I Don't Remember My Birthday

He Remembers His covenant forever…”

Psalm 105:8a

Today is the 59^th anniversary of the day I was born.  Today I am celebrating once again that event which is so central to my existence.  But you know, though that day is extremely important to me, I have no memory of what happened that day.  I mean I was there.  It happened to me.  But I don’t remember it.  I don’t know if it was a hard labor or easy.  Did it take hours for me to be born, or did it happen quickly?  Did they slap my bottom to make me cry and start breathing? I don’t know.  As is true for all of you – I don’t remember my birthday.

Thank God, my parents remembered.  In fact, everything I know about my birthday, I know because they told me.  I know that I was an unplanned but welcomed child.  Dad was always telling people that they wanted to call me “Tucker.”  People would look at him funny.  Then he would complete the thought – “Tucker by surprise.”  I was in my 20s before I figured out what he meant.  I know what date I was born on because they told me – October 26, 1958.  I was born at 2am on the Sunday morning when they turned the clocks back an hour.  Dad used tell me that since the clocks officially got turned back at 2am, I was born twice.  I was born at 2am and an hour later it was 2am again. 

But still, I don’t remember that day.  That’s okay.  It still happened. My parents brought me into this world.  They never forgot.  They always remembered their commitment to love me, to take care of me, to teach me about Jesus, to prepare me for life and more. So even though I don’t personally remember a thing about that day, it’s a day I love to celebrate and “remember” every year… a day on which I give thanks to God for every year of life, for my parents, my sisters, my family, all the great and sometimes difficult experiences I have had, indeed for everything He has given me these past 59 years.

I share this, because I have heard people bring this up about their infant baptism.   They say things like, “How can my baptism as an infant be valid?  I wasn’t given a choice.  I can’t even remember it.”  That always strikes me as strange.  We had no choice about being born either. We can’t remember it. Yet none of us, or at least, most of us don’t complain about being born.  As I said, we are thankful for our parents bringing us into this world.  We celebrate that day that we can’t remember. 

Shouldn’t baptism be the same?  After all, even though we can’t remember the day of our baptism, our heavenly Father does.  He was there.  That day He was at work.  He washed away our sins.  He adopted us as His own children..  Baptism is not a day, as some Christians believe, on which we made promises to God.  If it were then remembering that day might be a valid concern.  No, according to Scripture, baptism is a day on which God makes promises to us.  At baptism, as Peter wrote, God promised us a good conscience towards God.  He promised us that “as we have been united with Him (Jesus) in a death like his, we shall certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”  That death like His was our baptism, where Paul writes, “We were buried with Christ by baptism into death…”

It doesn’t really matter that I can’t remember the day of my baptism.  What really matters, even for those of you who can remember your adult baptism, is that God remembers. He remembers what He did in my life that day.  He remembers the promises He made that day. As the Psalmist wrote, “He remembers His covenant forever…”  He will never fail to keep those promises, never fail to love and watch over me or you.   

But what does it mean then when we urge people to remember their baptism daily?  We are not talking about remembering the event.  Far more important is that every day  you and I recall the significance of what God did, the promises He made, the forgiveness He gave and His faithfulness to it all.. That we remember the fact that He will always remember that in the face of guilt, He has promised forgiveness.  in the face of grief, He has gives comfort.  In the face of feeling sidelined by life, He has promised that we are His.  In the face of rejection He has given acceptance.  In the face of death, He has promised us life everlasting.  Now that really is worth remembering… and in fact God always will.  Amen.  

The Only Experts in Raising Children

“Train up a child in the way he should go;

Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Proverbs 22:6

I once heard a comedian say this about parenting – “The only experts in raising children are those who don’t have any.”   From my perspective no truer words about parenting have ever been spoken.  Linda and I are perfect examples.  When we were first married but still childless, we were experts.  We could watch parents in action and see exactly what they were doing wrong.  If any of them had asked, we would have had all sorts of advice on parenting. It’s a good thing no one asked for as soon as we became parent, all that expertise disappeared.  So what I share now, in this blog, is shared with that in mind.  My purpose is to be encouraging not preachy.  I hope I succeed.  These are things I learned as dad of four kids and Pop Pop to 6 grandchildren.

