Merlin's Mustache

By David Jeremiah

Chapter Three Choose: Minimize Your Distractions

Many Christ Followers (CF’s) do not know how to say “No,” and consequently are constantly over committed and the “greater things” are left behind, never even comprehended, visualized, and certainly, never remotely  experienced!

Suggestions to avoid such disasters:

1.) Just say NO. That is a complete sentence.

2.) To be more polite, say “I’m sorry, but I simply cannot at this time. I have a personal policy, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to, but if anything changes, I’ll be sure to let you know… It looks like I’ll have to pass this time.. I just cannot fit it into my schedule…..  That is such a good cause but  I’m already supporting other good causes.

Jesus often said NO.  Our first priority is to fulfill our Father’s will by implementing:

1.) Love God.

2.) Love those around you.

3.)Love Yourself.

Then he suggests you arm yourself with the clarity of Prov 3:13-18

During the years of ’68-73 I traveled US Rt 30 through Ft Wayne frequently and knew of David Jeremiah from being on Moody Radio and seriously considered stopping by to see him in his double wide church in a field… but I never made it a priority. My loss of just one more another “greater things” in my life! merlin

David Jeremiah’s personal testimony verbatim near end of Ch. Three.

“I entered the ministry nearly 50 years ago in a startup church in Ft Wayne, IN. And I was focused. Man was I focused. I wasn’t necessarily aiming to be a spiritual success, I just didn’t want to be a miserable failure. All my friends knew I went to FT Wayne to start a new church. I wanted to prove to them and myself that I could build a church from scratch. So I was knocking on doors every night, Saturdays and Sunday afternoons; I was gone all the time. I was doing the work of God; what could be better?

But at that time, we had two small children. Jan was a toddler and David was 13 months younger. While Donna was at home, I was out on my white horse winning people to Jesus and building the church. When I came home for dinner each day, Donna would say to me, “Are you going to be gone again tonight?” I was struggling to balance my responsibility to my family and to the ministry. And then I’d go out and knock on some more doors and come home later to the hurt look on my wife’s face. I thought I was doing God’s will, but I was really doing David’s will. I just didn’t want to fail.

One day Donna set me down in the kitchen, “Honey, I just want to tell you I’m never going to ask you again, are you going to be gone tonight? I’ve been thinking and praying about this, and the fact is you are the priest in this family, and one day you are going to have to stand before God and give an account  for how you led us. And if you believe led us by being gone all the time, then I’m not going to argue with you. This is all in your lap now. You are responsible.” That was a turning point in my life.

I realized there are no ultimate conflicts in God’s perfect will. He doesn’t call a man to be both a father and a pastor in such a way that those two roles constantly war against each other. I began to pray God’s priorities  back into my life. Soon they became crystal clear to me. I organized them into the following four statements: (Note I edited the fourth to meet my situation. You write yours accordingly that reflects your current activities)

I am a person with a responsibility before God

I am a partner with a responsibility to my spouse. (if applicable)

I am a parent with a responsibility to my kids.

I am a PT entrepreneur heading toward retirement and a FT Ambassador for Jesus Christ with a responsibility to either coach or to refer appropriately and responsibly.

Folks, I believe we’ve all been hanging around long enough! Grab onto the life lines of God’s priorities and move forward in His design for your life always abounding with His momentum and with His Blessings.

I’ve not always lived up to these four priorities. Whenever I feel myself straying, I find these four principles pulling me back into line. That’s what priorities do……”

The above words met me head-on once on the interstate of life (guess then I was going the wrong direction since interstates always imply traveling in the same direction?) And yes, spiritual re-freshers are good! Not sure “re-fresher” applies though to the current Broadway Plays that I heard recently are stuck big time in the rut of predominately only “doing over” their past successes. Evidently their audiences are also ok with living in the security & shadows of their past good times rather than to look forward to and trust in new performances. Perhaps not unlike many CF’s stuck today in the rut of past successes when Christ is really calling us to, as Jeremiah’s book is titled, Discovering God’s Presence and Purpose in Your Tomorrow, not your “wispy past.”

