All Stories Stories

The Pan

A little girl noticed that every time her mother cooked a roast she chopped a piece off the end of the roast before putting it in the oven.  Intrigued, she asked her mother why she did this.

“Well to be honest, I do it because that’s the way my mother always does it” came the reply. “I’m sure she must have some good reason for it.”

At the next family gathering, the child decided to satisfy her curiosity. “Grandma, why do you always chop the end off the roast before cooking it?”

“Well to be honest, I do it because that’s the way my mother always does it” came the reply. “I’m sure she must have some good reason for it.”

A week or so later the little girl was visiting her 90 year old great grandmother. She explained that mummy and grandma always chop the end off the roast before cooking it, but couldn’t remember why. Did she know?

“Struth!” said Great-grandma. “Imagine the two of them doing that! Why, I only cut the piece off because my pan was too small!”

Angels All Around

In 1986 Billy Graham wrote a book about angels. In it he recounts a most amazing story. John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides islands. One night the warriors from one of the local tribes surrounded the mission headquarters, planning to burn the Patons out and kill them. As you can imagine, John Paton and his wife were terrified, and prayed all through the night that God would save them. When daylight came they were astonished to see the warriors leave without attacking them.

A year later the chief of the tribe became a Christian. During the course of their conversations John Paton asked the chief about that night. What had kept the warriors from burning down the house and killing them?

The chief asked, “Who were all those men you had there with you?”

Paton replies: “There was no one other than my wife and I”

The chief tells Paton that he and his warriors had seen hundreds of men standing guard around the mission headquarters, men with shining clothes and holding drawn swords.

Source: reported in Billy Graham, Angels|

He Out-lived Me

John Shelby Spong is the controversial former Episcopalian Bishop of Newark, USA. In his autobiography he tells of his days as a student at the University of North Carolina. There he met a man who had a large influence on his life, David Watt Yates, rector of the university Episcopalian church, the Chapel of the Cross. Spong describes him as “a unique human being, and a single man in every sense of the word. A militant low churchman, a courageous, if not always inspiring, preacher, and a man of deep convictions, he was a total abstainer form alcoholic beverages and a dedicated pacifist.” When WW2 ended churches across the country were filled with people giving thanks. Reverend Yates led his congregation not in a  service of thanksgiving but in prayers of repentance for having taken up arms against fellow human beings. Spong comments, “Some people came that night with gratitude in their hearts and left with enormous hostility. David Yates, however, was undeterred.”

Yates’ ferocious integrity also led him to publicly and frequently speak against the evils of racial segregation. This often upset members of his congregation – at that time many churches in America preached that racial segregation was the will of God.

Another influential figure in Spong’s university years was his professor in philosophy, Louis Katsoff. Katsoff was a committed atheist. When Spong told him he had taken philosophy to help prepare him for his goal of becoming a priest Kastoff “conveyed to me that Christianity was a helpless hangover from another age and that I should not waste my life”.

Years later Spong, now an ordained priest, returned to the Chapel of the Cross to speak to a men’s meeting. To his great surprise he saw Professor Katsoff there – no longer an atheist but a baptised and committed Christian. He went to visit Katsoff at the Professor’s home and during conversation asked how it was he’d been converted. “David Yates finally got to me” Kastoff replied. Now Spong was even more surprised. “How could that be?” he asked. “You can think rings around him.”

“David didn’t outthink me” Professor Katsoff replied, “he just outlived me.”

 

Source: reported in John Shelby Spong, Here I Stand (HarperCollins, 2000), pp49-52.

Priest

The movie Priest tells the story of a young Catholic priest sent to a church in working class Liverpool, England. When he arrives he struggles with the liberal religious views of the senior parish priest. But we soon discover that his struggle is part of a greater internal struggle – you see our newly arrived priest is gay. He tries to resist, but fails, and  starts leading a double life, on the one hand spending time with his gay friend away from the church while on the other genuinely seeking to serve his parish community. And in the middle of all this is his anguished struggle.

Towards the end of the movie he and his gay friend are caught in public and arrested – homosexuality is against the laws of the land. Once news gets out that a priest has been arrested the media gets interested and its flashed across the local newspapers in no time. The young priest is broken, driven almost to the point of nervous breakdown.

The movie ends with an enormously powerful scene. The faithful gather for mass. Everybody is aware of the young priest’s situation. When it comes time to serve communion both the young priest and the older priest stand out the front ready to serve. Everybody lines up to receive communion from the older priest. Not one person is willing to be served by the younger, gay priest. The camera pans to his face. His lips quiver, his eyes burning with hurt and rejection.

