And a Child Shall Lead Them

I have grown up in the church and have heard nearly every theological debate human minds can devise. All through my growing-up years, the various branches of Christendom would have had it out at my parents’ dining room table, and ever since we’ve had a home of our own, Bill and I have witnessed our share of skirmishes, too.  Calvinist, Armenian, Reformed, Covenant, Catholic, Pentecostal, pre-, past-, and a-millennial, dispensational…ad infinitum.

Personally, I think they are all true, but not exclusively so.  With Milton, I tend to believe that God is paradox and we – finite minds that we are – can’t abide paradox.  We won’t be happy until we shove the infinite I Am into some manageable and label-able box called “a systematic theology.”  

Meanwhile, God manages to leak out through the cracks in our systems and show up in some denominationally mongrel neighborhood Bible study of young mothers driven together by their hearts, hungry for the Living Water.  Oh, my!

One debate I’ve heard way more than is edifying is the “literal/symbolic” debate, especially about the prophetic books of the Bible.  To this debate, I’m afraid I have to quote Jesus’ words roughly translated: “It’s not either/or; it’s both/and.”  Most disputed issues are debated over the details of a truth so huge that it is able to embrace both of our puny human viewpoints and have plenty of room left to “confound the wise.” Children, of course, get this.

For example, I have heard otherwise intelligent people get really bent out of shape about whether, in heaven, lions, their natural ferocious and carnivorous natures tamed and muzzled by paradise, will actually lie down with lambs. 

This miracle would be too small, I think.  Unlike hard-headed people, animals already obey the laws of God in nature and God can change the rules if He wants to.  But what a marvel if, here and now, instead of men and women whose strong wills and natures, lacking love, devour each other, we would be tamed by the coming of the Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” as Jesus prayed.

What if the “meek lambs” among us could actually lie down in the same field as the aggressive lion-hearted among us?  What if those of us who are vulnerable rams could eat (with a calm and trusting spirit) right next to the guy we know who is a sure-enough swift, lethal and destructive leopard, our “natural” enemy.

Could it be that Jesus came for that?  Could it be the angels weren’t just humming a holiday tune that night on the Judean hillside when they predicted, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth – good will to all kinds of people.”

Could it be that this melodic prediction could apply to homes where it’s been more like the Third World War than a place of peace and balance?  Could we all be remade by the Savior, this tender plant sprouting from the desert sands foretold by good old Isaiah, this Messiah who would not shout in the streets or break the bruised reeds among us?  And aren’t we all on a given day bruised reeds who don’t need a theologian who clubs us with certainties nearly as much as we need a lover to hold us close?

This child.  This Holy Child has come, I’m convinced, not to endorse all the humiliating things that have, sadly, been done in His name through the centuries, but to lead us from the war-torn battlefields of our own making.  He has come to cover us with his atonement for all the sick, sad, pointless pain we have caused each other and to heal our land, one broken heart at a time.

And when we’re too betrayed and suspicious to trust each other, when utopians turn out to be a façade and politicians who promise solutions prove to be mostly self-serving, when religious institutions are so distracted by their own in-house debates to notice a child slipping off the precipice of society, maybe it will have to be, ironically, a child who will lead us – then grow up to bleed for us so that his immense wounds can, at last, heal us.   This is Christmas…and Easter…and Valentine’s Day, too.

And A Child Shall Lead Them

Lions and lambs, leopards and rams feed together.
Gentle and wild, vicious and mild lie down.
Natures change there at the manger where hist’ry turns the page,
And God breathes the breath of a baby.

And a child shall lead them from their war-torn lands,
Yes, a child shall lead them; they shall go hand- in-hand.
And my holy mountain shall be filled with peace,
As water covers the ocean, and a child shall lead.

Broken and torn, in silence they mourn a fam’ly, 
Shattered, a trust lies in the dust and dies.
Then in that place, wonder and grace, like a seed that sprouts from sand
Remakes a man and a woman.

And a chid shall lead them…

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and Doug Eltzroth
Copyright ©1989 Gaither Music Company

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And The Song Goes On...And On...And On

There has always been the Song.  It was echoing through the formless void, and it was the Song that called the galaxies into the dance, that drew spheres into relationships we call universes.  The stars could not resist the wooing of the Song, and each responded with a song of its own, making a harmony too beautiful to bear.

It was the Song that pulled order out of chaos and tuned to itself the instruments of each constellation.  The Song was the Light that made the murky clear, the ambiguous specific.  Our own spere we call earth was set in its orbit as the Song breathed the elements and sang them into existence. Gasses and particles and vapors were assigned a purpose, and they became water and clay and atmosphere. The music of the Song drew all things into such an intricate and interwoven masterpiece of order and beauty that its pattern would confound the greatest minds that were to come, for it was the Song that sang those very minds into existence. 

Since creation, down through the ages, each generation has heard and sung that Song to its children.  The Patriarchs sang it.  Hannah and Moses and Joshua sang it.  Deborah and Barak, David and Asaph and Solomon sang it.  The prophets sang it.  Finally, a young woman was visited by an angel who brought the news that the Song that sang galaxies into existence was coming to earth, to her.  And so she sang!

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior
For He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant,
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me.
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation....  (Luke 1:47-55)

And the Song came to sing among us.  Handel heard it and wrote what he heard for symphonies and voices.   Bach and Mendelssohn, Shubert and Vivaldi composed the music of their hearts to the Song.  Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, John Ness Beck, Ralph Carmichael, and John Peterson celebrated the Song with their music and words.  Stuart Hamblen and Mosie Lister, Fred Bock and Ronn Huff joined the long parade of writers who gave their hearts and their lives to the music of the Song.  

Now it’s up to us to carry the Song to a new generation and pull our children into the dance.  All heaven and nature sing!  We, too, must sing the Song and let the music fill the air!  Let the Song go on, and on, and on.....

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His Love...Reaching

Before anything else existed there was Christ with God.  He has always been alive and is himself God.  He created everything that is…nothing exists that he didn’t make. *  All that came to be was alive with his life, and that life was the light of men.**

The coming of the babe in the manger was not the first time Christ entered the world.  He has always been there – with the Father, and the story of His love reaching out to man began as long ago as time itself.

At first, God’s love reached out in creation, and His reaching had such enormous power that the firmament burst forth from his fingertips.  The sun and moon took their places, and God sprinkled the night with a thousand stars.  The waters found their way to their own boundaries and the tides were forever set.  Fishes and creatures of the deep found their paths in the sea.

And God went on reaching, and dry land appeared, buds burst forth.  Then came fields and grasses, hills and plains.  Heartbeats of animals and all living creatures throbbed at the touch of God’s reaching.  

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Even yet, Love, longing for someone to whom to give itself, was not satisfied, for love needs someone to receive.  So God reached further and made a man.

But man did not understand.  He took for granted the marvelous order and beauty that surrounded him.  He didn’t see that all the things God’s love had created were a result of God reaching out to him.  Instead of returning God’s love in gratitude by treasuring nature’s resources, man selfishly used, wasted and prostituted creation, blindly failing to recognize that it was all intended to be the lovely backdrop for abundant life.

Still, love went on reaching.  It was God’s reaching that caused Him to put a special value on the human person, that caused God to make man only a little lower than the angels, that gave man the treasure of being able to think and reason, to question and learn – to laugh and cry, to weep and rejoice.

But man misused this gift, distorted and wasted his thinking, perverted his emotions, violated his sensitivities to the feelings of others, and even used his mind to formulate theories arguing that he, himself, was the god of the universe and that his own mind had invented all things.

Still love went on reaching.  It was God’s reaching in love that built safeguards into the universe so this man wouldn’t destroy himself.  They were simple, timeless guidelines for freedom and joy.  But man called them bondage, fetters, chains.  He simply didn’t understand that the law was love’s safe harbor for his protection from the storms of himself.

Right from the beginning, God’s love has reached, and from the beginning, man has refused to understand.  But love went on reaching, risking rejection, offering itself.

Love offered the eternal; we wanted the immediate.  Love offered deep joy; we wanted thrills.  Love offered freedom, we wanted license.  Love offered communion with God Himself; we wanted worship at the shrine of our minds.  Love offered peace; we wanted approval for our wars.

Even yet, love went on reaching…and the word of the Father became Mary’s little son, and his love reached all the way to where I was.

His Love…Reaching

Love has always been here,
In the chaos of our world;
It was the Word that echoed through the formless void--
And whether in the universe or worlds of our own minds,
It’s love that turns our chaos into joy.

The Word that formed creation
Man just couldn’t understand,
Its sound was muffled by our wars and strifes;
And man destroyed resources God intended just to be
The lovely backdrop for abundant life.