A few minutes ago I just viewed the clip of Ron and Sue Wenger sharing their journey with Sue’s cancer during the Fairlawn Easter service. Such events and the deaths of the two youth days earlier near Fredericksburg remind us of our priorities. Please pray for these families as well as for your own during the fleetingness of life as we enjoy it.    

I, Erwin Raphael McManus, am an immigrant from El Salvador. My heritage is rooted in the long history of violence and oppression that has consumed Latin America for generations. We seem to have only two reoccurring approaches to government: revolution and dictatorship. With every revolution, there is the promise of freedom. Yet without fail, every revolution brings us a new dictatorship. In time, the oppressed becomes the oppressors. What history has proven is that we need more than a change of government – we need a change of heart (first, and second, a US Constitution would be helpful).

It is quite easy to mistake powerlessness for humility. It is easy to convince yourself that you are different from your oppressor when you are powerless to act differently. You can only know who you truly are when you are fully capable of imposing your will on the world around you. Who would you be if you were free to be yourself? Would you be better? Would the world get better?

There is an old adage that’s almost universally accepted: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While most of human history seems to confirm this, I am convinced this conclusion is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Absolute power does not corrupt. God has absolute power, and he is incorruptible.

Actually, what absolute power does do is far more telling. Absolute power reveals completely. Power gives freedom to what has been hidden within the human heart. Power tells the truth about who we are. Power sets free what has been imprisoned within you. Jesus seems to have understood this. It’s why you can live in a free country and still be captive by the condition of your soul. (no longer any doubt about it now! Truth always prevails )

Those who use their power to oppress do not have the luxury of freedom. They are trapped within the small confines of their limited minds and hardened hearts. For them to see someone who is truly free is more than they can bear. There is a strange darkness within the human heart that feels the need to destroy what it does not have or does not know. (well said!)

It was 1986 and I was studying for my master’s degree while traveling across the country as a speaker. My schedule was often hectic. I spent days  running at a deficit of energy while trying to do far more than I probably should have attempted.

In one of my classes, the professor allowed lots of open conversation and even dissension with his views. For whatever reason, I chose the path of dissension. Quite often I would find myself interjecting or interrupting his lecture to openly disagree with something he had just said. I remember thinking, I can’t believe he’s teaching this class. I wonder how someone with a PhD could be so wrong.

A I look back, I feel a significant amount of embarrassment at my lack of humility, openness, and teachability. I think I saw myself as a defender of the truth. Then one Tuesday, I rushed into the class – late as usual – and something seemed different. All of the students were quiet and completely focused on the papers in front of them. A wave of fear passed over me when I realized why. It was the midterm exam.

I felt so confused. The midterm is on Thursday. Today is Tuesday. It felt like one of those dreams where you’re naked in front of a crowd, only this time, I wasn’t asleep. I couldn’t contain myself. I groaned out loud and asked – not any one particular student, but the entire class – what was happening. I turned to my left, where my professor stood, watching the entire scenario. Maybe out of pity, ne looked at me and said, “Mr. McManus, please step outside.”

He could have humiliated me in front of the class, as I had done to him do many time during the class. But he didn’t. At least my execution would be in private. At least he would grant me that small kindness. Still, I worried. Was I being expelled from class? Would he fail me on the spot? This was his opportunity to return the disrespect I’d shown him throughout the year. He should take it, I thought. I certainly deserved it.

The professor was a quiet man. Thoughtful, introspective. A man of few words, and endless deep thoughts. I’ll never forget what he said to me that day, as I stood in the dark and dingy hall waiting for the hammer to drop. He took a deep breath, and finally broke the awkward silence.

“Mr. McManus,” he said, “there are times in out lives when our only hope is grace. Today is that day for you.”

He didn’t ask me for an explanation. He told me it was obvious that I had confused the dates. I didn’t need to justify my incompetence. He simple told me to come back Thursday for the midterm.

I’ll never forget that moment. A lessor man would have taught me a different lesson. It would have been fair of this professor to teach me the consequences of my arrogance and impertinence. Instead he taught mee a different lesson that shapes my life to this very day: There’s nothing more powerful than the power grace. Nothing more beautiful.