Then a young girl walks forward to receive communion from the young priest. She has been the victim of terrible abuse at the hands of her father. She knows what it is to be crushed. They embrace and together, these two wounded and rejected ones, share in the communion.

 

Harsh Evaluation

The story is told of a theological college in Sydney where a final year student prepared to preach to the students and faculty. It was many years back and it was the custom of faculty to critique the sermon afterward.On this particular morning the Principal of the college stands and says “Mr Jones would have done better to stand up this morning and say ‘I have no word from the Lord’ and then sit down again.”

I’m still not sure whether is truth or legend, and I don’t know what happened to John Jones, whether he went on to become a pastor. But I suspect that those were words of death in his ears every time he ever stood up to speak in public again. Certainly he may have needed critique, but not like that.

Scott Higgins

Prayer Changes Me

CS Lewis was the author of the widely read children’s books, The Narnia Chronicles, as well as many novels for grown-ups and books on issues surrounding the Christian faith. The movie Shadowlands (directed by Richard Attenborough and produced in 1993) tells Lewis’ story, focusing in particular on his relationship with his wife, Joy Gresham. Gresham and Lewis meet while Lewis is a don at Oxford University.

After Joy is diagnosed with cancer the couple marry. The movie invites us to witness their love, their pain, their grief, their struggles with faith and God. Eventually Joy dies.

At one point in the story a friend says to Lewis, “Christopher can scoff, Jack, but I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.”

Lewis replies “That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.”

Source: Film quote found at Internet Movie Database.

Pleasantville

Do you ever wish we could get back to the wholesomeness and stability of the past, to a world where things are simpler and easier? That’s just the issue explored in the superb 1998 film Pleasantville. The central characters of the movie are teenage twins David and Jennifer, each struggling their their own way with the pressures of modern life and a family that has been through divorce. Jennifer becomes the ultimate party girl, sleeping around and acting on her every whimsy. David becomes depressed and retreats from the world into his room, where he spends as much time as he can watching his favourite TV show, an old 1950’s black and white sitcom, Pleasantville. Pleasantville seems to offer everything David could want – simplicity, intact families, stability, clear community values.

Then one day something weird happens. David and Jennifer are fighting over the remote control for the TV and break it. Mysteriously a TV repairman show sup at that time and gives them an unusual looking replacement remote. No sooner have they hit the button than they are both transported back in time into Pleasantville, the world of David’s favourite sitcom. They find themselves trapped in this world where everything is neat, simple and occurs in black and white. David and Jennifer are part of a traditional family, where mum stays home to do the cooking and cleaning and their clean cut Dad heads off to work, returning each evening with “Honey, I’m home.”

David realised that they have become part of the episodes he knows word by word from TV and decides to play along. There is something appealing about this simple world. Jennifer is horrified. There’s no way she’ll be going along with the rules. David tells her she’ll destroy these people’s way of life, but she doesn’t care. And the funny thing is that she does destroy their way of life, but in many ways she changes it for the better.

You see, the reason everything is so pleasant in Pleasantville is that nobody asserts their individuality. Everybody conforms to the desires of the mainstream. Jennifer’s Pleasantville mum represses her sexuality, the Pleasantville store owner represses his dreams of becoming an artist, the high school kids go through the motions of winning every basketball game but never know how to cope with failure.

Inspired by Jennifer’s chaotic ways people in Pleasantville start discovering their individuality. Jennifer’s mum explores her sexuality and then one day doesn’t have dinner ready and waiting for her husband when he walks in the door. The local storeowner starts painting. The high school kids start breaking out of their rigid conformity and become addicted to sexual pleasure, at least initially. And as all this happens those who begin to assert their individuality turn into colour.

The reaction from the powerbrokers is swift. Initially confused by all these changes they soon become convinced society will fall apart. They organise meetings, enact laws against “coloureds”, apply guilt trips to those who have changed. A darker, uglier undercurrent of abuse and violence emerges as some who resent the changes retaliate. But nothing can stop the change.

The movie raises a whole lot of issues. By the end we’ve discovered that the new full colour version of the world is more chaotic and dangerous than the black and white version. Readjusting to new roles, discovering morality and living with change is difficult. The men have lost the power and convenience of a world oriented around their needs. Yet people are living in colour. They seem happier and more fulfilled.

The movie raises a number of confronting challenges about change.