And so this great Creator 
Who’d been reaching all along,
This God who formed the worlds with His own hands,
Made Love become a Baby, one of our very own,
And spoke His Word so we could understand.

His love, went on longing,
His love went on reaching
Right past the shackles of my mind;
And the Word of the Father became Mary’s little Son,
And His love reached all the way to where I was.

* John 1:1-3, LB
** John 1:4-5 NEB

Taken from the musical His Love...Reaching,
Words by Gloria Gaither; Music by William J. Gaither
Copyright © 1975 Hanna Street Music (BMI) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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Through

Over all these years of singing, writing, and working with people, we have heard one word over and over.  It is a word mentioned in almost every letter we’ve received; we hear it from folks who come to speak to us after concerts and in retreats where I have spoken.  The word is through.  “The songs got me through.”

Whenever we have stood before a group, be it a small intimate group or an overwhelming mass of people filling an arena, here or abroad, we can be sure of one common denominator: Everyone is going through something.  We all deal with “stuff,” and we will until we get through this life on earth.

How often we pray that God will remove or fix whatever we are going through:  illness, broken relationships, sadness, estrangement, set-backs, disappointments in business or vocation, loss of hoped-for opportunities.  We gather in each other’s homes or churches and ask for prayer that God will make the problems go away, that he will heal our bodies, make our spouses love us, change our children, give us that promotion or send an answer to financial difficulties.

All of these requests and supplications are legitimate subjects of prayer; God wants us to bring to Him anything that troubles us.  We are told in scripture to “cast all our anxiety on him because he cares for [us.]” (1 Pet. 5:7) Yet we know, too, that the things we so often ask Him to remove from us are the very things he uses in our lives to grow in us the qualities we most desire and He desires for us.

We know, for example that no one really wants the life our unbridled fallible inclinations would precipitate.  Galatians lists what selfish life without the Spirit looks like: sexual immortality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies.  All of these are filling homes, neighborhoods, the workplace, and governments with pain and war.  No one in her right mind would choose such a life.  No one dreams of a marriage or a house or a family or a community filled with such things.

Instead, in our heart of hearts we long to go home to a place filled with these qualities: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  But how do we get these qualities?  Often the very things we ask God to remove or to fix are the very things He is using to bring out in us the qualities for which we long.  We become patient, for example, by waiting, not by instant solutions.  We get peace by relaxing in His ways, knowing they’re higher, deeper, more enduring than our ways.  We become faithful by “sticking it out” when it would be easier for the moment to quit, throw in the towel and walk away.

We become good and kind and gentle by not reacting to slights, not giving the one who has hurt us “what they’ve got coming.”  Going through stuff ourselves gives us insights into what others have gone through, the abuse they may have endured, the disappointments they’ve had, the opportunities they may have lost.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than this earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

There is that eternal perspective again – the big picture.

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth…so shall My word be that goes forth the from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55:10)

We can be sure, then, that God is always up to something in our lives and it is good and it is eternal.   What the temporal is after is immediate and transient, and, ultimately, often destructive.  Selfishness is always destructive.

When God asks something of us, when he sends His word to the specifics of our days – His commandments, his promises, His blessings, His warnings – it is always to prosper us, but not always in the value system of earth.   He always is in the business of prospering us in eternal terms – in qualities that will endure.

Sometimes just the “fall-out” from what He is developing in us brings with it the tangible good things of earth: notoriety, financial abundance, positions of leadership.  Even earth is in desperate need of the good qualities of heaven.  But be assured those things are never the end result God is after.  His Word will always “prosper in the things for which he sent it.”  And those things are eternal commodities.

God turns even our propensity to disobedience into a gift of sorts, so that when we hit a wall, we will know that we can never take credit for our so-called virtues, but be driven back to Him for mercy, grace, joy, forgiveness, and, most important of all, love--the deepest longing of both the human and the divine heart.

So, no matter what we are going through, be certain that God loves us too much to let us settle for the petty successes of earth when He longs to open to us the storehouse of His unsearchable riches.  He has started something in us beyond our wildest imagination, and He will complete what He has started if we’ll just let Him take us through.

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Come on Down for Thanksgiving

For most of us, Thanksgiving and Christmas won’t be quite the same again this year.  Bill and I were together alone last year because of Covid-19.  Travel was restricted and large gatherings of any kind was discouraged.  

The big gathering we’ve always had on Thanksgiving, usually with forty or more family and friends, circled around our big kitchen with its central island groaning with bounty, will not be happening. We will not be reading “The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers”.  Our ceremony of the youngest child passing around a tiny basket of grains of Indian corn so each person can in turn return their kernel and tell what he or she is most thankful for since we were last in this circle will have to be celebrated in small family groups in separate homes.

The journey back home for Christmas might not be worth the risk of air travel, especially for those most vulnerable.  Many families have lost in the last year some of the generation that would have called us back home. Some families have fractured because the center did not hold.

War and pandemics and elections do not cause the crumbling of safe harbors.  It is the erosions of the heart, the fraying of the cables that hold the ship tethered to the pier.  Disturbances that shake the foundations only reveal the fissures and the fractures that were there all along behind the plaster and façade. Troubling times demand an inventory of the footings and foundations.  Circumstances may come like a storm, but if the moorings hold, if the foundations are strong, we will stand.

 So maybe this is the time to strengthen the cables and give loving care to the ties that bind.  It is certainly a time to prioritize, because, as someone has so ably said, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.  The institutions and systems of this world are not the main thing.  Kings and kingdoms will all pass away; these are not where our eternal citizenships lie. Often things in which we invest our time and energies, our finances and allegiances, the things that drain our emotional and physical resources—when we ask ourselves at the end of an exhausting day, “Was there any eternity in it?” we are hard fixed to come up with a list of what we did that really mattered.

It helps me to remind myself that gratitude helps my perspective.  There is no greater preventative for cynicism than to focus on the blessings of simple things in regular days, things I tend to take for granted because they are so regular. These things are not insignificant; they are the main thing.

There is a new song that Bill and Gerald Crab wrote for the new Christmas Vocal Band project.  The song focuses on a couple of real life situations that, like most circumstances, seem to be so in our faces that they eclipse all the rest of life.  A dime held close enough to our eye can cover the moon. We’ve all been there.  In our desperation we feel as if God is a million miles away.  As the song says, our prayer comes out, “Come on down, please Jesus, come on down. Heal this broken world and make it right!”

God hears our desperate cries—about our circumstances, about the crazy world, about things beyond our power to affect.  Yet, when we get quiet enough to hear, Jesus whispers to our tired spirits, “I did come down. And I never left.  I am with you always, even until the end of this world.”

Then comes a renewed sense of gratitude, and a clearer recognition of our Father’s loving message posted all around us.  The corny old chorus doesn’t seem so corny after all.

Count your blessings; name them one by one.
Count your blessings; see what God has done.
Count your blessings. Name them. One. By. One.
Count your many blessings; see what God has done. 

“Rest in You Tonight” is available on the Gaither Vocal Band’s new CD/DVD All Heaven and Nature Sing. Purchase or listen HERE.

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The Manger and the Cross

In a question-answer session at a Christian college, a student schooled in the literalist tradition asked the great writer Madeleine L’Engle if she thought the creation story in Genesis was literally true.  Was there a literal Garden of Eden and a literal Adam and Eve?  Her answer was simple: “It’s truer than that.”

I have found that the more I read the Word, the more depths I find there are to be plumbed that go beyond the story, no matter how historically true the account. Over time, the Jews have proven to be careful historians of places, events, and genealogies.  But the deeper truths of metaphor woven into the account of historical events is an interconnected revelation of eternal consequence. 

In all the prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah and the events surrounding the birth Jesus the Christ, is a story that is truer than the facts of the happening.  So that we would know how true it is, the details matter and are more than random, although it must have seemed so at the time.

The bookends that hold the story of what we now know as the coming of the long-expected Messiah—the bookends were made of wood.  Now, one would think that an event of such consequence so long prophesied and so well-known over centuries by both the commoners and the learned, when it actually took place, would be earmarked by symbols of royalty, pageantry, and celebration by the pillars of power.

But it seems that the heavy doors of history most often swing on very small hinges.  And this event and the short life-span that followed it that was to alter history was so ordinary and so unspectacular that the subtle story unfolded with little notice for those considered to be “somebody.”  In fact, the wooden book-ends that held the story were not even fine polished wood, but the ripped and rugged boards that would make a carpenter cringe.

At the time the circumstances seemed a difficult inconvenience brought about by an edict from an invasive power-structure to bleed the citizens of more taxes. Only the young pregnant woman and her betrothed knew that another Presence propelled them forward, a Presence that had planted a promise and a seed in the young woman.  The two of them protected that seed as best they could even though the mandate to return to the place of their genealogical origin made them strangers in an overcrowded city, bearing what, back in the Exodus that long preceded theirs, was called “the bread of Presence” (Exodus 25:3), now about to be made flesh.

