The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Allan’s Journey (Page 29 of 31)

Thank You, Lord

November 22, 2007 / / 3 Comments

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”              ~1 Chronicles 16:34

 As I sit at the computer this morning I hear the sounds of our girls playing in the living room and I smell some wonderful cinnamon bread thing that Carrie-Anne has working in the kitchen. It’s freezing outside, but toasty in here. Sunday’s sermon is finished. At noon today we’ll head over to Aunt Pam’s house for a feast of delicious foods, wonderful fellowship with a loving family, and lots of football.

I’m surrounded by blessing. My cup overflows. Thank you, Lord.

I’m eternally grateful for our God’s providence, for his perfect sense of timing, his foresight. At just the right time, he introduced me to Carrie-Anne. This amazing woman who loves me unconditionally and is patient with me and challenges me and pushes me and makes me laugh. I’m not certain I would be a disciple of Christ if it were not for Carrie-Anne. Oh, I’d be a “Christian.” I’d be in a church somewhere. But I’m not sure I’d be a disciple. And I know without a doubt, without her encouragement and confidence, I would not be a preacher of the Gospel.

We celebrate 18 beautiful years of marriage together this Sunday. More on her then. Thank you, Lord.

I’m grateful for the blessings of our three little girls. So precious. So talented. So sweet. So funny. So fun. They make me laugh. They keep us entertained—Carley with her wild, out of control dancing; Valerie with her outstanding sense of humor and funny faces; Whitney with her enthusiasm and passion for whatever it is she happens to be doing at the moment. They each love life so much. And I’m blessed to be able to experience my Father’s world through their eyes. Thank you, Lord.

I’m thankful for all of my family. My mom and dad who passed on the faith to me. There was never ever any doubt growing up that our Lord was the absolute most important thing to my parents and our family. And I’m grateful for that example that was rooted deep in my being, part of my DNA, even if it did take a while to blossom. I’m thankful for my sister, Rhonda, and for the thousands of happy memories we have growing up together. She never let go of me. And there were times when common sense says she should have. I’m thankful for my sister, Sharon, and for the compassion she has for others. She is a selfless giver, caring for the sick, raising the fallen, encouraging the burdened. She, too, has a passion for life and lives it to its fullest. I’m thankful for my brother, Keith, and for his deep love for God’s Word and for the Church. His wisdom far exceeds mine. His insights are invaluable to me. I find that every phone conversation with him leaves me encouraged and upbeat and confident and ready to tackle anything that comes my way in the name of the Lord. Those conversations need to happen more often, not less. All of my family, all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and in-laws, they all serve in wonderful ways to care for me and love me and push me. They’ve all been used by my Father, at different points, to mold me and shape me into the man I am. Thank you, Lord.

And I praise God today for giving me — me! — the opportunity to preach his Word. Are you kidding?!? Me? It’s the most amazing thing of all. Me. He sees something in me I never saw. He has a belief in me I’ve never had in myself. His faith in me is greater than my faith in him. I’m not worthy. I’m not holy. What does he think he’s doing, making me against all human logic the preacher at this huge church at Legacy? None of it makes any sense. He’s pushing me. He’s challenging me. He’s expecting great things out of me. Big things. And I know that he knows that I know it’s all going to have to come from him. And that gives me strength and confidence and courage and boldness. It’s all him. Thank you, Lord.

“Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”   ~Colossians 3:17

Peace,

Allan

Favorite Day

November 19, 2007 / / 1 Comment

Sunday is still my favorite day of the week.

I had to actually think about that three weeks ago when Carrie-Anne and I filled out a personal inventory / survey in the Young Families class here at Legacy. One of the questions in the “just getting to know you” section that included queries about favorite colors, books, vacation spots, etc., was “What is your favorite day of the week?” And I put Sunday. One of the other questions was “Employer, City” and I wrote “God, Heaven.” But Sunday really is my favorite day of the week because it’s the one day I get to spend with a thousand different Christian believers all in one building at one time. And, to me, that, just as much if not more than anything else, speaks to the power of our God. It testifies to the miracle of our Savior. It’s amazing to me that so many of us, from different backgrounds and different mindsets and worldviews and opinions and beliefs and customs and traditions and circumstances can be brought together as family in one place to submit to each other and love each and serve each other in the name of Jesus. Amazing.

God creates us, brings us together, and sustains us to be family. And it can be really messy.

As we make the move here at Legacy from a church that does small groups to a Small Groups Church, we talk all the time about how we don’t believe for a second that Small Groups is going to solve all our problems. If anything, it’s going to create a whole new set of problems. When a thousand people make the decision to get intimately involved in each other’s lives, it gets messy. None of us is perfect. We’ve all got our baggage and issues and viewpoints and struggles and faults. It won’t be easy.