  1. The world of today is more complex, chaotic and dangerous than the world of the past, but it is also one where people are liberated rather than repressed – chaotic but colourful versus ordered but black and white.
  2. When we respect people’s individuality (ie their dreams and desires) we run the risk that they will pursue options and agendas with which we are uncomfortable.
  3. A black and white world is one which centres around the dreams and hopes of one group by repressing the dreams and hopes of others. In the town of Pleasantville the last to change are the adult men. After all, they are the ones who hold power in this world, with wives and children fitting in with their needs.
  4. Change can produce an ugly backlash. Feeling that they possess the moral high ground people can be harsh in judgement, vindictive in spirit, and assume they have the right to enforce their views on others.

The Chess Master

Once upon a time there was a grand chess master who was bereft of ego and pride. He would play anyone who wished to test their skill, from novice to expert. One day a particularly determined young man sat opposite the grand master, determined to beat him. The grand master smiled when the young man made his first move. He had obviously been studying. It was a well known move and easily countered by the chess master. With each move the young man made the master responded with thoughtfulness and expertise. Soon the young man was checkmate. They played again and again. Each time the young man employed different moves, different strategies, and on each occasion the master responded generously and wisely. They played twenty games that day and on each occasion the chess master won quite comfortably.

When imagining how God can be said to be in control of his world some people him as the author of a play, writing the script of our lives. Others imagine he a member of the audience, watching us write our own script. Both options seem difficult. The first appears to rob us of our freedom, the second of God’s involvement.

Perhaps a better image is of a chess game between a chess master and a novice. The novice moves his pieces around the board. He follows some basic strategies he has read about in a book. Some of his moves are foolish. The master responds with great expertise and wisdom. His moves are not pre-programmed, but a response to the moves of his opposing player. Without even knowing it, the Master weaves the novice’s moves into his game plan. And of course, the outcome of the game never in doubt.

Perhaps God is the Master and we are the novices. We make our choices freely, sometimes very foolish and harmful choices, but the Master responds with wisdom, reacting in such a way to ensure that our moves are coordinated into his overall strategy. And of course the outcome, a new world, is never in doubt.

Source: Scott Higgins, based on an idea found in a Philip Yancey Christianity Today article.

Thanking Dad

Imagine this scene: a man of around 35 has been to a men’s movement weekend. While away he realises that he’s never told his father he loves him, so he decides when he gets home he’ll do it. He gets home, picks up the phone and calls home. Dad answers the phone.

“Hi Dad, it’s me.”

“Oh, um, hi son! I’ll go get your mother…”

“No don’t get mum. It’s you I want to talk to.”

There’s a pause then, “Why? Do you need money.”

“No, dad. It’s just I’ve been remembering a lot about you, Dad, and the things you did for me, working all those years to put me through college, supporting us. My life is going well now and it’s because of what you did you get me started. I just thought about it and realised I’d never really said ‘Thanks…’”

Silence on the other end of the phone. The son continues

“I want to tell you thanks, and that I love you.”

“Son, you been drinking?…”

Source: Reported in Stephen Biddulph, Manhood. Originally told by Robert Bly.

Philip’s Egg

Philip was born with Downs Syndrome. He was a pleasant child, happy it seemed, but increasingly aware of the difference between himself and other children. Philip went to Sunday School faithfully every week. He was in the third grade class with nine other eight-year olds.

You know eight-year olds. And Philip, with his differences, was not readily accepted. But his teacher was sensitive to Philip and he helped this group of eight-year olds to love each other as best they could, under the circumstances. They learned, they laughed, they played together. And they really cared about one another, even though eight-year olds don’t say they care about one another out loud.

But don’t forget. There was an exception to all this. Philip was not really a part of the group. Philip did not choose, nor did he want to be different. He just was. And that was the way things were.

His teacher had a marvellous idea for his class the Sunday after Easter. You know those things that pantyhose come in . . . the containers that look like great big eggs? The teacher collected ten of them. The children loved it when he brought them into the room and gave one to each child. It was a beautiful spring day, and the assignment was for each child to go outside, find the symbol for new life, put it into the egg, and bring it back to the classroom They would then open and share their new life symbols and surprises, one by one.

It was glorious. It was confusing. It was wild. They ran all around the church grounds, gathering their symbols, and returned to the classroom.