So it was that these two arrived in Bethlehem, the City of Bread.  But there was no “table of Presence” to hold this Bread, at least until a kind inn keeper offered his shelter for animals so the urgent baby wouldn’t be relegated to the street.  The rough-sawn feeding trough, likely already half filled with seeds and grains for the evening feeding of the inn’s guest donkeys and horses, was offered, too, with some clean hay for both the young couple and their soon-to-be-born infant; the inn keeper provided at least a private corner, warmed by the breath of animals, in which Mary could finish her labor.  Did the inn keeper’s wife bring water and some cloths?  Did she help the awkward carpenter with the delivery?

We only know that this promised Messiah was laid on some fresh hay, swaddled in cloths to make him feel secure in this very insecure place.  When his tiny hand brushed against the splintered, rough-sawn wood of the manger, did Joseph cringe, he who had sanded and polished so many pieces of fine wood for cabinets and doors and ornamental furniture?

Did Mary grasp these moments of rest and solitude with her baby before borrowed neighbors rushed in with the newborn lambs they couldn’t leave behind on the hillside, to tell of another Presence—that of angels filling the sky...and their hearts?  Little did those, crowded in that stable around this fragile infant, know that this would not be the last time this tender hand would touch such rugged wood, nor that He, too, would become a carpenter, loving fine wood, sanding it smooth, making it shine.

But He would live His life against the grain, rubbing systems and governments the wrong way by his very life and words.  Systems would resent his sanding and planing, the knocking off the barbs of cruelty to the poor and powerless.  And this carpenter’s hand would offensively be nailed against the grain to the roughest of woods—a cross—not because He was powerless, but because His power was from another system, the law of love.

The manger.  The cross.  Literal bookends of a new kind of Kingdom.  Yes, literal wood and a literal baby.  But truer than that.  The Bread of Life would invade our world in a place called the City of Bread.  The seed of God himself would be laid in a rough-sawn rugged feed trough for animals, and this great God Jehovah would come all the way to where we are.  He would begin and end His physical, literal days on this earth with a literal manger and a literal cross.  But our own hearts would be this Bread’s table of Presence.  

Oh, yes, we love the Christmas story. But in this story, everything counts because it’s so much truer than that!

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No Unknown Soldiers

One of my best friends on and off the road is Janet Paschal.  I always smile when I hear people describe her as if she were a china doll, fragile, breakable, and delicate with black patent leather shoes painted on her china feet.  Okay, yes, Janet is petite and beautiful with a voice that can sooth the troubled beast, but she is no china doll.  She is smart, witty, and certainly no push-over.  She has opinions and good logic to back them up. Janet is also a good songwriter.

One of her best songs is one she wrote about her grandfather when he was leaving this world, “Another Soldier’s Coming Home.”  It’s addressed to her heavenly Father about this dear man who served God faithfully all his life.  So many of those who have lost a loved one who was a role model of faith over the years have identified with this song.

Of course, because of the soldier metaphor in the song, it has resonated with many military families.  Years after she wrote it, Janet got word that a soldier that had been killed in 1972 during the Vietnam War, listed as an unknown soldier, and buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, had been identified by his DNA as Michael Blassie and was being shipped home to his family in Missouri.  The family contacted Janet to ask if she would come to the ceremony for his reburial and sing her song, “Another Soldier’s Coming Home.” The military burial was covered by all the major networks.

Bill and I watch the beautiful service with tears in our eyes as this once lost and unidentified young man was celebrated by his mid-west family and community.  One of the moving speeches was given by a high-ranking officer who said in his tribute, “This may be the last unknown soldier to serve our country because of the discovery of DNA....”

It was that line that caught my attention.  I kept thinking that this soldier, who knew Jesus and had come from a family of strong faith, was never unidentified or missing-in-action in the Army of the Lord.  No faithful soldier in the service of that army can ever be lost.  God has always had our DNA and never leaves those who serve Him to languish on life’s battlefield.

In the next few days after the ceremony in St. Louis, I wrote the lyrics to “No Unknown Soldier” to which Lari Goss wrote the perfect music.  The song was recorded by Ernie Haas and Signature Sound on their upcoming project, and they sang it at the Homecoming taping in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Thanks to Janet’s tribute to her grandfather and a ceremony to an “unknown soldier” whose identity was finally established, and to an officer who paid tribute to him, a deep truth was stamped on my heart.  God has our true identity established forever.  We are of a royal lineage and can never be lost from the care of the King that we serve.

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The Stage is Bare

The concert had been a sellout. It turned out to be an enthusiastic audience of all ages with waves of laughter and applause between the songs, the laughter, and the moments of deep spiritual awareness.  A great night!

By the time we were finished tearing down displays in the lobby, putting equipment in the bus, and changing our clothes in the dressing room, the building was empty. All the lights were out except for one lone lightbulb dangling by a frayed cord from the ceiling above the stage. As we carried our bags across the stage from the dressing rooms to the back door, we stopped for a moment and talked about the evening. The single light and the huge silent room were such a contrast to the spotlights and the excitement of an hour ago.

“It was a great night,” one of the performers said. “But the question is, do the things we sang and said then work now?”

There is always a danger that politicians will start believing their own press releases, that kids will not be able to distinguish fairy tales from reality, that performers and actors will not be capable of separating the stage and the floodlights from their Monday mornings and daylight.

Bill and I have spent a great deal of time with aspiring young artists, not so much to help them “make it,” but in the hopes of teaching them some things that may save them from themselves when they do make it.

In our culture, talent often results in what the world would call “success,” but it has been our experience that success is often much harder to deal with than failure. In fact, failure is often good for us human beings; we learn from our failures. While we can learn from our failures, we’re more often destroyed by success.

The Palm Sunday story in the Bible carries a very modern application. It’s easy to praise the Lord in a crowd of cheering worshipers, singing songs and “lifting holy hands.” But when the dust clears, and the music stops, and the lights are reduced to a bare lightbulb dangling from a frayed cord, what then? Is our praise as convincing when we’re alone in an elevator? Does it “preach” when we’re the only person in the congregation?

I once heard someone say about a Christian speaker: “I’d be more impressed if I ever heard him pray when he wasn’t on stage.”

My father was a pastor, and I often heard him quote 1 Corinthians 9:27, Paul’s high standard, which my dad held up for himself: “But discipline my body and bring it into subjection: lest, that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (NKJV). That verse was like a caution light that flashed over my parents’ ministry.  It is a caution light for me. It is a warning for Bill’s and my ministry of writing and speaking and parenting and living in our little town. What we do when the stage is dark and bare is so much more important than what we do when it’s bright and full.

When our traveling groups meet for a time of prayer before concerts, we have often prayed that we would be as real at McDonald’s after the concert as we seem during the concert, that our lives with the stagehands and the auditorium’s staff would be as convincing as our lives beyond the spotlight.

When it is all said and done, I hope our children and our parents, our neighbors, and the ­people with whom we work will see our praise lived out much more articulately than we are ever able to express in words and in print.

May our failures and shortcomings be redeemed by the sweet love and grace of Jesus so that His spirit makes a more lasting memory than our fragile humanity. It was this deep desire and that night on the empty stage that inspired this song. Sandy was there that night, and it was she that first recorded the song.

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Then Came the Morning

At first, after a death, there are things to do: arrangements to make, friends bringing condolences to receive, stories to tell. But after the funeral and burial, reality sets in. The sympathizers go back to their work and lives. The flowers lie wilting on the grave. The leftover casseroles are scraped into the garbage disposal. The house is empty.

Bits and fragments associated with the one so recently present begin the long caravan of reminders: a pair of gardening shoes by the back steps, an old wool plaid coat in the hall closet with a wadded-up tissue and a pack of Clove gum in the pocket, a scribbled note in the margins of a favorite book, a roll of half-exposed film still in a camera, a layaway slip with only half of the payments recorded in the pocket of a worn leather wallet. As the days go by, the other reminders lie in ambush: a fragment of a song on a passing car’s radio, an old joke overheard in the grocery store, the smell of a certain kind of fragrance. As Emily Dickinson once wrote, “the sweeping up the heart and putting love away” is the “saddest of all industries enacted upon earth.”

Grieving is the private thing after the public ceremonies surrounding a death are over, and no two ­people do grief alike. Some drop out of sight, avoid human contact. Some are terrified of being alone and surround themselves with ­people. Some treasure a loved one’s possessions; others clean them out and move to a new setting not so laden with memories. Some need to talk again and again through the memories and the emotions that go with them. Others clam up and act as if nothing has happened.

