The peh Factor
“Seeking balance in a polarized world”
Beyond the first three chapters of Genesis, there are a good number of passages in the Pentateuch that have risen to the surface in my thinking over these years of ministry. Over these next few blogs, I will be sharing a number of those passages and how they have shaped my life and ministry.
I don’t know if you have ever (or felt you have ever) heard God’s voice? I remember the old joke that said, “If you talk to God…that is prayer. If you hear God talking to you…that is schizophrenia.” Yet, there have been times in my life when I believe God has spoken to me. I didn’t hear an audible voice, but there was an impression on my mind to which I knew I had to pay attention. Let me share a couple.
It was the Christmas season, 1970. I was a student intern at Westminster Presbyterian Church on Capital Hill, Seattle, Washington. Over the course of my one and a half years at Seattle Pacific College I had been invited to audition for some traveling music groups. ‘Up with People’ was one of those groups and ‘Thurlow Spurr and the Spurrlows’ was another. I had turned down the invite on both occasions.
As the school year ended its fall quarter, another audition had presented itself. It was an experimental group of the Free Methodist Church called “The Free Spirit.” The Free Methodist Church at the time was quite conservative. Many of the churches only had piano instrumentation, women wore little jewelry and not make-up, men were the only leaders. The contemporary Christian music scene was not even on the radar. The Free Spirit was designed to introduce a new era of Christian life to Free Methodist Churches. I was invited to audition.
As I struggled with the idea of auditioning and, if accepted, to leave school for the fall quarter of my junior year as well as risk losing my student deferment (4F) from the Viet Nam war, a special guest speaker came to preach at the church I was serving. I don’t remember his name. I believe he was the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at the time. It was rare for the highest elected officer of the denomination to come to a relatively small church to speak, but for some reason he came and it was impressed on my that I should attend. I did.
That evening the speaker focused on God’s call of Abraham in Genesis 12:1- 4. It reads
The Lord had said to Abram,
“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 2“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
4 So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
As the speaker spoke, I heard God speaking to me. I remember the feeling that he was speaking directly to me, calling me, challenging me to “…go to the land I will show you.” He was calling me to do something adventurous, risky and to trust that he would take care of the rest. A human being was speaking but I heard the call of God.
I said, “Yes.” I auditioned. I was accepted and a journey to a foreign land had begun.
Over the next months I had to learn a good deal of music. In May I was flown to Michigan where the group was assembling to meet the other members and begin memorizing 20 songs that we would be performing. In June, after school was out, we started our tour by recording two LPs (Long Play albums) at the RCA studios in Chicago and then we launched two groups. The one group traveled into the eastern US and my group composed of 9 singers traveled west of the Mississippi all the way to the Pacific.
Over the course of the 6 months, we longed 46,000 miles in a station wagon pulling all of our material items in a trailer. We performed 180 times in small churches (25) and much larger settings (4000). We sang the same songs each time. Our music was pre-recorded (we may have been the first karaoke performers) as was played through our sound system (Altec-Lansing Voice of the Theater) through a reel-to-reel tape recorder. In addition, we had been trained by the denominational leaders to do seminars on Christian Education topics in churches that wanted such a seminar. I was selected to teach a course on Studying the Bible.
I now look back on that time and think, “Wow, I was a 20-year-old college student teaching a course to mature adult Christians on how to study the Bible.” How gracious the people must have been to listen to this young punk who thought he knew so much and yet had experienced so little of life.
In the midst of this experience, the God who had spoken to me, the God who had called me to step out of my safety zone and audition, that God used me. The directors of the program also gave me the speaking assignment for each of the concerts. Over that six-month period I spoke nearly 180 times. I also lead the daily devotional time for the group. I came away from having said “Yes” to God for a short period to feeling the call of God to leave my music education major at school and become a minister.
All of this occurred 53 years ago and I was launched on a journey, discovering the land that God has shown me every since. During these years the voice of God has pushed me in other new directions. Starting my doctoral program was another such moment when I stood on a rock on South Beach, San Juan Island, Washington and God spoke again. I knew exactly what I had to do. Saying “Yes” to God’s voice directed me in a way I never thought possible.
As I read this life-shaping text once again, I realize that Abram was 75 years old when God’s call came on his life. I know that age spans were different in the early pages of scripture, but still, he was an older guy and here I am nearing that same age. There was a bumper sticker in the 70’s that simply read,
PBPGINFWMY
It meant,
“Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet.”
I am in a new stage in my life. God is still at work. I don’t know if his call to me is now to lay on a beach or to discover a new part of the promised land to which he initially called me. All I know is that God is not finished with me yet…until God calls me home to be with him for all eternity.
How about you? Have you heard the voice of God? Has that voice called you, directed you in your life? Is God calling you today to do something you never thought possible? Is God calling you to share your life, your wisdom, your insights with another, maybe just one other person? The Inventor’s Digest tells us that
· Benjamin Franklin was 78 when he invented the bi-focal lens.
· Peter Mark Roget’s “Roget’s Thesaurus,” the gold standard for synonyms, was published when he was 73. He supervised all revisions for the next 17 years until his death.
· George Weiss was 84 when he invented the board game Dabble, in which players get tiles with letters on them and have to come up with words as fast as they can within a limited time. For this, he was awarded the 2011 Game of the Year.
· Gys van Beek was 85 when he invented the all-purpose survival tool Trucker’s Friend, a multi-purpose tool specifically designed for any situation that requires hacking, chopping, prying, pulling or pounding. It includes a curved axe, hammer, nail puller, tire chain hook, pry bar, lever and spanner wrench.
· Charles Greeley Abbot became secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at age 56. At 99, he invented the solar cooker that used the energy of direct sunlight to cook food and heat beverages. At that time, he became the oldest person to receive a patent and may still hold the record as the oldest inventor.
“Leave … and go to the land I will show you…” God is not finished with you yet!!
Paul
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