They put all the eggs on a table, and then the teacher began to open them. All the children gathered around the table. He opened one and there was a flower, and they ooh-ed and aah-ed. He opened another and there was a little butterfly. “Beautiful!” the girls all said, since it is hard for eight-year old boys to say ‘beautiful.’ He opened another and there was a rock. And as third-graders will, some laughed, and some said, “That’s crazy! How’s a rock supposed to be like new life?” But the smart little boy who’d put it in ther spoke up: “That’s mine. And I knew all of you would get flowers and buds and leaves and butterflies and stuff like that. So I got a rock because I wanted to be different. And for me, that’s new life.” They all laughed.

The teacher said something about the wisdom of eight-year olds and opened the next one. There was nothing inside. The children, as eight-year olds will, said, “That’s not fair. That’s stupid! Somebody didn’t do it right.”

Then the teacher felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down. “It’s mine, Philip said. It’s mine.”

And the children said, “You don’t ever do things right, Philip. There’s nothing there!”

“I did so do it right!” Philip said. “I did do it right. The tomb is empty!”

There was silence, a very full silence. And for you people who don’t believe in miracles, I want to tell you that one happened that day. From that time on, it was different. Philip suddenly became a part of that group of eight-year old children. They took him in. He was set free from the tomb of his differentness.

Philip died last summer. His family had known since the time he was born that he wouldn’t live out a full life span. Many other things were wrong with his little body. And so, late last July, with an infection that most normal children could have quickly shrugged off, Philip died.

At his memorial service, nine eight-year old children marched up to the altar, not with flowers to cover over the stark reality of death . . . but nine eight-year olds, along with their Sunday School teacher, marched right up to that altar, and laid on it an empty egg . . . an empty, old, discarded pantyhose egg.

And the tomb is empty!

Source unknown.

Phil Jackson's Emptiness

Phil Jackson, was coach of the Chicago Bulls basketball team during the days of Michael Jordan. Before turning his hand to coaching, in the 1970’s Jackson played for the New York Knicks. During his time at the Knicks the team won the championship. He had reached the ultimate goal, the dream he had been striving for since he was a child. A short time later he was in New York and went out to to celebrate with family and friends. The restaurant was crowded with famous people like Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. But instead of joy this is what Jackson wrote about his feelings: “the intense feeling of connection with my team-mates that I had experienced in Los Angeles seemed like a distant memory. Instead of being overwhelmed with joy, I felt empty and confused. Was this it? I kept saying to myself. Is this what was supposed to bring me happiness? Clearly the answer lay somewhere else.” He later understood what was missing. He writes, “What I was missing was spiritual direction.”

Source: reported in Jackson’s book, Sacred Hoops.

Gaugin’s Questions

Paul Gauguin is the famous French artist of the late 19th century. A sailor, then a stockbroker, in 1885 Gauguin left his wife and five children to take up life as an artist. He spent much time overseas, before spending his final years in poverty, disease and despair in Tahiti. So deep was his despair that in 1897 Gaugin attempted suicide. He failed and lived for another five years. It was during this time in Tahiti that Gauguin painted his masterpiece, a three paneled work entitled “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” The first panel shows three women and a child, representing the beginning of life – “Where do we come from?”. The middle panel shows the daily existence of young adults – “What are we?”. The third panel shows an old woman approaching death – “Where are we going?”

The three questions are written in small print in the bottom corner of the painting. They are the questions Gauguin wished to answer, the universal human questions of us all: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”

 

Source: Information on Gauguin and the painting from encyclopedia.com and mfa.org (website of Boston Museum of Fine Art where the painting hangs).

A Father’s Letter

Paul Brand is a brilliant medical doctor who did pioneering work in the treatment of leprosy. He has received the Albert Lasker Award, been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen, served as the only Westerner on the Mahatma Ghandi foundation, and had medical procedures named after him.

Brand grew up in India, where his parents were missionaries. At the age of nine he was sent to boarding school in England. Five years later, while a 14 year old student there, he received a telegram informing him that his beloved father had died of blackwater fever. Brand cherished fond memories of his father, a man who had a great love for people and a great love for the natural world around him.

A short time after he received news of his father’s death Paul Brand received a letter from his father. It had been posted prior to his father’s death but took some time to reach Brand as it came by ship. It’s words impacted deeply upon the young son. Paul’s father described the hills around their home and then finished with these words: “God means us to delight in his world. It isn’t necessary to know botany or zoology or biology in order to enjoy the manifold life of nature. Just observe. And remember. And compare. And be always looking to God with thankfulness and worship for having placed you in such a delightful corner of the universe as the planet Earth.”