We ­don’t know exactly how those who walked with Jesus processed the public execution of their gentle friend. We do know that one of his friends, a wealthy man named Joseph from a nearby town called Arimathea, went to Pilate and asked to have Jesus’ body released to him after it was taken down from the cross. Joseph was an official of the Jewish Council and had enough status to make the request. We know, too, that Joseph had already purchased the linen shroud and that he wrapped Jesus’ body himself and placed it in his own tomb carved into a rock.

We know that everything had to be finished before sundown that strange surreal night because nothing remotely like work or preparations could be done on the Sabbath. But after sundown, how did these very different personalities deal with the reality of Jesus’ death: There was John, the gentle lover; Peter, the impetuous; Thomas, the cynic; Mary Magdalene, the much forgiven; Luke, the scientific processor; Salome, the doer; young Mark, the observer of detail; and Mary, the over-protective mother of James. Each must have had a unique reaction.

The Sabbath was a day of required rest, but did they wait in silence? Did they meet at each other’s homes and talk it all through? Who first felt rage at the wasteful loss of this man? Who sifted through events for some clue that would make sense of it all, give some logic to this spiral of circumstances? Who of them was in denial, wondering if it had all been a horrible nightmare from which they might awaken any moment?

For the doers, the sunset on that Saturday night released them to get busy. Three of these were Mary Magdalene; Mary, James’ mother; and Salome. Preparing spices gave them a practical way to work out their grief, and preparing Jesus’ body would let them do something to show their deep love for this friend who was now gone. Had any one of them caught His line to the Pharisees about restoring “this temple in three days”? Were any of them secretly wondering if, by some act of the Divine, He would return to them? Which of them felt despair?

One thing is certain: nothing halts the grieving process like a resurrection!

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I Don't Belong

Life on the road is hard work. Contrary to what most ­people think, those who make their living in a portable profession do not have a life of all glamour and glory. Travel is full of inconveniences and frustrations. One needs to learn to accept disappointing cancellations and long waits in airports or in truck stops for repairs as par for the course. Sleeping in crook-necked positions while leaning against a building pillar or, if one is fortunate, a friendly shoulder; eating food you ­don’t quite recognize; adjusting to performing the “routine of toilet” in less than convenient or sanitary surroundings—these are all part of the traveler’s life.

Add to these realities the assorted artistic temperaments of a troupe grouped together because they love to sing, but not necessarily because they are compatiible in other ways,  and you could have the makings of a civil war. At the very least, let me say from experience, traveling together gives ­people ample opportunity to get to know and test the validity of each other’s Christian graces. It also develops some amazing friendships and calls forth some qualities in human character that are tantamount to sainthood.

Bill and I have been traveling as a part of our work for more than fifty years. We have had dozens—maybe, by now, hundreds—of other artists and writers, sound engineers and technicians share with us station wagons, vans, motor homes, buses, and planes for extended periods of time. We have, in that time, known a few divas, but mostly we have become well acquainted with some beautiful human beings whose confessions and professions of faith were most articulately made by the quality of their servant attitudes in the pressured and unguarded moments of life, on and off the road.

When I think of validity, perhaps no name comes so quickly to mind as that of Buddy Greene, with whom this song was written. Buddy is a man of God in the most practical and unpious sense. One of Bill’s and my all-time favorite ways to spend the hours on the road is to engage in a deep, honest discussion of a great life issue or theological concept. The truth of the adage “iron sharpens iron” is most evident when two or more ­people will allow each other to agree and disagree—sometimes heatedly—on the safe soil of common respect and mutual acceptance.

Buddy Greene is one of the travelers who most loves to plumb the depths of the things of God. One road discussion with him was precipitated by an article in a newspaper about the murder and sexual abuse of a child. Buddy and I were talking about how sick the world had become and how depraved human beings can act without Jesus. That turned to a discussion of how even Christian groups seem to twist and distort the simple message of love, grace, and forgiveness Jesus came to live out for us. The “politicizing” and “culturalizing” of the Gospel as a way to polarize believers seemed to us such a contradiction of Jesus’ words: “Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

“I feel sometimes like an alien,” I eventually said to Buddy. “And I’m not so sure I even want to ‘belong’ in a world where babies are abused and the powerful are rewarded for misusing the weak. When we start to ‘fit in’ in such a world, some caution light should start to blink in our souls.”

“Well, you are an alien,” Buddy said. “We all are. We’re strangers and pilgrims. But remember, an alien is not a person without a country. Aliens are citizens, but not of the country they are in for a while. We, too, are citizens. It’s just that our citizenship ­isn’t here.”

A few miles after our discussion, I gave Buddy a lyric I had finished. He took it home and called me later. “I think ­I’ve got some music to your song,” he said. “Want to hear it?” Writers often play music or read lyrics over the phone. To the tune he’d just created, Buddy sang me the lyric I’d given him. I knew it was right. “Like a glove, Buddy!” I said when he was finished.

Buddy himself recorded the song on a project he appropriately named “Sojourner’s Song,” the original title of the song. I still like that title best, though the song is now known as “I ­Don’t Belong.” I like “Sojourner’s Song” because the truth is, we do belong. We are citizens. It’s just that our citizenship is in another country to which we are ­traveling. And since this world is not our home anyway, we may as well love and give and live while we’re here as if ­we’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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I've Just Seen Jesus

Many epic films have been made of biblical stories and the life of Christ—The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Jesus of Nazareth, and Quo Vadis, and now The Chosen, to name a few. Hollywood effects have made the Red Sea part and the waves form a giant wall of water for the cast of thousands to march to freedom from Pharaoh’s army. Technology has caused a river to turn to blood and leprosy to disappear.

But for me no film device has been as powerful as that used in the old black and white Cecil B. DeMille film King of Kings. Instead of casting an actor to portray Christ, the director chose to show only Jesus’ feet walking along the way. The cameras focused not on Jesus but on the faces of those who were affected by Him. Made before the days of “talking films,” the movie forced its audience to read on the screen what Jesus said, and then see the result of His words in the lives changed or the bodies healed.

I was a small child when I saw this film, yet I can remember scenes in detail: the face of the woman taken in adultery when her eyes met the Master; the way the crippled child looked when he felt strength flowing into his withered leg; the joy the ten lepers expressed when they peeled off the bandages that had held their rotting skin on their bones.

But movie depictions would pale in the reality of walking with the living Christ. What an experience it would have been to see Jesus as He walked the dusty streets of Nazareth, to sit near Him on the grassy slopes of Galilee and with our own ears hear Him say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.... Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” To have Him take me by the hand and raise me to my feet as He spoke the words, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” To have Him touch our dead child and say, “She is only sleeping. Child, get up.” What an experience it would have been to say at the dinner table after such a day, ­“We’ve just seen this Jesus!”

But of all the encounters with the living, walking Christ of history, none would have been as amazing as those the disciples who loved Him best experienced the third day after the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, Martha and Mary of Bethany, Peter, John, Thomas ... on Friday they had stood at the foot of the cross. Every unbearable moment of that afternoon had been etched in their memory: the nails, the thud of the cross as it dropped into the hole the executioners had dug for it, the seven times Jesus had groaned out His last words. How could they ever forget the ugly, taunting remarks of the Romans? The contrast between the curses of one thief who died beside Him and the plea of another whose eyes met Jesus’s as He promised that that very day they would be together in paradise—these memories played back over and over again as these witnesses tried to sleep that Saturday night.

They had waited around—through the storm, through the eerie blackness of midday until evening when the soldiers came to confirm that the bodies were lifeless. It ­hadn’t been hard to take Jesus’ body down from the cross; the nails—from the rough treatment and the weight of His body—had torn large holes through His hands.

Joseph of Arimathea spoke to the soldiers and asked for permission to take Jesus’ body for burial in an unused grave on his property. By the time the body had been released and they’d carried it to the tomb, they had little time left before sundown, the beginning of Sabbath, to wash and wrap the body. There was no doubt that Jesus was dead. The gaping wounds, especially from the spear the soldiers had jabbed in His side, had released so much blood and body fluids that He looked shrunken and dehydrated.  

How tenderly they must have washed His body, His words still echoing through their minds: “Take, eat; this is my body that is broken for you.” The night before they had thought that the bread and the wine and His words were only symbols as ancient as Moses.

Now they realized this was a new thing—this breaking of bread He had asked them to “do in remembrance” of Him. For His part, it was no symbol. His real body here in their hands was torn to pieces. For them, too, it would become more than a symbol; it would become a call to follow His example, even if it meant losing their lives.

That Sabbath eve they had gone their separate ways in silence. There was nothing to say. It seemed to be all over. They had walked an amazing journey with Him toward a promised kingdom that now seemed to lie shattered at their feet. Yet something unexplainable in their bones felt not like an end but a beginning. Perhaps they were in denial, yet there was a sense of hope in all the black hopelessness that no one could articulate—not to each other, not to themselves.

