Thoughts On A Given Day

I have been a fan of Jackson Browne’s For Everyman album since the first time I heard it in the fall of 1976 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I was at my cousin’s house, where my family had gathered for Thanksgiving, as we did every year back in those days while my grandmother could still travel. That following summer that album traveled with me to my summer job at Fort Caswell, the North Carolina Baptist Assembly. I had a unique situation among the staff there. I operated the infirmary. This consisted of three bedrooms, a private bathroom and shower, a kitchen, and a sitting room. It was also air-conditioned, one of the few air-conditioned buildings at Caswell that summer. My kitchen had a small refrigerator that I kept stocked with soft drinks, which were free to anyone for the taking. My stereo was set up in my sitting roo m, and it was not uncommon for summer staff members to stop by on a daily or nightly basis for some cold air, a cold drink, and some music.

There was one staff member that summer who I considered one of the “coolest” people I had ever met. He drove a VW Beetle, had a T-shirt from just about every university you could imagine, and he was so quick he could beat me on a basketball court any day of the week (That’s high praise from me. I was, after all, the third string guard on a community college Industrial League basketball team one year in college.). He was also held in high regard by a strong contingent of the female staff. I was surprised by his response, however, when I mentioned this to him. His stated that they would just have to learn to live with disappointment. He had not come there to pursue his social life. He was there to be a witness for Christ. You may  wonder what this young man has to do with Jackson Browne. Here is your answer.

One night that summer he came into my infirmary with a High School age girl who was visiting Caswell with her church group that week. He asked if they could listen to one of my albums. After my affirmative response he proceeded to play the song These Days from the For Everyman album. They sat quietly and listened until Jackson Browne had sung the last line of the song, which is “Don’t confront me with my failures. I had not forgotten them.” He looked at the girl, smiled, and told her that was what he had been trying to tell her, and he proceeded to build a witness out of that context. The following night she accepted Christ as her savior. Those words of Jackson Browne have remained powerful for me ever since that night.

Every one of us has our shortcomings. Every one of us will fall short of what God would have us to be, whether we are Christians or not. I do not have to look very hard at my own life to see a multitude of shortcomings. I’ll mention one that jumps immediately to my mind simply because it is something that I have mentioned here before. I am a cave dweller. Yes, I realize that may not sound bad, but it can be. I am reminded of another Thanksgiving, years later, when upon my arrival at the family gathering one of my nieces went running back up to her parents, my brother and sister in law, shouting, “Daddy, do we have an Uncle Bill?” I have never forgotten those words. They represented for me a failure on my part to be the uncle I should have been. My niece didn’t even know me! And she wasn’t that young. Later, when she and her siblings needed someone to turn to, someone to love and care for them, I was not one they turned to, because I had not earned the right. I had not given them any reason to believe that they could have or should have turned to me for help, for love. They could have. I would have been thrilled to be of help. But they didn’t know it, because I was a cave dweller. Another line in that same song says, “These days I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do for you, and all the times I had the chance to.” I could not have said it  better.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me in a long line of those who have fallen short of the glory of God. We are all in that line. Please don’t confront me with my failures. I assure you, I have not forgotten them. But that’s not the way Satan plays the game. First, he confuses us about the truth in any way that he can. Then he convinces us to refuse what God is asking of all of us, which is to accept Jesus as our lord and savior and let that relationship impact our lives. Then, he accuses us to ourselves and to God when we fall short, as we all do, and he continues to accuse us at every available opportunity. I still feel guilt rear its ugly head about mistakes I made years ago. “Daddy, do we have an Uncle Bill?” would be a case in point. Satan loves for us to beat ourselves up over things that God forgave us for long ago. We as Christians love to remember John 3:16 and recite about how God so loved the world that he gave his only son, but too often we leave out the following  verses that tell us that Jesus did not come into this world to condemn us, but rather that, through him, we might be saved. Only God has the power to heal and restore broken and sinful lives. We simply need to allow him to do so.

Romans 3:23

New International Version (NIV)

 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

John 3:17-21

A Conversational Gospel

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but rather that through Him the world might be saved. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because they have not believed in the one and only son of God. This is the judgment that we are under – light was in the world, but people chose darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. Whoever does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed for what they are. Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, knowing that what they do can be plainly seen by God.