 

Source: Reported in Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor (Hodder & Stoughton, 2001).

Pascal's Coat

When the famous seventeenth century French scientist Blaise Pascal died in 1662 his servant found a small piece of parchment sewn into his coat. At the top of the paper Pascal had drawn a cross. Underneath the cross were these words.

In the year of the Lord 1654
Monday, November 23
From about half-past ten in the evening
until half-past twelve.

Fire

God of Abraham, God if Isaac, God of Jacob
Not of philosophers nor of the scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy, Peace.
God of Jesus Christ,
My God and thy God.
“Thy God shall be my God.”
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God.
He is to be found only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Greatness of the soul of man.
“Righteous Father, the world hath not know thee,
but I have know thee.”
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

Jesus Christ.
I have fallen away: I have fled from Him,
denied Him, crucified him.
May I not fall away forever.
We keep hold of him only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on earth.
I will not forget Thy word. Amen.

That was Pascal’s record of an intense two hour religious experience that he kept secret until his death. It was an  experience of God that gripped his soul and changed the course of his life. He stored his record of it in the lining of his coat, close to his heart. For eight years he took care to sew and unsew it every time he changed his coat.  It was a treasured experience, something he could return to again and again.

Similarly, we can take those experiences of God that we have – transforming moments – and hang onto them as gifts from God to energise and motivate our faith.

Adapted from RC Sproul Doubt and Assurance (Baker Books, 1993) and Charles Kummel, The Galileo Connection (IVP, 1986)

Pascal and the Poor

Blaise Pascal was an influential French scientist who lived in the 1600’s. He was something of a genius. For example, at the age of twelve, even before he had received any formal training in geomoetry, Pascal independently discovered and demonstrated Euclid’s thirty-two propositions. I don’t even know what Euclid’s thirty two propositions are, let alone demonstrating them! It’s no surprise then that as an adult Pascal completed important works on mathematics and experimental physics. He even gave us buses. Noticing a crowd of people all headed in the same direction to work he came up with the idea of the bus and in 1662 helped form the very first bus company.

Pascal was also a devoted Christian. He wrote books on grace and the life of Christ as well as other Christian works.

Through all this Pascal realised that his faith, though intensely personal, could not be merely individualistic. His love for God drove him to love for the poor. “I love poverty” he said, “because he (Christ) loved it. I like wealth because it gives a means to assist the needy.” Increasingly Pascal deprived himself so that he could give more. He sold his coach and horses, his fine furniture and silverware and even his library in order to give to the poor. When he received an advance of 1000 francs for his bus he sent the money to the poor in Blois, who had suffered from a bitter winter. He then signed over his interest in the company to the hospitals of Paris and Clermont.

When Pascal died at the age of 39 on August 19, 1662 his funeral was attended by family, friends, scientific colleagues, worldly companions, converts, writers, and the back of the church was filled with the poor, each and every person there someone Pascal had helped during his life.

 

Source: reported in Charles Kummel, The Galileo Connection (IVP, 1986)

Sylvester Stallone’s Amazing Story

Sylvester Stallone shot to fame in the movie Rocky. But Stallone’s own story is as inspiring as that of the character he plays. His slurred speech and snarling look are the result of a facial nerve that was severed during his birth and his early years were spent bouncing between foster families in the infamous Hells Kitchen area. An outcast at school thanks to his facial deformities, he was sent to a high school for troubled kids and voted “most likely to end up in the electric chair”.

After school Stallone went to beauty college, but left to turn his attention to acting. He didn’t meet with much success. He worked at a deli  throughout most of his twenties and before Rocky made him a star was so broke that he was forced to sell his dog, to which was so attached he was in tears, for $25, to sell his wife’s jewelry and ended up living in a bus shelter.

His break came when he went to a boxing match in which an unknown underdog Chuck Wepner took the world champion Muhammed Ali to 15 rounds. Stallone went home and in three days wrote the first draft of Rocky. When he started hawking it around to the studios there was immediate interest. They saw the script as a great vehicle for a big star – names such as Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds were thrown around – and offered to buy the script. But Stallone wasn’t selling, not unless he was given the lead. The studios kept offering more, on the condition Stallone didn’t act in the movie. Each time Stallone refused, even when $325,000 was put on the table, the highest amount ever offered for a script. Despite having just $106 in the bank Stallone wouldn’t give up.

“I knew that if I took the money I’d regret it for the rest of my life,” said Stallone. “And the picture was about taking that golden shot when you finally get it.”