They would each tell a very personal account of those hours, for knowing Him was a personal experience, shared, yet uniquely their own. One thing for certain: No one could really see Him, or be seen by those eyes that seemed to look into one’s very soul, and ever be the same again.

Then, on that Easter morning, they found the tomb empty. Mary Magdalene had actually spoken to the living Christ, and they—Peter and John—ran to check out her story. Could it be true? They felt the gamut of emotions as they entered the garden of the tomb. They could see at once the open grave, the stone leaning to one side as if it had been shoved like a child’s toy out of someone’s way. And then they saw the figure clothed in white, sitting on the huge stone to the side of where they had laid their Lord’s body.

“Why do you look for life in the place of the dead? He is not here! He is risen! Look, this is where you laid Him!”

Their faces. What was in their faces? And how did they return to the other disciples? Whatever happened to them there and later when He appeared to them, charged them with a passion that still, two thousand years later, makes us believe their story.

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The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference

Fanny Crosby once wrote:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

We are all storytellers. The regular days of our lives gradually weave themselves into a drama; most writers are simply observers and tellers of the stories that are all around them.

When we are young, we are given a lot of advice and instruction. Parents, teachers, preachers, and friends fill us with information about life. But those lessons are illustrated or refuted by the story told as we watch ­people make choices and observe the unfolding consequences of those choices.  

I think of the stories of four men. The first was a young father named Bob, who was an explosion waiting to happen. He was gifted with his hands and had a bright mind, but he felt as if his life were an endless cycle of meaningless activity. Eat, sleep, go to work, come home, and start again. He had a well-paying job, a wife who loved him, and three beautiful children, but his days were full of frustration which he vented at home to those he loved best. Weekend parties only served to increase his sense of dissatisfaction, for once the alcohol haze wore off, the emptiness still gnawed at his soul. His wife and children tried to stay out of his way; they learned to not make waves when he was in a bad mood. During those rare moments when he was happy, they absorbed his affections like a sponge, but eventually they learned to be wary even then. His personality could change as quickly as the weather during tornado season on the plains. Several ­people invited Bob to church, but he ­didn’t want anything to do with it. He’d attended as a kid, and he’d long ago walked away from the restrictions of that!

But at this loving church the ­people kept praying for Bob. His wife took the children to church in spite of Bob’s opposition, and one day she convinced him to go with her to a concert of a singer named Doug Oldham. A concert ­wouldn’t be too religious, Bob thought, so he went. Besides, he was feeling guilty about his ugly disposition at home and wanted to make it up to his wife. 

The music was upbeat, and the crowd seemed to really be into it. Bob loved music and found himself clapping along. About halfway through the concert, the singer told his story—how he used to be so hard to live with and so selfish that his wife finally took their children and left him, how he had contemplated suicide when faced with the reality of what he had done to a family that had loved him.

Bob could hardly believe what he was hearing. It could have been his story. It was as if the singer knew what was going on inside him—the way he did things he down deep ­didn’t really mean (though he seemed powerless to stop himself), the way he was hurting the family he loved, the way he felt empty and helpless to change his life.

Bob knew he had to change direction, and he knew he was powerless to do it, as if he were all bound up inside. As Doug had sung, he was
Shackled by a heavy burden,
’Neath a load of guilt and shame...

But the song continued:
Then the hand of Jesus touched me
And now I am no longer the same!
He touched me; Oh He touched me!
And oh, the joy that floods my soul....

Joy! That was it. His life had no joy.

Bob talked to the pastor after the concert about his soul, but he ­wasn’t ready to surrender his life. He’d had too much pain in his childhood—some related to church—and he wanted to make sure that if he started something, it would be “the real thing.”

Some months later his wife convinced him to go with her to a revival that was sweeping a nearby college campus. Doug Oldham, the singer he’d heard at the concert, was to sing. Bob never got to hear the singer that night. The power of prayer was so strong at the beginning of the service that he knew he had to respond. He made his way to the altar. Doug saw him coming and met him there. Together they prayed that God would change Bob from the inside out. He did! And what a change!

Bob was a new man. He never took another drink. His anger began to subside. His lifelong habit of smoking stopped that night. His family could hardly believe the change in him at home. One day his little daughter said to her mother, “Something’s happened to Daddy! He’s not mad anymore.” She was right. He was becoming a walking example of Paul’s words, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17 kjv).

Not long after Bob told his story at our local church, Bill and I attended two funerals in our small town. The first was that of a man who had lived a selfish, reckless life. He had destroyed most of his relationships and had damaged ­people who got close to him. He died cursing those who tried to help him and refused all efforts at reconciliation. The visitors to the funeral home were few, and those who came were uncomfortable. What does one say? For those who had to live with him, there seemed more relief and guilt than genuine grief. There were no words of hope. The tone of the room was depressing, indeed.  

The other funeral was after the death of Bill’s grandfather, Grover Gaither, a simple man who lived what we thought was an ordinary life. A man of quiet integrity, his word was his contract. He had farmed a small Indiana farm and, when younger, worked in a factory. On weekends he traveled with Bill, Danny, and me, when the Gaither Trio sang in churches. He and Blanche never missed a service in their church; they supported their pastors; they housed evangelists and missionaries in their farmhouse. I’m sure Grover would have told you he had had a good life, though he had never done anything very spectacular.

How surprised we all were to see the funeral home packed with ­people of all ages. They filed by Grover’s casket to tell stories. “He put me through electrical school,” said one middle-aged man. “I stayed at their house when I had no place to go,” said another. “He always cut my hair on Saturdays,” said a young boy from the neighborhood. Each person went on to say something about Grover being “a good man” and how he had quietly impacted that person’s life in practical ways.

There was much laughter and storytelling, too, reminiscent of Grover’s great sense of humor. And great rejoicing! The tears of sadness were shed through smiles, remembering a man who had “died with his boots on” and his fields ready for planting, come spring.

Bob’s story. Doug’s story. The story of a sad, wasted life. Grover’s story. My story. Your story. How it is told in the end and what the story says depends on what each of us does with Jesus.

For us, it has been the stories told—and lived—by real ­people that convinced us to stay with the way of the Cross. These stories made their way into a song we called “The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference.” For us, it truly has.

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I Believe in a Hill Called Mt. Calvary

How do you explain an omnipotent God letting bad things happen to good ­people?”

“Is God sovereign? If so, are we robots? Do we have any choices or are we predestined to choose what we choose? So why witness, send missionaries, minister?”

“If God knows what we need more than we do, if He knows our thoughts and desires, if He sees the future and charts our path, why pray? Why not just wait for Him to do whatever He’s going to do ­anyway?”

The questions seem to fly as soon as we confess a faith in Jesus Christ, as if finding a question not yet fully answered gives the questioner some ground to stand on for not believing.

And perhaps for all of us there is a time in our young lives when we feel we have the luxury of always questioning and never resolving the great issues of life. But sooner or later inquisitors and critics choose to resolve some major questions, or they become cynics.

For many, the time for deciding comes as we birth a new generation. It’s one thing to sit around in college dormitories discussing the unsolvable problems of the universe. It’s another to hold your own newborn baby in your arms and realize that what this child thinks and feels and believes will be largely your responsibility. You realize you will never have all the answers to all the questions, but you also know there are at least a few things you’d better get nailed down. Turbulent spirits must lay a few things to rest, and although we ­can’t know everything, we begin to realize we must know a few things for sure. Jesus taught that the evidence that confirms our leaps of faith comes after we risk believing, not before.

Bill and I wrote “I Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary” at a fork in the road for our lives. We ­hadn’t then, nor have we now, resolved all the questions. But we chose to risk everything we were or ever hoped to be on a few things that began for us a growing relationship with Christ.

We, like most human beings, would have preferred that God prove Himself before we risked believing. None of us wants to make a fool of himself. “If You prove You’re real, ­I’ll believe” is the way most of us approach the omniscient Jehovah. But God is not an axiom of science. He is the great I Am, and it is not He but each of us who is on trial. Judas (not Iscariot) tried the “play it safe” avenue of reasoning with Jesus. Reveal Yourself to the world at large. It would be so much easier, then, to make ­people believe in You. These miracles are great! Could you take this show on the road? But Jesus’ answer was quick. “I will only reveal myself to those who love me.” (See John 14:22–24 lb.)

Bill and I had to learn that God required that we first risk, believe, love. The “knowing” only results from relationship. And relationship—not evidence or knowledge or miracles or gifts—had to be our passion. We were beginning to learn that what we considered the process, God considers the goal. Once we dared to risk believing, all the tough circumstances of life would then crowd us to Christ, shove us closer to Him, nudge us into dependency on Him. That—relationship—is His goal. “I will only reveal myself to those who love me and obey me,” Jesus said.

