Smoky the Baptist Rides Again

By Connie Cavanaugh –

“I hate camping,” my husband confessed, late one night.

“You hate camping? Since when? We’ve camped for years!”

“I know,” he admitted. “But I’ve never liked it.”

“You’re the one who researched space efficient camping equipment and bought all those supplies,” I declared. I couldn’t believe my ears. We had camped all across the country with three kids. Everything fit into the trunk of a Volkswagen.

“I like research,” he said. “But not camping. I do it for the kids.”

Our kids loved camping. These adventures were the highpoint of their summer.

We were in a pickle. Not only had we promised our kids we would go camping as soon as school let out, we planned to go with another couple.

We finally concluded that tent camping was too rustic. Perhaps if we brought along a few more comforts, we would enjoy it more. The day we arrived at our campsite we looked like a Saharan camel train. Our van was stuffed, had a bulging topper strapped to the roof and we pulled a huge pop-up trailer.

When we got to our site, within ten minutes our bicycle camping companions, who carried everything in two backpacks and four saddlebags were finished. They erected their pup tent, slung a hammock between two trees, and made tea on what looked like a Bunsen burner. They sipped and watched as we constructed our forest kingdom.

It took three hours to assemble the trailer, the tent, and the screened gazebo for our camp kitchen. We looked like a feeding station for tornado victims. By the time we were done, it was late and everyone was hungry.

Dad got ready to fire up the Coleman stove on the picnic table inside the gazebo. The first “firing” of the season was usually worth watching. We dubbed him Smoky the Bear since he had stomped out many a potential forest fire that resulted from his pyrotechnics. Smoky’s method was to pump the stove until it threatened to burst and then stand back and toss a lit match. The explosion was spectacular. After the mushroom cloud dissipated, the small burner would flame merrily and we would cook dinner.

But this time, something malfunctioned. Kaboom! Flames shot up and out. Only this time, they kept shooting.

Smoky grabbed a beach towel to use as oven mitts. Gingerly he picked up the stove and, dancing like the great Ali, struggled through the tiny zippered opening in his attempt to save the gazebo. Once outside he doused the inferno with water and stomped on the smoldering towel.

He mopped his sweaty brow with the charred towel and looked up to where we were all standing, watching him with grateful amazement. This had been the best annual fireworks display to date. Slowly, we began to applaud.

”Whew!” he exclaimed. “I almost didn’t make it through that dinky doorway. Maybe we should leave it fully unzipped from now on in case this happens again.” The kids and I had noticed that the explosion had melted one entire mesh wall in the gazebo. You could drive a car through the hole that resulted.

“Oh that’s ok,” one of the smart alecks quipped, pointing. “Leave it zipped. We can use this new opening. It’s much bigger.”

Knowing he could never outdo this performance without risking hectares of prime forest, we made that camping trip our swan song. Nowadays we “camp” in an RV at a national park where open fires are not allowed.

Lullaby For All of Us

By Cynthia Ruchti —

She’s mellowed considerably in twelve years, but when our first grandchild was a toddler, she’d slap her little pink hands over her ears and in a voice that sounded like foot-stomping say, “Don’t sing!”

The first few times it was funny. Because she was born into a musical family, we thought her faux-tantrum must have been toddler humor. But it wasn’t. She meant it. For reasons we’ll never understand, something about our singing—no wisecracks, please—grated on her young nerves.

It was a trick slipping the “Happy Birthday” song past her at family celebrations.

One song remained firmly entrenched in my repertoire, though. With my children and now my grandchildren, I’m allowed the honor of being the first to sing into those downy soft ears, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” It’s a lullaby that soothes an hours-old troubled heart or the aged heart hours away from eternity.

How much time have I spent singing that lullaby since my daughter was born, then my sons, then my granddaughters and grandsons? How many repetitions of the greatest truth, the most potent comfort, the sweetest sentence ever uttered?

Jesus loves me.

Even now, I can’t look at those three words without a sense of awe-struck wonder. Imagine! Jesus loves me.

I can spread my arms wide and dance across a mountain meadow—“The Sound of Music” style—or I can whisper-sing it to a colicky child and know it is the truest of statements and the most life-changing.

The lullaby tradition with new babies is intentional. My heart longs for that singular thought to be imprinted early on each child’s brain. Whether they remember it or not, and no matter what life brings or the choices they make, they will all be told that the first song they heard in their life’s journey was the most significant.

Jesus loves me.

AUTHOR QUOTE: Take comfort today as Jesus sings that song into your heart’s “ear,” a lullaby that never grows old.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35 NIV)

The Power of Prayer—Never Underestimate It

By Lori Freeland –

My son came home yesterday and greeted me with a few of the most terrifying words a mom never wants to hear. “I almost got killed at the El Dorado intersection in McKinney this morning.” Then he gave me a hug and walked on past.