Eugene Peterson—by now, you know, one of my favorite authors—writes about the church as a messy community in his book The Jesus Way.

“Community is intricate and complex. Living in community as a people of God is inherently messy. A congregation consists of people of various moods, ideas, needs, experiences, gifts and injuries, desires and disappointments, blessings and losses, intelligence and stupidity, living in proximity and in respect for one another, and believingly in worship of God. It is not easy and it is not simple. Not every situation can be anticipated. Novel combinations of circumstances take us by surprise. No community worth its salt has ever existed very long without attending painstakingly to particular conditions.”

All of this is true. And it’s never more true than when we all get together on Sundays. Despite our differences, we unite together in the blood of Jesus to worship our Father and love each other and serve each other.

Sunday is still my favorite day of the week because I get to see all of it up close. I stand in the back of the worship center during that closing song and benediction and look out over all my brothers and sisters and I’m moved at what God is able to do with his children. How does this continue to happen? I see the faces and the families while I’m preaching, recognizing my brothers and sisters who are hurting, rejoicing, worried, rebelling, working, arguing, and healing. How is that God keeps this thing together? It’s incredible to me.

Every Sunday is a roller coaster for me. A different roller coaster every week. I know every Sunday morning that there will be ups and downs and dangerous turns and even a couple of loops. But the ride is a little different every time. The good and the bad, the rejoicing and the mourning, the praise and the complaints, an exhilerating acceleration I didn’t expect, a gut-wrenching turn I didn’t see coming, all of us in the same car, all in the family of God. Every Sunday.

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9-1. How do you argue with that? 9-1. It speaks for itself. And it doesn’t matter who they’ve beaten or how small or large the margin of victory. 9-1 is what it is. It says the Cowboys are a very good football team. And there’s no other way to see it. Even if their pass defense is ranked 24th in the league. Even if Andre Gurod makes every shotgun snap a wild adventure. Even if Flozell Adams moves early like he’s got some kind of false start incentive clause in his contract. Even if Tony Romo throws sidearm. Even if Roy Williams couldn’t cover you on a post route. Even if their number one receiver is a proven ticking time bomb of a quarterback killer and a lockerroom cancer. Even if they don’t have a solid number one running back. 9-1 speaks for itself.

In a league in which it’s extremely difficult to win, the Cowboys keep winning. It’s very impressive. Things bounce their way. They make big plays when they have to. They make up for their mistakes. Their mutual confidence in their coaches and in each other is rare. They really, truly believe they can get to the Super Bowl and win it, regardless of whether they meet the Patriots or the Colts or the ’78 Steelers.

Yesterday’s win over the ‘Skins was impressive. Romo struggled. The secondary got lit up. Nobody appeared to be in sync. Coaches seemed a little confused. Play-calling was suspect.

And they won. They beat a division rival that was desperate for a win, much more desperate than the Cowboys were. Washington needed that game. But the Cowboys wouldn’t let them have it. Very impressive.

I just wish it could have been anybody — ANYBODY — other than Terrell Owens with the four scores.

Peace,

Allan

Thwarting Satan's Schemes

November 5, 2007 / / 6 Comments

Regarding a member of the church in Corinth that had obviously sinned against Paul and the local congregation the apostle wrote this in 2 Corinthians 2:7-11:

“…you ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you therefore to reaffirm your love for him…in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.”

Paul’s purpose with this wayward brother who had sinned and then come back to the church was not to reestablish his reputation or the reputation of the church. It was purely redemptive. Love this hurting brother. Forgive him. Comfort him. Accept him. Because if you don’t, Satan wins.

If the Church is the visible evidence of God’s salvation work through Christ — God’s work of forgiving and accepting — then Satan’s schemes would be devised to destroy that evidence. Our mutual acceptance of one another and our forgiving one another is our participation with God in Christ of that same salvation work. Accepting and forgiving each other is how we demonstrate what Jesus has done for us. The whole point of the gospel is forgiveness and acceptance. And if Satan can keep us from doing that, he would consider himself successful. If we can’t practice forgiveness and acceptance with each other, how could we possibly be expected to practice it with others? Satan knows that. Our refusal to forgive and accept compromises the gospel. Satan knows that. We proclaim the gospel by the way we act toward each other. Satan knows that. He’s trying to outwit us. But we are not unaware of his schemes.

Forgiving each other and accepting one another thwarts the devils schemes against God’s Church. Let’s practice some of that strategic forgiving and accepting this week.

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John Weber, the long time team chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys, died Thursday evening of a heart attack at the age of 59. You can read a couple of the stories about his passing along with player comments about John here and here.