Some years ago a slogan made its way to bumper stickers and lapel pins. I’m sure it was well intended, but I never really liked the phrase—“TRY JESUS.” It reminded me of a tray of hors d’oeuvres at a party. If you ­don’t like the shrimp canapés, try the bacon-wrapped ­mini-hotdogs or the tiny cheese tarts.

But we have found that serving Jesus is not a taste sampling. It’s not a risk-free bet. It’s not a for-profit investment, an “if you want to get, then you have to give” deal. It’s a leap into the unknown, risking everything you have and are on the Way beyond proof, not for financial gain, not for good feelings, not to get “gifts,” even gifts of the Spirit, though all of those things may result from this choice somewhere down the road.

If they do, chances are we will be the last to know. Most likely we will feel very inadequate and ordinary when we hear someone else say, “She is one of the most forgiving ­people I know,” or “He is a kind and gentle man of integrity.” Who me? may be our quick response.

That is how we come to know that in pursuit of a relationship with Jesus, we are being changed into His likeness. At that point, all the bewildering questions may remain unanswered. But, as the old-timers used to say, we are finding we ­don’t have such a gnawing need to know the answers when we know the Answer. We are coming, as the poet Rilke said, to love the question and to get more comfortable with the paradox of God. When we trust the author, we ­don’t have to know the end of the story. We just know it will be true.

We Americans have lived primarily in a country friendly to the Gospel. Oh, we may have what we consider “persecution” in some of our homes or we may work in an “unfriendly” environment. But we have not known persecution as Paul knew it or a world in which Christians are beheaded, burned at the stake, or thrown to the lions.

But history has shown that the winds of public opinion are fickle. Our freedom to worship openly, form Bible study groups in our homes, hold Christian concerts in public arenas, praise God with sixty thousand Promise Keepers, declare we are “women of faith” with thousands of other believers, could be replaced by regulations, repression, or even imprisonment.

Only “relationship” would stand through such a change. If we serve God because we think “serving Jesus really pays” in a material sense, we would likely be blown away like chaff on a threshing floor. If we’re hanging around the church because we like fellowships and enjoy the warm feelings of “the womb,” we would most certainly be torn away like helpless children in wartime.

Only a growing relationship with the living God, bought by the blood of His Son Jesus, sustained by the nurturing of His Holy Spirit internally, will long endure.

When Corrie ten Boom spoke at a Praise Gathering in her later years, she recounted a conversation she had as an adolescent with her father about the martyrs killed for the cause of Christ. She told her father she ­didn’t think she’d be capable of standing firm if she were tortured for her faith or her family were killed before her eyes. In short, she ­didn’t think she could be a martyr.

Her father gave an insightful answer, asking her a question: “When our family took that train trip, when did I give you children your tickets?”

“Why, just when it was time to get on the train,” she answered.

“If God asks you to give your life for His sake, He’ll give you the grace to do it when the time comes.”

Little did she know then that she’d be the only one of her family to survive the atrocities of Nazi prison camps, where they’d been sent for their compassionate role in harboring Jews and helping them to escape.

Even as an octogenarian Corrie would quickly have said she ­hadn’t answered all the theological questions ­people often use as an obstacle to faith, but she loved to sing a song based on the apostle Paul’s testimony:

But I know whom I have believed
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which ­I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day!

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Joy Comes in the Morning

Hard times come to every person. Until the grip of this old world is forever broken by that final blast from Michael’s trumpet, we will go on having what one hymn writer called “the night seasons” here on earth. No one is exempt from heartache. But the night cannot last forever, and the darkest hour is just before the dawn. God has promised that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5 kjv).

One night while driving, Bill and I were listening to an African-American pastor on the radio encouraging his congregation—as well as his radio audience. With a heartfelt genuine compassion for his ­people, he kept repeating this promise from Psalm 30: “Weeping endures for the night!” he would say, asking them to repeat the words after him. 

“But joy comes in the morning! Let me hear you, now. Weeping endures for the night…” The ­people would sing that phrase back to him. “But joy comes in the morning!” With one great voice they returned the affirmation. “Joy comes in the morning!”

Eventually the organ punctuated the truth. Its great music swelled like waves cresting on the beach. “Joy, joy comes in the morning!”

As we listened, the problems in our own lives seemed to settle into perspective in the immense power of God and His great faithfulness since the psalmist first wrote the words: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning”!

The song that resulted from that experience has spoken to us for over 45 years and has been used by God to give perspective and encouragement to many who have written to us or spoken to us at concerts. Over the years we have come to understand that pain is, as C. S. Lewis once called it, “God’s megaphone.” It is a useful tool in the hand of the Master Craftsman of our souls to hollow out spaces in us for holding the joy in the morning!

When the hard times of life come, we know that no matter how tragic the circumstances seem, no matter how long the spiritual drought, no matter how dark the days, the sun is sure to break through; the dawn will come. The warmth of His assurance will hold us in an embrace once again, and we will know that our God has been there all along. We will hear Him say, through it all, “Hold on, my child, joy comes in the morning!”

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Praise You

It was the year we wrote the musical Kids Under Construction. We decided to travel to Puerto Rico to combine a vacation with some work time with Ron Huff: conceive the musical, create the staging, and lay out the plot. Ron and Donna, our whole family, and my mother spent a week on a lovely beach lined by palm trees and tropical flowers.

Our eight-year-old, Amy, thought Donna Huff was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. To imitate her, Amy picked fresh hibiscus blossoms to pin in her hair each evening. Benjy, a year younger, caught lizards by the tail and collected sand crabs in his plastic pail. Suzanne, at twelve, teetered between childhood and womanhood. One minute she was chasing lizards or building sand castles with Benjy; the next she was writing postcards to a boy back home.

We all knew how priceless these moments were. We memorized the sunsets, absorbed the music of the birds, and pressed exotic flowers between the pages of the books we’d brought to read.  As for our work, we all wrote and talked about ideas, great and small, and used the welcome break to refresh our spirits.

One day while the children played at the water’s edge with my mother (who was always the biggest kid of all), Bill and I took a walk down the beach. It was easy to walk a long way and not think about how far you’d gone. When we realized how long we’d been away, we turned back toward the hotel. We were still quite a distance away when we saw a child running toward us, waving his arms. Soon we realized it was Benjy, urgently trying to tell us something. We ran to meet him.

“Suzanne lost her glasses in the ocean!” he yelled over the thunder of the surf. “She was picking up shells and a big wave came in and knocked off her glasses. The tide washed them out to sea!”

“How long ago?” I asked, thinking about how quickly these strong currents had been carrying things—even children—down the beach.

“About fifteen minutes ago. ­We’ve been looking for them ever since.”

My mind raced. A coral reef ran parallel to the shoreline about a hundred feet out. There were urgent warnings of an undertow—“Strong Currents.” Objects like sand toys or rafts caught by a wave had been carried down the beach as fast as the children could run to catch them.

By now we were shouting back and forth to Suzanne. “Where did you lose them?” I yelled.

“Right here. I was standing right here!”

She was knee-deep in water as the tide was coming in. “I ­can’t see a thing, Mother! What are we going to do?”

“Let’s pray,” I said and I took her two hands in mine.

Then I thought to myself, What are you doing? You’re going to ruin this kid’s faith. Those glasses have long since been pulled out to sea by the undertow, most likely smashed to bits against the coral reef. If we even find any pieces, they will have washed ashore far down the beach!

But I was too far into this to turn back. Holding Suzanne’s hands and standing knee-deep in water, I prayed: “Jesus, You know how much Suzanne needs her glasses, and that we are far from home and know no doctors here to have them replaced. We are Your children and this is Your ocean. You know where the glasses are, so we’re asking You to send them back.”

Just then Suzanne squeezed my hand and interrupted my prayer. “Mother! Something just hit my leg!” She let go of my hand, reached down into the water, and pulled out her glasses. They were in one piece and not even scratched!

We danced a jig of praise and she ran off to tell the others who were searching farther down the beach.

Much later that evening, after we’d had our dinner and the kids were ready for bed, I took out the Bible and opened it to Psalms to read something that might fit the sounds of the surf pounding the shore outside our room’s open patio doors. I chose a psalm we’d read many times, but never had we heard it as we did that night.

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit or stand. When far away you know my every thought. You chart the path ahead of me, and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment, you know where I am. You know what I am going to say before I even say it. You both precede and follow me, and place your hand of blessing on my head. This is too glorious, too wonderful to believe! I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from my God! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there. If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, your strength will support me. (Psalm 139:1–10 tlb)

When we had finished all of Psalm 139, we could hardly believe that God’s Word had been so specific for us… so familiar yet as new and fresh as this day’s miracle. Together we thanked God that He is a God who chose to be involved in our lives, that truly He had scheduled our days; we marveled at the truth that we ­couldn’t even “count how many times a day [His] thoughts turn toward [us]” (Ps. 139:18 tlb).