First, children are a gift from God.  Being a parent is perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done.  In the first years of their lives they depend on you for literally everything.  They are challenging, and time consuming.  You laugh when they laugh.  You worry over them.  You hurt with them and sometimes because of them.   There are all sorts of costs over the years that you don’t know how you will afford – car insurance… college… weddings.  Having children was a much bigger change to our lifestyle than getting married.   And I would not trade being a dad for all the money in the world.  Among the biggest joys in life have been holding each baby and grandbaby, having them hold your hand as they walk down the street, or sit on your lap while you read a story, playing catch, watching them hit a home run or dance a ballet, seeing them confirmed and then graduate, walking her down the aisle.  Every single moment has been a treasure.  I am glad that when they were little we didn’t take vacations without them.  We have plenty of time for that now.  I know Linda agrees with me – Thank you Lord for our children and our grandchildren.

Second, there are no perfect children.  Your children are going to do or say wrong things.  I was not doing them a favor, when I refused to believe it when a teacher told me something I didn’t want to be true.  Yes I wanted my children to like me.  But more than a friend, I needed to be their dad – to love them enough to discipline them when they wrong, as well as praise them when they did well. 

Along with this, there are no perfect parents.  I made mistakes.  I made dumb mistakes.  I jumped to conclusions.  I got upset when I should have stayed calm.  I said things in anger I shouldn’t have said.

All parents make mistakes.  Moms and dads, cut yourselves some slack.  Forgive yourselves.  God will.  Your kids will.  This is why I wouldn’t do premarital counseling for my kids and their spouses.  I was sure that I was one of the issues they would need to talk about.  The most important words that parents and kids can speak to one another , are words we learn from our God – to tell Him “I’m sorry,” and to hear from Him, “I forgive you.”   The most costly loving thing, we can say to one another is “I forgive you.”  It cost God His own Son to say that to us.  He was more than willing to pay that cost.  Parenting is an opportunity to share that gift with your kids through your humble, repentant, loving heart.  When you are wrong mom and dad ask your kids for forgiveness.  When they are wrong don’t say “it don’t matter.”  Tell them you love them the way God has told you.  Tell them, “I forgive you.”

You see, your kids really belong to God.  They are on loan to you from Him.  He has brought them into your life to do exactly what our verse for today says.  “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”  They are your most important mission field. Share Jesus with them at bedtime, in stories you read, and around the dinner table.  Be in worship with them.  Go to Bible class as they go to Sunday School.  Let them see you read your Bible. Prepare them to walk with Jesus in life, by letting them see you walking with Jesus. In your prayers entrust them to God – after all, the only expert in raising children is Him… their heavenly Father and yours.  And you can’t do this without Him. Amen.

Ever Wonder What God is Doing?

“Beloved, we are God’s children now and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.”

I John 3:2

When I first came to Frankfurt there was a really ugly, abandoned building on this lot.  When I came back five months they had started to tear it down.  Because there was asbestos in the building, taking it down took many months.  Finally, they began to build a new building here on this spot.  The whole process from tearing down the old, to building this beautiful new building took over three years.  I have walked or driven by the building pretty much every day since I arrived in Germany.  It’s right on the way to Trinity.  For a long time, I watched and wondered – what are they doing?  What will the new building look like when it’s finished?  What purpose will the new building serve?  For a long time, this place looked only like a mess.  Even as things began to take shape, what they were building remained a mystery.  Only now, when everything is done – do we really see what they were building – a brand new class room building for one of Frankfurt’s Universities. 

Sometime life is like that.  You look at the things happening and you wonder, “Why?  Why did my Aunt get cancer?  Why did I lose that job?”  Something unexpected, unplanned for happens… it changes all our plans and we wonder, “What is God doing?”    Part of that is that we live in the middle of whatever God is doing.  Construction is underway, but the end product is not yet evident.  Someone recently compared it to looking at the underside of a quilt.  The underside has strings hanging everywhere.  It looks like a mess.  Only from the top side can you see the beautiful design of the quilt. In the same way, we see life from the underside of the quilt.  At times life looks like a mess.  There doesn’t seem to be any design.  You can’t see from our side what God is doing.  It’s no wonder we sometimes question Him, even get angry when things happen that hurt, that don’t make sense to us. 

I want to share with you today a couple of things about God that help me at such moments. The first thing is that God is a master architect.  He is the creator.  Look at the world around you and you see what great and beautiful things He has made.  It’s like this building behind me.  I would never have known how to build such a structure.  But the architects, the designers, the builders – they knew how to do it.  Our God can do anything. 