I had the very good pleasure of knowing John from our trips on the Cowboys charter while I was at KRLD. He and I sat next to each other on several of those trips and shared our faith and our love for ministry. It was on two specific trips, both in 2003, one to Philly and one to Detroit, that I talked to him about my desires to get out of radio and into Christian ministry full-time. He counseled me to stay in sports radio. He told me that there weren’t very many Christians in the industry, which I knew all too well (it was one of the reasons I felt I needed to get out), and that I was serving God by the way I was living my life in the world. He told me that over and over.

I eventually wound up rejecting that advice. But John was just so sincere and so optimistic and compassionate about me as a Christian and as a person that I’ve always cherished the conversations we had together. I was just talking about John to my Wednesday night class here at Legacy last week. John had introduced me to Russell Maryland at an Athletes in Action golf tournament that our radio station was co-hosting in 2004. And I was using the example of Russell, this massive former Pro-Bowler and Outland Trophy winner and Super Bowl champion, as an illustration to convey the idea of meekness in the Beautitudes. Power under control. The way Russell acted so gently with the small, fragile, handicapped children he met at that tournament. I was talking about John in my Bible class. And within 24 hours he was gone.

I remember a particular lunch at Chili’s off of LBJ and Preston Road in the spring of ’05. We were talking about discipleship. And I remember leaning over my cheesesteak sandwich and telling John, “Jesus never said ‘accept me.’ He said ‘follow me.'” We both decided right then that true discipleship to Jesus was what was missing in our churches.

John and I emailed each other only a couple of times after I left radio to go to school at Austin Grad. He was very gracious and encouraging and full of praise and affirmation. After I’d been here at Legacy a couple of weeks, I told him where I was and what I was doing. And we both said we needed to get together for lunch and get caught up.

Never did.

John was a great Christian man who impacted lots and lots of lives. He was beyond reproach in the way he lived and interacted with all those around him. The Cowboys have suffered two losses this season. Last Thursday’s loss of John Weber is the one that counts. It’s huge.

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I’d like to change my season prediction on the Cowboys to 15-1 and the Super Bowl.

Thank you,

Allan

Behold, I Thought!

November 1, 2007 / / 0 Comments

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”   ~Isaiah 55:8-9

In preparing for this Sunday’s sermon on God’s absolutely free gift of salvation as demonstrated in the miraculous cleansing of Naaman in 2 Kings 5, I came across this thought from Chuck Swindoll on the above passage from Isaiah 55.

“As long as you have breath in your lungs, the Lord will surprise you with his ways. He is infintely creative and inexhaustibly resourceful. His ways don’t conform to our way of thinking, and we make him less when we expect that they should. Furthermore, his plan is much higher than ours. His goal is not to bring us down, but to lift us up. Contrary to popular opinion, he has no desire to bury us, but to raise us for his use and his glory.”

It’s at the very moment I have finally figured it out that God lets me know clearly I haven’t. Everytime. He gives me so much more than I could possibly ask or imagine. And that blows me away. He works mightily in and through the smallest and most insignificant of things to touch hearts and change lives. And that knocks my socks off.

I don’t have anything figured out.

My trust is in my God. My faith is in him to deliver. He’s rescued me. And he’s working in me and through me (speaking of small and insignificant things). I believe in him. He has a plan to reconcile all things back to him. He has it all figured out. Every bit of it. Perfectly.

I’m not driving any of it.

As a new preacher friend of mine told me this week, “I’m just hanging on to the back of the boat, trying not to wipe out in front of everybody.”

Peace,

Allan

My Life Story in 15 Minutes

October 23, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Instead of taking 15 minutes to read a long blog entry and all the comments today, I’d like you to click on this link, click on my picture at the bottom left hand corner of the screen, and watch a 15 minute video.

This is me giving a speech last month for Austin Graduate School of Theology. Austin Grad is raising money to fund a new campus and an M-Div degree and the extra professors and space they need to accomodate that and the increasing enrollment they’re seeing.  President Dr. Stan Reid had asked me to speak at the initial fund-raising dinner, to tell my life story, especially as it pertains to Austin Grad.

 And here it is.

I covered all of it — from my childhood to where we are right now at Legacy. In just 15 minutes.

I watched the video last night after receiving an email from Melissa at Austin Grad alerting me that it was online. And it served as a wonderful reminder to me — like we discussed in yesterday’s blog — of who I am and why I’m here and where I’m going. If you’ve been involved in my life at all over the past 40 years, you’ll find at least parts of the speech interesting. Hopefully.

To everybody from Pleasant Grove, Memorial Drive, Mary Ellen & Harvester, Saturn Road, Marble Falls, Cordova, Edgemere, Mesquite, Pleasant Ridge, North Davis, and Legacy; Dallas Christian, Oklahoma Christian, and Austin Grad; my immediate family, my extended family, and all of Carrie-Anne’s family; to all the good people our Lord has put directly in my path to encourage me and push me and teach me and lead me:

Thank you.