I never saw him the same again. Thereafter, his lectures resonated and reverberated in my soul in a way that had never been done before. I then understood that to sit at his feet and learn was a gift.

So, if God, who has every right to find us guilty, refuses to do so, how can we not forgive one another? If God, who see’s everything we’ve ever done and could easily drown us in our guilt and shame, seeks only to make us whole and gives us freedom, how can that not be our intention toward one another?

In our current environment, we have what is now known as “cancel culture.” We ransack the history of every tweet a person has ever written, every statement a public personality has ever made, any joke a comedian has ever delivered, or any mistake a person has ever made in the past, looking for ammunition to end their careers. We do not allow for change, or growth, or simply the imperfection of being human.

Condemning is easy. It’s also ugly and inelegant. Grace makes both the giver and the recipient more beautiful. Grace gives us room to grow, to change, to mature, to repent for a past we are resolved will not define our future. Oh…that’s important, too. Grace believes in your future.

You would assume that religion would exist so that grace would flow freely, but time and time again the opposite has been shown to be true. Religion dispenses grace as if it were the rarest of commodities, existing only in limited supply. It hoards power by demanding works of us to attain grace – and since the reality is that our need for grace is endless, perhaps insuring that we will always be indebted to the church or temple or mosque or synagogue for its dispensation.

Grace is only needed when it is undeserved. This is the elegance of grace. This its genius. Jesus left us with a new way of seeing the world. He freed us from the burden of judging each other and condemning ourselves. He lifts us above guilt and shame and shows a better way to exist. The genius of Jesus enabled him to find the grace for every moment and every person. When we choose to live by grace and give it feely, we, too, step into the genius of grace.

Jesus also reveals that empathy is the highest form of intelligence. Spiritual maturity reveals Jesus did not simply come to ensure that we understand God. Perhaps He came so that we would know that God understands us. It seems that God has fought over and over again to reestablish us in his love, though we keep replacing his intention with religions built on guilt and shame, judgement and condemnation. God was always a God of love.

In summary, to know God, or his mind, was never intended to be about information, but about intimacy. It’s about finding a depth of love that produces kindness, compassion,(compassion will move you to action, but empathy is what moves you to understanding… empathy is the deepest level of knowing). This was apostle’s Paul desire for all of us when he prayed in Ephesians 3:16-19 “that out of Christ’s glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, …. That you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God.”

Excerpts from Erwin Raphael McManus latest book “The Genius of Jesus: The Man Who Changed Everything” recommended to me by my “reader” friend, Harry Wilkins.The Genius

The other day a lady asked me if I had ever flown a jumbo jet – one of those huge birds that holds 400 passengers in its metal gullet. I almost said, “Yes,” but had to limit my answer to, “Well, almost.”

How do you almost fly a jumbo jet?

My good friend Roy Long, a senior pilot with a larger commercial airline, is in charge of a jet pilot training program in Miami. Pilots preparing to fly the company’s mammoth airships get their initial checkout in what is a called a “simulator.” It’s an awesome-looking piece of machinery which contains a simulated jumbo-jet cockpit. Housed in a multi-million dollar training center, it stands on tall mechanical stilts which move a few feet back and forth – up and down – controlled by then, a roomful of computers.

One night Roy invited me to join him in a training session. While the regular pilots were taking a coffee break, he gestured toward the simulator.

“Strap yourself in the left seat, Bernie, and let’s make a couple takeoffs and landings.”

While I buckled up, Roy punched a few buttons on the console and somewhere a few rooms over, a metallic brain clicked and whirled in response and went right to work.

We found ourselves on the end of Runway 9-Left at Miami International. The computer left nothing to the imagination. I’d never been in such a complicated looking cockpit in my life. There was the Miami runway stretching out in front of me – glaring white in the mid-morning sun. I advanced throttle, heard the engines go from throaty rumble to mechanical scream, spooling up to max RPM. My jumbo started to roll forward as a stewardess somewhere in the back greeted the passengers. Beads of sweat formed on my brow while the runway flashed under me. The airspeed indicator crept past 140 KTS and Roy called out, “Rotate!”