“What?” I followed him down the hall, my heart racing ahead of me, already up the stairway and in the next room. Didn’t matter the incident was hours old and my tardy visceral response did nothing but hike my blood pressure.

Kyle turned and proceeded to tell me he’d been waiting to turn left, completely missed the guy going straight—you know the guy with the Right of Way?—and he had to swerve, hit the curb, and almost popped his tire.

After I leashed my heart and stuck in back inside my chest for optimal performance, I sagged against the stairs. My first thought? The prayer I’d murmured over him this morning before he’d walked out the door.

The same prayer I played on repeat day after day since he’d slid into that car alone and I whimpered as his tail lights disappeared down the street.

Thank you, Lord for hearing me when I pray!

Don’t ever underestimate, devalue, or ignore the power of prayer. God is listening to you—sometimes you just can’t feel it.

“Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth” (Psalm 54:2 NIV).

“But I cry to you for help, LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you” (Psalm 88:13).

Getting Ahead of God

By Art Fulks –

A commonly known example in the Bible of someone getting ahead of God is found in Genesis 16. Here, Abram and Sarai have been waiting for God to give them a son who will be their family heir and the one through whom the Messiah will come. After waiting for ten years, they agree to use a surragate mother named Hagar, a servant. As a result, they experienced personal strife that still exists in national stuggles today.

Why did they get ahead of God? For many of the same reasons we do today. First, they sensed that God’s timing or lack of action was a sign of His abandonment. Sarai even blamed God. In God’s seeming silence, Abram listened to Sarai’s alternate plan and they both agreed that God needed their help. It does not take much for me to see instances from my own life that directly correlates to their experience.

When we get ahead of God, our relationships with Him and others are strained by our sin. Often, we even blame others for our circumstances. But God pursues and responds by showing up personally and exhibiting grace. Yet His call is for us to repent and return from our detours to trust His plan and timing again.

On my journey, I see three basic steps that generally lead to unpleasant detours. First, I begin to struggle with His timing and get impatient. Then I begin to allow culture to impact me into walking by sight and not be faith. Third, I begin to second-guess God and believe that He needs my help. My experience agrees with the old preacher, Vance Havner, who said, “The detour is always worse than the main road.”

The invention of the GPS has given us new options in a traffic jam. You can always hit the ‘Alternate Route’ button. But I often find that the barrier to free flowing traffic is not as far ahead as I thought. The detour keeps me moving, but with more energy and struggles than if I had stayed on track.

Three questions have helped me discover if I am walking by faith or not. (1) Am I willing to wait for God’s timing? (2) Am I most concerned about God’s glory or my happiness? (3) Am I obeying God’s Word in the process with inner joy and peace?

One of Satan’s greatest tools is the detour…trying to get us to move ahead of God. And one of his greatest lies is telling us that our ‘disobedience detours’ must become the permanent road for the rest of our lives. But God is waiting to help us get back on track.

“And He said, ‘Where have you come from and where are you going?’” (Genesis 16:8a NASB).

Happily Ever After

By Janet Morris Grimes –

“I did not see that coming.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have uttered that phrase in the past month and year. Well, make that four years.

Over this time span, our family has relocated due to my husband’s job transfer. Twice. My daughter has started over at two new schools, once in her Freshman year and again for her Senior year of high school. I have given up two jobs that I was good at, only to find that my value was tied in to the amount of money I made much more than I realized. Our twelve-year-old minivan, all 250,000 miles of it, surrendered in a trail of steam, smoke and a stream of what I interpreted to be curse words coming from its exhaust pipe. I have applied for a bazillion job openings, only to find that I am not the only one doing so.

I have questioned my existence along the roadways of four different states, and come up with only one explanation for the strange path my previously predictable life has taken.

I am not in control of it. After all this time, that’s all I can come up with.

And somehow, that frees me from both the past and the future, enough to enjoy the present.

Whether I saw it coming or not, God did. He’s got it covered.

And I can add this to the list of the things I did not see coming over these past four years. Our daughter graduated from high school with honors, and with new friends in several different states. God has expanded our territory and introduced us to some of the nicest people we have ever met. I have been given the opportunity to focus on writing—an answer to prayer I had forgotten I had prayed. God calls me to meet Him outside on a daily basis; on the deck, on morning or evening walks, by the lake, in the woods. Wherever He calls me, He always seems to be thrilled to find me ready to listen.

And this is what He’s proven to me, after 28 years of marriage. Happily Ever After comes one day at a time, one week at a time, one year at a time. Or in our case, one state, one new job, one transition, one new home at a time. Happily Ever After does not depend on our revolving circumstances. It depends on our ability to let God shine through those circumstances.

Because God is never surprised by our circumstances. He is already there, in the midst of them.

“You hem me in, behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.” (Psalm 139:5 NIV)

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