Allan

On A Road Marked With Suffering…

September 21, 2007 / / 7 Comments

So many of you emailed me and called me yesterday and this morning with kind thoughts and words regarding Whitney’s eye tests. Thank you. We are truly blessed by our God to have so many wonderful friends and family in our lives. And I’m confident he listened intently to every single prayer lifted to him on Whitney’s behalf. And I’m certain you were all blessed for those efforts made in our interests. I’m continually surprised, also, by the reach of this little blog. I’ve heard from several of you, from California to Vermont, who claim to have been reading this thing for weeks. It’s another reminder, another wake up call, to snap me out of my own world and see God’s world and his Kingdom for the all-encompassing thing that it is. May our Lord bless all of us richly as we strive with him to reconcile creation back to him.

The short version on Whit’s tests is that they’re still not sure. She failed the tests so miserably that the doctors say there’s no way the results are legitimate. Either she wasn’t paying attention when they were testing her or the equipment was messed up. The probable next step is that she’ll have to have an MRI. Her optic nerve is definitely swollen. But some people do just have bigger optic nerves than others. It could all just be a normal thing. But her rapidly changing sight and headaches point to something else. There may be something else going on, something maybe pushing on her nerve or something to cause all this. But before they order the MRI, they want to test her one more time. That’ll be Wednesday afternoon. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers before our Father. It just breaks our hearts to think Whitney would have one more thing piled on top of her.

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I love the Matt Redman song “Blessed Be Your Name.” It acknowledges the sovereignty of our God in unambiguous terms and states in clear language that, while our Father gives AND takes away, our trust and our faith is completely in him. When we’re in the land that is plentiful AND when we’re in the desert, when the sun’s shining AND when we’re suffering, the song recognizes and affirms that our God is fully overseeing all of it and we are to praise him with all of our hearts. I’m always particularly affected by the words of the second part of the second verse:

“Blessed be your name on a road marked with suffering. Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be your name.”

The first time I ever sang this song was when D. J. Bulls taught it to us at the North Davis Church of Christ in Arlington. Because of that, I always think of D. J. when we sing this song, the same way I always think of Mike Montana when we sing “Mighty is our God” because he taught it to us in Mesquite. But in 2004 at North Davis, Carrie-Anne and I were right in the middle of struggling with the decision to leave the world of sports radio and dedicate ourselves to preaching the Word. And we knew that it would be difficult. We were preparing to throw all of our lives to God and give him complete and utter control over all of it. And we knew there would be good times and bad. Going to school for two years, Carrie-Anne going to work full-time, moving again, and trusting God completely to put us where he wanted us. I anticipated suffering and pain to be in the offering. And I was moved to tears almost every time we sang that verse. And I still am.

Not because we’ve suffered any pain. Not because we’ve suffered at all. In fact, all of this has been too wonderful and too easy. I’m almost suspicious.

But because I remember so vividly what I/we were feeling at the time. We were fully anticipating suffering. We expected it to be in the near future. And we were rushing into it headlong, willingly, and trusting in God to take care of us.

And we sing that song last night at the funeral of Mack Dennis, Paul and Jean’s son who was killed in a car crash last week at age 40. And we’re singing this song together, praising God in the good times and the bad. And I look at Paul and Jean. And they’re singing. And they’re both smiling. I look at Mack’s widow, Lisa, and their two young, young, very young and sweet children. They’re crying. But they’re singing.

Blessed be your name.

And they’re certainly on a road marked with suffering. There’s mountains of pain in the offering for this family. Pain that, thankfully, I can’t begin to imagine. Pain and suffering that makes whatever I’ve endured in my life seem tiny and insignificant, not pain at all. Yet they sing.

Blessed be your name.

The psalmist never asked for a smooth path. He never asked for things to be easy. He asked God to give him feet like a deer so he could negotiate any path he was on. Habakkuk prayed for the same thing. Give me the strength and the courage and the stamina to handle it.

I was inspired last night by Paul and Jean’s singing and smiling. Yes, there were tears. And, yes, there’s plenty of confusion and pain and probably even some anger. They’re honest about it. And I believe God honors that honesty with him. But their faith and trust is in the Lord. And they continue to bless his name. Praise God for their wonderful example of faith and courage on a road marked with suffering.

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On Monday, in addition to breaking down the Cowboys loss to the Bears, I’d like to give you some personal observations stemming from the roundtable discussions at the ACU Lectures regarding our teens and why they’re jaded by “church.” What’s to blame for the numbers of our kids who are fleeing the churches of Christ? What can be done? How do we address some of these things? Is it a real problem or just a perceived problem? We’ll get into it Monday.

Have a fantastic weekend,

Allan

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