Taking Time to Smell the Roses

 

Friday, June 30, 2023

“Be still, and know that I am God!  I will be honored by every nation.  I will be honored throughout the world.”  Psalm 46:10

Each year at annual conference the several days at Lake Junaluska was enjoyable and inspiring in the mountain setting of Western North Carolina.  There was one opportunity I always loved, and the half-week stay would have been empty if I’d missed walking the half-mile of roses.  

The variety of sizes, colors, and textures, combined with the astonishing mixture of beautiful delicate scents, are always a welcome contrast to the sturdy ruggedness of mountains and lake…you cannot walk that half-mile without stopping to take it in and dwell on the majesty of God’s handiwork.  Breathing-in the crisp morning air, and seeing the dew-kissed petals of God’s creation, is one of life’s wonderful joys.  It’s hardly a mystery why we all know that familiar phrase:  take time to smell the roses!

It's also no surprise to me that today marks an end to the last 18 years serving as a pastor to United Methodist churches, and the 25 years before that as a Baptist minister.  I am retiring from vocational serving, and entering serving for the pure joy of being obedient to He who has been faithful and my Rock every day of my life, including that first nine months when my Mom carried me around.

I have been expecting this day to come, and since it is now here, I can share the mixed emotions that flood my soul, as surely as the beauty and scents of the Junaluska Rose Walk. 

One of those emotions is, of course, sadness.  The many challenges and joys of serving as pastor cannot be placed on a scale to see which outweigh the other.  Despite the hard times, even if they overwhelmed the good and great times, I would not trade loving what God called me to do these last 45 years, ever since a pastor, long overdue for vacation, invited an inexperienced church member to fill his pulpit while he was gone.  I had promised God I would never say “no” to an opportunity to proclaim His word.  It’s been a ride!  And God has blessed, never failing to teach, help, heal, and direct me all along the trail.  The sadness I feel is that this chapter on what I have loved so deeply is now closed.  And that leads me to the second emotion at the other end of the spectrum:  I feel great joy!  That joy isn’t relief from the pressure, or the weight of caring for others 24/7/365; rather it is in knowing, with all my flaws, sermon-flops, missed opportunities, and times of never knowing the next step…God has it all sorted-out.  And, much like Joseph, the 13^th son of Jacob (Israel) who was sold into slavery by his brothers, in the end, faced with either revenge on his evil brothers, or forgiveness, God enabled Joseph to figure it all out just what God had in mind.  Here’s what he said to them:

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.  Genesis 50:20

My joy is that I trusted God for it all, and that trust wasn’t wasted!  He will use all of it, because God’s Word never comes back to him empty-handed![1]

For You Today 

Smelling the roses (for me) is going to mean thinking-back, evaluating, and just plain resting.  There will be a little golf, some aimless mountain roads to drive, just to take-in life along the way, spending quiet time with my bride.  I’m going to be still, and know He is God.  I’m also going to hit the pause-button on publishing Rocky Road Devotion for July, and much of what I have been doing as a pastor these near 5 decades.  Going to smell those roses…be back in August.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day! 

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] It is the same with my word.  I send it out, and it always produces fruit.  It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.  Isaiah 55:11

Enough

 

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

And they left Egypt and returned to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan.  “Joseph is still alive!” they told him.  “And he is governor of all the land of Egypt!”  Jacob was stunned at the news—he couldn’t believe it.  But when they repeated to Jacob everything Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent to carry him, their father’s spirits revived.  Then Jacob exclaimed, “It must be true!  My son Joseph is alive!  I must go and see him before I die.”  So Jacob set out for Egypt with all his possessions.  And when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.  During the night God spoke to him in a vision. “Jacob! Jacob!” he called.  “Here I am,” Jacob replied.  “I am God, the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation.  I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes.”     Genesis 45:25 – 46:4

If you do a pulse-check on most any of the days of Jacob’s life, you’ll find a calculating, selfish, wheeler-dealer.  Stuff like that always comes back to haunt you.  Jacob did not escape that.  After his ambitious conniving to steal his brother’s birthright and his father’s blessing, Jacob had to leave town in the middle of the night to avoid everyone’s anger.  It cost him twenty years estrangement in the school of hard knocks.  He lived with his uncle Laban, a much sharper knife in the drawer when it came to manipulation.  The PhD degree Jacob earned in his time spent with Laban was the futility of a lack of integrity.

Another inescapable casualty of Jacob’s manipulative lifestyle was how his children learned at their daddy’s knee how to live that way too.  The older sons were jealous of their father’s attention to the youngest, Joseph, and eventually hatched a plan to throw him in a pit and watch him die.  They eventually settled for selling him into slavery to a band of nomadic traders.  With Joseph out of sight, they led Jacob to believe he’d been eaten by wild animals.  For the next twenty years the old man lived in paralyzing grief, mourning for Joseph, the son of his old age.

Finally, a famine gripped the land and Jacob sent his brother-killing sons to seek food down in Egypt.  The sons wound up right in front of Joseph, their supposedly long-dead little brother, who had managed to survive and thrive; he was the second most powerful man in the world under Egypt’s pharaoh. 

Now, the whole point of this epic story of family-fail came next, as Joseph is reunited with his murderous brothers, forgives them, and sends them home to Jacob.  Once Jacob gets over the shock of Joseph still being alive, he knows he must see this long-lost son face-to-face before he dies.

As he’s travelling to Egypt God spoke to Jacob in a vision assuring him that all will be well, and the promises of God would be carried out, and his son would be there to tenderly close the old man’s eyes in his final moments of life on this planet.  And, for Jacob, a man once steeped in trickery, thievery, deceit, and conspiracy, which had all (predictably) turned into a massive pile of internal strife and sorrow, now humbled by the effect of God’s mercy extended to such a one as Jacob the manipulator, imposter, despicable excuse for a human being, one word from God was…ENOUGH!

For You Today

No matter how much you may have made a mess of your opportunities in this life, or destroyed trust with family, friends, or even your own integrity, the promise of God is mercy to those who repent, humbling themselves before God, to seek His face[1].  Jacob did all that in a wrestling match with God one night near the Jabbok River.  He meant to get right with God, and, in mercy, God forgave Jacob and gave him a new name, Israel, the special, chosen, friend of God.

His story isn’t about airing the family’s dirty laundry; his story is all about letting you know this God you’ve been hunting forgives…and He’s only waiting for you to come calling.  And, when you do, you’ll see…like Jacob, it will be…ENOUGH!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Jacob’s family problems see Dysfunction in the Desert and No Place Before God - Part 2      

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[1] 2 Chronicles 7:14