The studio eventually gave in, buying the script for $35,000, with Stallone  to work as a writer without a fee and as an actor for award wages. Stallone got the lead role and the movie was reduced to low budget production.

The rest is history. Rocky was a massive hit, won an Oscar for best picture and Stallone became a star.

 

Sources: boxing-mobthly.com, chicagonow.com, imdb.com, nndb.com

Mr Jones’ Missed Blessings

Have you heard the story about Mr Jones, who dies and goes to heaven? When he arrives, St Peter is waiting at the Pearly Gates and takes Mr Jones on a tour of heaven. Mr Jones is awestruck. The streets are paved with gold, beautiful mansions glisten in the sunshine, choirs of angels sing the most beautiful songs.

Partway through his tour of heaven Mr Jones’ eye is drawn to an odd looking building, an enormous warehouse with no windows and just one door. What an odd structure for heaven! “You don’t really want to see what’s in there” says St Peter.

“But I do, I do” says Mr Jones. He races across the lawn and pushes open the door to discover rows and rows of shelves, floor to ceiling. Stacked on the shelves are thousands of white boxes. The boxes all have names on them.

“Is there one with my name on it?” asks Mr Jones as he rushes to the J aisle. He finds the box with his name on it and opens it up. His mouth drops, his pulse quickens, and finally he says to Peter, “What are all these wonderful things inside my box? Are they the good things in store for me now I’ve reached heaven?”.

“No” replies St Peter. “They’re all the blessings God wanted to give you while you were alive on earth, but which you never received.”

A sad look came over Mr Jones. He looked into the box, to St Peter and then back to the box. “Why?” he asked St Peter. “Why did I miss out on all these blessings?”

Well, that’s a long story…” replied St Peter.


 Story adapted from Bruce Wilkerson, The Prayer of Jabez

Smeagol

There’s a wonderful character in Tolkien’s book Lord of the Rings – Smeagol. Smeagol is a hobbit, a member of a small, friendly and insular species of human like creatures. One day Smeagol discovers a ring. When the wearer slips it on it makes him invisible. It grants long life. But the ring possesses an insidious power. The wearer finds himself developing an obsession with the ring, a terrible fear that he might lose it, that someone might take it from him. Over time Smeagol becomes so obsessed that he withdraws from community to live below ground, cradling “my precioussss” as he calls it. His greed for the ring changes the shape of his body and his spirit. He becomes mean spirited, vindictive, jealous. He grows slimy and thin. The ring becomes his undoing.

Welcome Mr President

Former US President Richard Nixon is infamous for his place at the center of  the Watergate scandal. He disgraced both the office of the President of the United States and the United States itself in the eyes of the world. When Hubert Humphrey, a former US vice-president died, Nixon attended his funeral. Dignitaries came from all over the country and the world, yet Nixon was made to feel decidedly unwelcome. People turned their eyes away and conversations ran dry around him. Nixon could feel the ostracism being ladled out to him.

Then Jimmy Carter, the serving US President, walked into the room. Carter was from a different political party to Nixon and well known for his honesty and integrity. As he moved to his seat President Carter noticed Nixon standing all alone. Carter immediately changed course, walked over to Nixon, held out his hand, and, smiling genuinely and broadly embraced Nixon and said “Welcome home, Mr President! Welcome home!”

The incident was reported by Newsweek magazine, which wrote: “If there was a turning point in Nixon’s long ordeal in the wilderness, it was that moment and that gesture of love and compassion.”

Carter gifted Nixon with love and compassion. Nixon certainly had done nothing to deserve it. It was an act of pure grace on Carter’s part. When the bible speaks of God’s blessing it speaks in exactly the same way. Blessing is never a reward for good behaviour. It’s a gift, a gift of pure, unadulterated grace.

You Should’ve Seen This Garden When God Had It

A newly appointed pastor who went to visit the home of a congregation member. Upon arriving there the minister discovered his host was an avid gardener, and was only too delighted to show his pastor around the garden, a magnificent sea of greens, purples, blues, whites, yellows and pinks. Wanting to set the relationship off on a strong, positive note, the pastor said, “Praise God for the beauty of his handiwork”.

But his host replied in a somewhat offended tone, “Now pastor, don’t go giving all the credit to God. You should have seen this garden when the Almighty had it to himself!”

The gardener in fact had very good theology. God has designed the world in such a way that God works in partnership with us, and we with God, to achieve God’s ends.

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