “…speak evil of no man…” (Titus 3:2ff)

Now when you fail at this, and you will, remember that it is only possible through Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:7–9, ESV)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22–23, ESV)

I hope you have a great day… today and the best year ever!

The Latest from Out on Bittersweet

Next Sunday Lois and I celebrate 40 years of marriage. I met her in college. She passed up all the muscle-builders, and big men on campus, all the athletes and egg-heads. She picked a tall, skinny guy she saw singing in chapel. Here we are 40 years, eight children and thirteen grandchildren later. We have a good life. On that we deeply agree. God has given us the desire of our hearts, four sons and four daughters who know the Lord and love us, a growing tribe of grandchildren, a home in the country and a good church to serve. We’ve been in the ministry for 40 years. (We also have an irritating little Yorkie, who is barking at me right now to get him from lunch meat from the fridge. Hold on).

Last Friday evening our son Daniel and his wife Katelynn had a baby, their second son. They named him Leon Roy. He was born in Texas and I think he looks like his dad.

Anyway, out of all her options I won her heart though a mixture of persistence, considerable charm, and the grace of God and here we are with 40 years of marital bliss behind us.

My Basketball Career

In the sixth grade we attended a basketball game at my Dad’s alma mater, Cedarville College. I had an ephiphany on the way home that night. I would attend college on a basketball scholarship. I would not have to save all my paper route money and I would not have to prevail upon my parents for help. I would attend the College where my dad was attending when I was born and I would go though on a full-ride basketball scholarship. I knew I could do it. I read a book about it.

The book was titled “Basketballs for Breakfast.” As I recall the boy in the book devoted himself to basketball and he willed himself into basketball greatness.

I got an old basketball rim somewhere and climbed a six-foot step ladder and nailed the hoop to the barn. No backboard. No net. It could not have been regulation height. I gave no thought to the question of whether I had any particular talent in basketball. I loved to play basketball. I was taller than most of my age-mates and I could beat my little brothers and a few of the neighborhood kids, so I was going to Cedarville on a basketball scholarship. It was settled.

May Dad thinks a lot of me. Growing up he regularly told me I could do things I was pretty sure I could not do. Often I thought it was remarkable the high option of me he held. At the time I did not understand the pop-psychology of giving a kid a good reputation to live up to, I just took him at his word, so I knew he was going to affirm my plan.

One day I dropped the news.

“Dad. I’m going to go to Cedarville to college.”

“I’m glad to hear that, son.”

“And I am going to go on a basketball scholarship so you won’t have to worry about helping me. I’m going to practice every day and run and work hard at it during the off-season.”

“Well, son,” my dad slowly says, “To go to college on a basketball scholarship you have to be really, really good at basketball. It might be a better idea for you to concentrate on getting really good grades. Sometimes they give scholarship money for academic achievement.”

I wasn’t real quick but I could tell that my dad did not think that I was good enough or ever could be good enough to win a basketball scholarship. I was crestfallen. My dream of a college career and basketball fame and been crushed in a moment.

I never did win a basketball scholarship. To be honest, I never made a basketball team in high school or college. I did win a speech contest and a small savings bond from the VFW. I gathered a few other discounts and incentives for various minor achievements, but I never did get an athletic scholarship of any kind.

I did get one semester paid for singing and traveling with a group from the college and a certain brown-eyed girl took note of me singing in chapel, so there was that. But I’ve never earned a dime for my basketball skill.

I couldn’t even get invited into the pick-up game at the YMCA in Chicago—and they call it a Christian organization. You would think one of the Christian Young Men would have invited me into the game at least once… but no.

There was the Moody Men’s Glee Club. I lettered in Glee Club. There was that, but there were no academic or athletic scholarships.

Paul, the Apostle said that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to thing, but that we should have sober judgment about ourselves. That was probably what Dad was trying to say when he killed my dream of basketball stardom.

Be all you can be, but be yourself. Work with what God gave you. That will be enough. I will take you where you need to go.