I eased back the yoke. We were airborne – climbing into the hazy blue over Miami. In the weight of the controls, I could feel the huge craft behind me. Sure would hate to land this bird in the Andes, I thought to myself. We climbed to pattern altitude. My copilot nodded as I circled the great field and lined up for the landing. Roy was calling out airspeed as I worked the throttles and controls – letting down for the landing. I heard the wheels screech a protest on the runway and then felt the weight of the plane settle on the gear. My feet were on the brakes as I reversed the engines. We coasted to a shuddering halt.

“Not bad, Captain,” Roy grinned. “Not bad at all for your very first landing in the L-1011.” Running my sleeve across my brow, I was warmed by a feeling of accomplishment. No hitches or hang-ups. It felt good.

But it wasn’t real. It was all a Disneyland make-believe. We hadn’t traveled two feet. We never went higher than our stilts.

And that, I am slowly realizing, is a parable of much of our Christian experience. We build million-dollar simulators. We climb in, sing passionate hymns with an electric organ that simulates 20 different instruments. We listen to exciting stories and even make emotional commitments. There’s only one minor fraud. W never really take off. There is noise and motion – but we haven’t gone anywhere.

“Spectator Christianity” has vaccinated us against the genuine article – participation Christianity. One church advertises, “ For those who want more than a Sunday religion.” Now, that’s the way it should be.

Dr. Samuel Shoemaker asks us all, “What has Jesus Christ meant to you since 7:00 this morning? Is your Christianity ancient history, or is it current events?”

God’s invitation is to mount up with wings as eagles. Why be content with a stimulator when you can fly?

Taken verbatim from Bernie May’s book “Climbing On Course.” This book was loaned me by Glenn Shoup who had served as a young man with Wycliff in several locations around the world. Last week during Sunday school, Glenn told me a time before JAARS was at the airport, Bernie May was at an event here in Wayne county with two other pilots in a helicopter. While touring the area in the helicopter, they saw an Amish farm threshing oats so they unannounced landed beside the operation. Since it was nearly lunchtime, they shut it down early and of course, the three were invited for lunch. It was the highlight of day for both Bernie and the threshers; especially when they were ready to start threshing again, when everyone grabbed a hold of the drive belt between the tractor and the threshing machine, and while tugging on that drive belt moving as fast as possible, they were able to start the tractor’s engine. That demonstration of physics prompted Bernie when they were ready to lift off, to invite several Amish youth and teasing them into thinking they could start the helicopters engine by simply spinning its rotor blades… but they soon realized Bernie was just  joking with them.   

Bernie May served thirty years as a missionary pilot for Wycliff/JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Service) and past president of Wycliffe USA.

FYI, over the years, Glenn Shoup, already 83 years young, has blessed his Kidron Mennonite congregation during their Children’s Moments as well as numerous other churches, fellowships, and of late,  Amish schools, reunions and their business events and dinners with his magical encounters highlighting front and center the Gospel message of salvation, thoroughly enjoyed  by young and old alike.

The following is verbatim from the book’s Introduction by Bernie on Pg. 5.

Sometime ago a BOAC jet came apart in a thunderstorm shortly after takeoff out of New Delhi, India. All the crew and the passengers were killed in the crash. The last words spoken by the captain before entering the fatal storm were, “We’re climbing on course.” When I heard about it, I thought, What a great last position report – climbing on course.

“Position reports” are vital – for both pilots and pilgrims. They indicate where we are at any given time. Whether I have learned more about flying from my moments with God – or more about God from my experiences in the air – I don’t know. But I do know that as I have tracked the skies of this world – putting my confidence in instruments which have guided me through dark and rainy nights, or listening to a distant controller steering me to a final approach – God has taught me about faith, discipline and eternal values.

Frequently I have been what is called a “critical attitude.” That means the aircraft is in danger of crashing because of its position in the air – nose high, one wing low, power off. That’s me: nose high in pride, doctrinally off balance, and spiritually powerless. It’s a bad position report. But you know, more and more, as His Spirit takes the controls, I’m climbing back on course.

I share my experiences with you, hoping that you, too, will want to know Him better, and to learn with me what it means to “mount up with wings as eagles.”

                                                                                                        Climbing on course,

                                                                                                         Bernie May