A smile to begin your week

A few examples from "Sunday School Humor" passed on by Bob Spulle:

LOT'S WIFE

The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, "My Mommy looked back once while she was driving," he announced triumphantly, "and she turned into a telephone pole!"

DID NOAH FISH?

A Sunday school teacher asked, "Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark?" ''No," replied Johnny. "How could he, with just two worms?"

HIGHER POWER

A Sunday school teacher said to her children, "We have been learning how powerful kings and queens were in Bible times. But, there is a Higher Power. Can anybody tell me what it is?" One child blurted out, "Aces!"

Scripture

"I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." (Philippians 1:20, NIV)

Devotion

Sometimes (more often than you might think), preachers are challenged to apply their own sermons by personal circumstances. Thus it was last week with our daughter Cara's brush with death. It happened on Friday, between my two primary sermon preparation days.

All week last week I listened, thought, wrote, prayed, and preached about "wildly important goals." Through the week it dawned on me that the Apostle Paul's prayer for the Colossians (the subject of Sunday's sermon) was very different from most of the prayers we pray and ask others to pray for.

We pray often for health, safety, and longer life. That's important.

Paul prayed instead for the Colossians to live their lives with strength, endurance, patience, gratitude, and joy. That's wildly important.

But does it apply when your daughter comes close to missing her 25th birthday (June 8)?

Cara called me early Friday afternoon. Her first words were, "I'm OK and my car is OK." I knew something just happened. She was driving with her friend Katie on I-77 North near Columbia, South Carolina, when her car hit a large puddle and hydroplaned. She spun around violently in the median, making at least one full revolution, and came to rest in the middle of I-77 South, perpendicular to oncoming traffic. We can all only shudder to imagine "what might have been," but there was no collision and no injury.

What if she had died or been seriously injured? Would I still have said that "health, safety, and longer life" is important -- but not wildly important?

I'm honest enough to say I don't know. I would never want to be flippant about any loss or suffering. It's one thing for me to say that my faith makes my own life expendable -- but my daughter? The same Apostle Paul who wrote, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21) added in the next chapter that if his friend, Epaphroditus had died, he would have suffered "sorrow upon sorrow" (2:27).

I can tell you this. I'm very proud of how Cara processed her "near death experience." Hours afterward, she wrote a song that I will post in full on my blog. In her words she expresses that it is wildly important to pursue Christ no matter what happens in this life. A portion of her song is included below as the prayer for today.

Prayer (Cara Thompson)

Unafraid of suffering
You call us to the same
Let us not back away
Let us not be afraid

I am asking for your reconstruction
I need your cleansing touch
Lead me from the world's destruction
The guilt and pain weigh too much

Jesus, destroy the walls I hide behind
Cancel all my debts
That you can truly change my mind
And see my needs are met

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