Psalm 139 has returned many times to visit our family. Over the years our children read it to their children. Soon after that trip Bill and I wrote the psalm into a song we called “Praise You.” It has been arranged for choirs and recorded by various artists. But it will always be for us a reminder of the day a little girl prayed with her mother on an island beach for a pair of glasses lost at sea.

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The Family of God

It was Good Friday 1970.  Suzanne had come home early from school, and we had just put the Easter eggs we had colored on Thursday night in a big yellow basket filled with shredded paper grass when the phone rang. A voice on the other end of the line said, “There’s been an explosion at the Faust garage. Ronnie Garner was badly burned. He got out of the building just before it blew apart. But he ­isn’t expected to make it through the night. Some of us are gathering at the church to pray. Call someone else, ask them to pray, and to keep the prayer chain going.”

I hung up the phone and called Bill at the office. Suzanne and I prayed together for this young father from our church. Then I called a few others I knew would join us in prayer.

Only later did we get the rest of the story. Ron was working overtime because he and Darlene needed extra money to pay for heart surgery for their daughter Diane. He was alone at the car dealership and repair shop, cleaning engines with a highly flammable substance without thinking to open a window for ventilation. He was working below a ceiling furnace with an open-flame pilot light. When the fumes from the solvent reached the flame, the whole garage blew apart. When he heard the first roar of the furnace, Ron tried to open the garage door, but it was jammed. By some miracle, with his clothing on fire, he managed to squeeze through a tiny space before the big explosion.

From Methodist Burn Center in Indianapolis we heard that the doctors had decided not to treat Ron; it was no use. There was little chance of success, and the trauma of treatment itself could push him over the edge. But friends who gathered at the church prayed all the more fervently for Ron, for Darlene, and for their two little girls. All through Friday and Saturday night, the church prayed. With part of our hearts we believed, but, to be honest, with the other part we braced ourselves for the predicted news.

A weary and somewhat tattered group gathered for church on Sunday morning. We lacked the optimism typical of an Easter celebration. The pastor ­wasn’t even there at first; we knew he was with Darlene and the family. No one felt like singing songs of victory. Resurrection seemed a million light-years away. But as the music began, a few weak voices sang less-than-harmonious chords of well-worn Easter songs.

As we were making an effort at worship, our pastor entered from the back and made his way up the center aisle to the platform. His shoulders were slumped, his suit was wrinkled, but there was a glow on his stubbled face as he motioned for us to stop the hymn. 

“Ron is alive,” he said. “They said he ­wouldn’t make it through Friday night, so they’re amazed he’s alive today. The doctors ­don’t understand how he’s hanging on, but we do, ­don’t we? And because he’s still alive, ­they’ve decided to start treatment.”

A chorus of “Amen!” and “Praise the Lord!” rose from the congregation. We all straightened in our seats like wilted plants that had been watered.

“We’re going to thank the Lord,” Pastor McCurdy said, “and then we’re going to see this thing through. This is just the beginning. There will be many needs. The family will need food brought in. Darlene may need help with the kids. They may need transportation back and forth to Indianapolis. Ron will need gallons of blood for transfusions. And they all—the doctors too—need prayer. Let’s think of how each of us can help. We are, after all, the family of God. Now let’s pray.”

We stood and as one voice thanked God for answered prayer and for the reality of the Resurrection. Sunshine streamed in through the windows to warm more than our faces and the room. It seemed that the light of the dawn of the very first Easter morning had come to our weary souls.

What a service of rejoicing we had! No sermon could have spoken as articulately as the news that Ron was alive and our feeble prayers had been answered. We sang the old hymn: 

Low in the grave He lay—Jesus, my Savior.
He tore the bars away—Jesus, my Lord! 
Up from the grave He arose, 
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes! (Robert Lowry)

My, how we sang! And then,

You ask me how I know He lives? 
He lives within my heart! (A. H. Ackley)

We were full of joy and victory as we left the church that noon, loading up our families into cars for the trip home.

In the car Bill and I said to each other, “You know, the amazing thing is, they’d do that for us, too.” We ­weren’t model church members, Bill and I. We were gone virtually every weekend, barely getting in from a concert in time to make it to church Sunday morning. We were never there to bake pies for the bake sales or to attend the couples’ retreats or to teach in Bible school. If you had to pull your share of the load to get the family of God to take care of you, we would surely have been left out. “But they’d do that for us,” we marveled.

When we got home, I checked the roast in the oven, changed the baby, and sent Suzanne off to put on her play clothes. Bill went to the piano, and I heard him toying with a simple, lovely tune. “Honey, come here a minute,” he called from the family room.

He sang a phrase, “I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God. Dah, dah, dah, la la la-la, la la la-la.”

I grabbed a yellow legal pad and a pencil. The roast was forgotten as we were both consumed by the beauty of “the family,” and I tried to write our gratitude to the music Bill was playing.

We finally did have Sunday dinner, though the roast was a little overdone. On Monday I deviled our Easter eggs, and our life went on, but we were never quite the same. 

Pastor McCurdy was right: that Sunday news was only the beginning. But, then, the Resurrection was only a beginning too! There were months of trips to Indianapolis. Many gave blood and  made casseroles and babysat and cleaned Darlene’s house. Most sent cards of encouragement and notes assuring the Garners of continued prayer.

During the next nine months in the hospital Ron had many skin grafts and experienced much pain, but finally he came home to their house on John Street. Eventually, he went back to Anderson College and finished his degree in athletics. He became assistant coach at Alexandria High School and fathered two more children. Diane got her heart fixed and became a high-school teacher. And one of the children, not yet born at the time of the fire, was one of the top female athletes in the state of Indiana.

And we were filled with joy that the same family that stood by the Garners in a thousand ways has stood by us, too. We ­don’t deserve it; we ­haven’t earned it. We were just born into it. They treat us like royalty, because we are! We’re children of the King!

 You will notice we say “brother” and “sister” ’round here;
It’s because we’re a family and these folks are so near.
When one has a heartache we all share the tears,
And rejoice in each vict’ry in this fam’ly so dear.

I’m so glad I’m a part of the fam’ly of God!
I’ve been washed in the fountain,
Cleansed by His blood.
Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod,
For I’m part of the fam’ly,
The fam’ly of God.

 From the door of an orph’nage to the house of the King,
No longer an outcast; a new song I sing.
From rags unto riches, from the weak to the strong,
I’m not worthy to be here, but praise God, I belong!

Lyric: Gloria Gaither and William J. Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither
Copyright © 1970 Hanna Street Music (BMI)

Last week our friend Hugh Phipps invited Bill to go with him to a morning meeting of a group of praying guys who get together each week here in our town. Ron Garner was there to tell for the first time the whole story of his experience. Ron is now 78, and not only did he live, but went on to teach science, coach, and become Athletic Director in our local high school.

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Technology—Friend or Foe

When new inventions and innovations first invade our world of experience, they are usually vilified, or, at least, viewed with suspicion.  When cars were invented, sermons were preached against them, predicting what damaging effect they would have on peaceful community life.  The telephone was viewed as the purveyor of gossip, and television was condemned as the corruptor of civilization or, at least, the eroder of the next generation’s character.

When Alvin Toffler wrote his revolutionary book THE THIRD WAVE, we could not imagine an economy in which information would be the main product.  “How could an intangible thing “information” be a product?” our elders asked, shaking their heads and insisting that products were things manufactured, things one could touch or drive or put on a shelf at a store.

The outrageous idea that people the world over would carry computers and phones in the palm of their hands with no wires or plug-in cords was beyond comprehension.  And who could conceive of a “friend” or several hundred “friends” we have never met to whom we would reveal the secret details of every day life, show pictures of our children, share intimate thoughts and fantasies, and then have no control over the “friends” to whom they would in turn pass on our secrets without our consent.

We are coming to realize that digital technology is both the best and worst thing that has been invented so far.  Like cars, telephones, televisions, and airplanes, technology can be used for either great purposes or intensely destructive ones.

The naysayers of the past were partially right.  Cars can kill, and television can corrupt and damage the minds of children, youth, and adults.  Airplanes can be piloted into skyscrapers and kill nearly 3,000 people.  But planes can also get students home from college, bring orphans from China to loving families waiting to adopt them, bring Johnny home from war, or get grandma back in time for a kid’s graduation. Technology can make Jesus’s command to take the good news of God-with-us into the whole world a literal possibility.

Computers, I-Phones, and I-Pads can call 911 or deliver pornography to minors.  They can let me in Indiana keep in touch with seven grandchildren in Colorado, New York, Chicago, Nashville, and Vermont.  Or they can be used to bully a high school freshman all the way to suicide.  The devices we have in our pockets and purses and cars can save lives or destroy them.  They can free us or make us prisoners of media addiction.

