What will it take?

I did something this morning that I've never done before. Sitting at my table, 2:30 in the morning, with the back door open so I can hear the rain and thunder outside, I was startled by my weather radio. This alert, unlike the many that had sounded earlier this evening, was not due to the weather, however. This was an AMBER alert for a missing child in Gibson County. I could not catch all the details, so I went to the TBI website and found the alert along with a picture of the little 5-year-old girl, missing since 7:30pm last evening. I've heard AMBER alerts before, but the difference this time was that I did something about it. being at my computer already, I posted the alert and the picture to my facebook page, so that the information would go a little bit farther than just me. Why? On a stormy night like tonight, I couldn't imagine where this little girl could possibly be, last seen wearing only pink panties, if she was not at home, safe and sound:


Now, I did this because there is something I know about myself: I love children, teens, adolescents, and their families. And my life's actions have not always reflected what my life's PASSIONS really are. The troubling thing is that, the longer you go in life saying that something is important to you, but not acting like it is important to you, the more it begins to appear that the thing in question is NOT important to you. So if I have a passion to help children, but I let an opportunity pass me by to help a child in the least bit, then I could not possibly stand face-to-face with you and say with complete honesty, that my passion is to help children.

I can't help but feel that there are many people whose lives are not fulfilling their passions. So the question is: What is it going to take? With kids dying and being taken advantage of, what is it going to take? With the elderly being abandoned and abused, what will it take? When a million abortions occur and those lives are tossed out before they ever have a chance to begin, what is it going to take? With women being beaten and bruised, what will it take to move YOU?

What makes you tick? What gets your goat? Who are you recognizing needs the love of God on a daily basis that you are able to glide right by, excusing the apathy by telling yourself that it's not you problem? What searing sensation occurs in your soul that time and neglect has caused to become more dull and more weak until you hardly notice anymore? What was the last thing that made you begin to weep tears of sorrow and pray to God saying, "Please do something! Please help ME to do SOMETHING?" I know it's not pleasant to think about, but you and I both have allowed opportunities to slip by in which a little extra time and consideration could have made a whole lot of difference, where taking a small risk of being called "intrusive" or even the slight risk of being wrong, caused us to over look a situation altogether in which someone was secretly crying out for help.

There is not enough love in all the hearts of men and women in this world that can cause all the problems and injustices of people to be solved. Ahmed Zewail, 1999 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, wrote, "Despite human progress, I fear the continuing dearth of visionary solutions to the underlying causes of human misery- ignorance and deprivation." I am not deluded into thinking that man has any solutions to these causes of misery for our brothers and sisters. I am convinced, however, that the solution resides in Jesus Christ. "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands." II Timothy 1:6. If the gift is in you, then the answer also resides in you. Don't let it take another day of statistics to activate your response to your passions.


Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Katelyn Cole can call the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office at (731) 855-1121 or TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND

Just me

I am tonight, on the eve of a Sunday service in which I am to preach to the home congregation, just floored about how unworthy I am, not just to preach, but to even be a leader or just a child of God at all! I am no where what I need to be, and sometimes it doesn't seem like I'm that far away from what I used to be. Why are the most basic principles of prayer, fasting, and the Word so hard to follow? Why do I go days and weeks without uttering someone's name in prayer? What is so important that I would let erode these cornerstones of Christ-like life and ministry in my life? Why do the words of sheep in my care bring such cutting conviction; isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

The ministry certainly cannot be separated from the man in whom the ministry is invested. The life of the preacher should be the loudest sermon he preaches! I love preaching, and the office of the preacher, and the pulpit, but I despise having to be in front of the people in the poor, miserable shape that I'm in!

I am striving so hard to get back to a life of striving for the right in my life! Praying for a fresh burden that propels me away from all the diversions that take up my time and leave me passionless, prayerless, and powerless. I don't want my family or my church or my youth to get the rest of me instead of the best of me! I hope the fact that this is a problem for me and that I'm taking the time to write about it means that this is turning around in my life, because I can't go on like this. Please God, in your Holy Name, Jesus, deliver me from the poison of pride and the body of this death! Let me take up my cross instead of lazily dragging it! Let me come back to my first love and my first works, rebuilding on the foundation! Let me be broken on your altar where your oil and blood can reconstitute my broken pieces into the man you want and need me to be!!!