What’s more, our God really cares about us.  You could tell that these builders really cared about what they were doing here.  Think about the time they took to do a great job.  Look at the beautiful building that resulted.  In the same way, even when we have no idea what God is doing, we do know that He loves us.  We know because He gave His own Son.  His Son lived and died for our sins, then rose again because God wants to spend forever with us.  Obviously God loves us.   We can trust Him.  After all “if God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him freely give us all things?”

Finally, even if we only see things from the underside of the quilt, God sees everything from the top. He knows what He is doing.  Like this building, when God is done with His work on your life and mine, He will have created a masterpiece.  After all, we have His promise.  “Behold, I am making all things new!”    As John put it in His first Epistle, “Beloved, we are God’s children now and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.”  That’s what God is doing.  Amen. 

Searching for Answers in the midst of Tragedy

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Luke 23:42

For the last 6 weeks it has been one tragedy after another.  There have been three catastrophic hurricanes – ripping apart southeast Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.  There have been major earthquakes near Mexico City, huge fires in the northwest United States, and typhoons in the Pacific.  Now there is this horrible massacre in Las Vegas.  Quite naturally, during all of this, people have started to do what we always do at such moment – we have started to search for answers. 

For example, people are searching for someone to blame.  But who do you blame for a hurricane or an earthquake?  Those things are natural disasters.  Yet still people point to God and blame Him as cruel and unloving.  Some in the news have even claimed that God is punishing people for their lifestyle, for their politics and other ridiculous reasons. Other blame comes after the fact.  Some blame the government, the President for not responding quick enough.  It would seem there is an obvious person to blame in what happened in Las Vegas – the villain doing the shooting.  Yet that isn’t enough. People want to blame the different sides in the gun control debate.  Who did this is a big, important question.  But does it really provide the healing and comfort people need right now? 

Another question people ask is the “why” question.  “Why did this happen?”  People want to make some sense out of any horrible, tragic situation.  I suppose you could point to the natural phenomena that bring about hurricanes and earthquakes.  But I don’t think that’s what people are looking to understand.  The why question is deeper.  “If God is a loving God, why did He let this happen?”  In the case of this gunman in Las Vegas – the last three days in the media there has been relentless speculation on his motive.  “Did he have gambling problems?”  “Had he been radicalized?”  “Did he have psychological problems?”  “Was he upset about politics?”  Yet even should we answer these questions, will that help?  You can’t make sense out of a senseless situation.  You can’t make sense out of evil.  The Bible doesn’t even explain how evil began, only that evil is real.  Evil exists.

Too often there aren’t any good answers.  Yet there is something else worth searching for.  What we need to search for is hope in the midst of tragedy.  A lot of that has been happening.   After each of these tragedies we have found great hope in how neighbors and strangers have reached out to help each other.  There have been countless stories out of Las Vegas of great heroism as people shielded others from the bullets.  A good friend who lives in California, is searching for the man who shielded her and her daughter, even as he took a bullet in the leg.  Those stories really do help.  They lift up our spirit at a time of great sadness.

There is however an even more important place to search for hope in the midst of tragedy.  Look to the man on the cross next to yours.  What?  I am thinking of the thieves crucified with Jesus.  Both men were in the last hours of messy lives that were now ending in their execution.  One sought to blame someone.  He hurled insults at Jesus.  The other one looked at Jesus next to him and found reason for hope.  After rebuking the first thief, this second man turned to Jesus in hope and called out,   “‘Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom.’  Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’”   In the midst of his suffering this thief found hope in the fact that God’s own Son was nailed to the cross next to him.

That is where hope is always to be found – in Jesus hanging on the cross next to yours.  Often there is no sense to be made out of our suffering.  But there is sense to His suffering.  He came to live, suffer and die in our place… to redeem us from sin and death. He rose again so that all who believe in Him – no matter what mess we have made of our lives, no matter what tragedies befall us – that we might have eternal life.  He entered into our suffering, that He might bring us into his glory!  Ours is a God who is with us in tragedy… who hangs, as it were, on the cross next to ours.  Indeed, He hangs on the cross that should have been ours.   And He rose again so that we might have a hope that will never disappoint. 

So, may I suggest this, as we search for answers after tragedy big or small.  Look over to Jesus on the cross next to yours.  Let this be your prayer, “Lord remember me!  Find real hope for every situation in Him, in His answer spoken from His cross, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”