We can be mindlessly swept along with the digital tides, surrendering our God-given minds to gamers and the peddlers of false information, or we can harness technology for good, give it strong boundaries in our lives and homes, and guard from it our sacred spaces and our abilities to actually converse, meditate, and reason.  May the God of all wisdom help us to recognize every day the blessings and dangers of the devices the ingenuity of man has brought into existence and to have the courage to make them serve us and mankind, instead of the other way around.

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Intervals

We are all thinking about our fathers this Father’s Day week. I found this remembrance our daughter Amy wrote a few years ago about Bill teaching her musical intervals, She has given permission to share it with you.

"This is one."

We’re in the car, he drives.  I sit in the back seat, repeating the tone back to him.

     "One."

     "Now, give me 'three'," he says.

My mind scrambles to make the musical steps.  My pitch is not perfect, but "relative," they call it.  I find the note with mental reasoning, unwilling to let him hear me do the figuring.

     "Three," I sing.

I know he knows how I find it.  It doesn't matter.  The game has started, and we both enjoy it.

     "Give me 'two'."

     Back to one, I think, then mentally, "One"-- aloud--"two."

We play like this: he tests; I challenge myself to do my mental gymnastics more quickly.

He falls silent, and I know he is thinking about-- what?  The days when he was a boy at the Stamps School, first learning intervals and harmonies? Or is he hearing the harmonies themselves? He fades further away, and I think I can hear the echo of a scratchy 78 playing in his brain...sounds drifting down from upstairs at my grandma and grandpa's farmhouse.

I often fell asleep to those sounds, harmonies fading and blaring on what sounded to my ear like very primitive technology, songs with titles like "The Bible Tells Me So," "Happy Rhythm,” singers with names like Denver Crumpler, Hovie Lister, and Jake Hess.

I know he is hearing them now, here, in the car.  I watch him in the rearview mirror.  His mind is always a mystery.  What harmonies, what memories, what beginnings fill him now?

Nights when we had dinner guests, and I would hear my father say, as the candles burned low, "Hey..hey, can I play you something?  Come in here."  And long after I was supposed to be in bed, I would sit at the top of the stairs in my nightgown, peering around the banister watching as my father's face danced with admiration, joy, astonishment, laughter, tears.  And our guests, smiling and nodding and catching his fever.  Then, black gospel choirs, Andree Crouch, and the singers with the Caravans. Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin brothers: "I've Done Enough Dyin' Today" and harmonies that made your heart ache.

     "Daddy."  I have to say it two, three times.  "Daddy.  Daddy."

     "What?"  He is still absent.

     "Earth to Bill," my mother says.

     He blinks, focuses.  "What?"

     "This is one," I say.  Back to one.

     He grins, returning.  "Okay, give me seven."  His favorite interval.

I wonder what memories my children will have of me, what late night reveries and what music will bring them back in their minds to our living room.  I wonder what memories they will imagine I am returning to when I disappear before them like my father does, has always done.  I wonder what will anchor them, like my father returning to harmony, his home base, his roots, his "one."  

I feel him grounding me there: "This is one.  Now give me--"

I wait breathlessly, wondering what I can give him, hoping it will please him, grateful for this reference point.  Back to the one.

--Amy Gaither Hayes 

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Go Ask

There is no such thing as a “risk-free faith”.  We mortals want one, of course.  So did those who walked with Jesus when He was literally walking the physical places He frequented with His friends.  We, as they, want to have the advantages of faith without having to make a fool of ourselves by buying into something we can’t actually prove. 

Those who walked with Jesus were privy to some amazing happenings.  They saw the 5,000 fed with a kid’s lunch.  They saw the man so crazed by demon spirits that he had to be chained in the cemetery to keep him from destroying himself or attacking others, freed at Jesus’s command to become a peaceful citizen, clothed and in his right mind.  They saw lepers healed, the deaf made to hear, the blind given sight, and the lame healed to walk.

Yet, after three years of walking by His side, these followers bombarded Him with questions that were basically asking for Jesus to reduce the risk factor of belief.  One of them asked why He didn’t reveal Himself to the world at large so that proving He was the Son of God would be easier, less risky.  Jesus’s answer was simple, yet anything but fool-proof.  He said that they had to risk loving Him first before His certain identity would be revealed to them.  “I will only reveal myself to those who love and obey me.  The Father will love them too, and we will come to them and live with them.” (John 14:22 LB)

In other words: love and obey first; only then will confirming certainty begin to settle into your souls.  Still today are we asking for a faith we can turn on and off like a faucet when we are in trouble or when we’re in a situation that “faith” is an asset?  But risk-free faith is no faith at all.

I love the story of the man who was blind from birth.  Everybody knew he was blind and had seen him grow up without sight.  Instead of showing compassion, we see the disciples wanting explanations.  They asked Jesus whether this blindness was caused by the sin of his parents or his own. Jesus said the darkness was to show the light. Obviously, Jesus was implying more than the physical darkness a blind man sees, but the darkness of missing the message that Jesus is the light for all kinds of darkness.  Jesus put spit-and-dirt mud on the man’s eyes, then told him to go wash it off in the pool of Siloam.

Instead of rejoicing with the now sighted man, the religious circle around him continued the interrogation about the validity of the method, the timing, the history, and the motivation for Jesus’s miracle.  Finally, in exasperation, the once-blind man said “I don’t know!  I don’t know whether he’s good or bad.  All I know is, I was blind but now I see!”

The only test tube for proving what faith is or does is to risk loving and see the result in the lives of those who “were blind but now can see.”  Risk-free faith is an oxymoron.  In real life there is no such thing.  If we want a proof for faith, go ask the blind man.  Fall in love with the Master and questions will be superfluous.

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The Best Graduation Gift

I’ve been wrapping graduation gifts and finding cards that can hold a gift certificate or a little cash.  This year graduating seniors are excited to be anticipating an actual in-person graduation ceremony instead of last year’s online or zoom virtual ceremony necessitated by the pandemic.  

Our grandson just finished his first year of college in New York state, but is coming back to Indiana for the great pageantry of Culver Military Academy and a year-delayed ceremony.  It will be a treat to have our daughter Amy’s family gathering in to see Simon “graduate”, even with a year of college under his belt.

We already had his party last year.  I spent the month before we met for a small masked celebration going through tubs of pictures and shuffling through memories of him collected since his birth to make a huge scrapbook of this sweet child.  Maybe this year we can just get it out again and look at it together.

All this “double graduation” makes me remember what my mother gave me for my graduation from high school.  It was a full Webster’s Dictionary that I have used in the years since until the pages started to fall out.  It is now in one of the glass cases in the “museum” section of our recording studio.  It is a treasure, not only because of my life-long love of words, but for a poem she wrote in her own handwriting inside the front cover.

The sheep may know the pasture,
But the Shepherd knows the sheep;
The sheep lie down in comfort
But the Shepherd does not sleep.

He protects the young and foolish
From their unprecocious way
And gently prods the aged
Lest they give in to the clay.

When the young have learned some wisdom,
It is much too late to act;
When the old man knows the method,
He is less sure of the fact.

Ah, the Shepherd knows the answer—
The beginning and the end.
So the wisest choice, my daughter,
Is to take him as your friend.
--Mother

This and many other writings confirm for me, now decades later, that my mother was one of the wisest persons I ever knew.  At 17 I knew she was, but not like I know it now.

Perhaps the line I’ve most thought about over the years is “...Lest they give in to the clay.” 

From the time I was a child, my parents wanted me to be able to recognize and choose the things that last forever.  We had as a family many discussions about what is eternal and what is not, not just when we die, but every day we live.  I remember my mother saying to me as a high school girl, “Gloria, don’t ever forfeit anything eternal for someone whose name you won’t remember ten years from now.”

When we began to have children of our own, Bill and I wrote a song that Suzanne later asked Bill to sing at her wedding.  It was titled “The Things That Last Forever.” Of course, he had a hard time getting through the song that day.

But of all the things my parents made sure I understood, to recognize what is eternal in every moment and to give myself for things that will never die was perhaps the most important— “lest I give in to the clay.”

Now I am in the autumn of my life.  What do I want to have gotten said to our children, to our great-grandchildren, to people who have heard the song of our lives?  It is this: “Think ‘forever’!” because now is forever.  Forever starts here.  Heaven starts here—and so does hell. We’re building forever with the choices we make today.

To all graduates—whether graduating from high school, college, the transition chapter of your life, or from this life itself, think “forever.”  Will what I choose today last forever?  Can I recognize the eternal in this moment, and am I giving myself away for things that will never die?

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