Famous Last Words

"Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord." Psalms 150:6

Praise the Lord!, as the ancient Hebrews would shout...Hallelujah!, was the last word spoken in the original collection of Golden Oldies of Praise and Worship. Dr. Vaughan, my former professor of New Testament, was fond of telling us that Hallelujah was the greatest word in the English language, even if it was Hebrew. The psalmist must have felt that his famous last words were extremely important. He mentioned praise 13 times in six short verses.

I have to admit a certain fascination with famous last words. What a person says just before he passes a baton to another or utters from a death bed carries a peculiar significance. What people write on an epitaph as the last words or thoughts of a friend or family member often reveal a gem about the dearly departed. I search the web for famous last words, or books of quotations that have mined farewell addresses, or old cemeteries. What I discover sobers me and at times amuses me. How so?

• Boot Hill Cemetery of Tombstone, Arizona carries an epitaph of a man who came in second in a gun fight. HERE LIES LES MOORE SHOT WITH THREE SLUGS FROM A .44, NO LESS NO MORE.
• One urban legend claims an epitaph. I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK.
• Who can forget W. C. Field's chiseled comment...I'D RATHER BE IN PHILADELPHIA.
• Jeff Foxworthy's line about famous last words of a Redneck...WATCH THIS!

Praise the Lord! The famous last words of the psalmist found in Psalms 150 leave behind a much more valuable vapor trail of wisdom. They are balanced with a ring of urgency and the weight of importance. From the first to the last, they point out the need to praise God anywhere we go (v.1), for who He is (v. 2), with everything at hand (v. 3-5), and with all the breath we have (v. 6).

Praise is not about the style of music. Nor is it an itch to be scratched by our claws of personal preference. No style of music holds God's attention any more than another. It is much more than that. It is a matter of the heart. It is an absolute focus on God as an audience of one and expresses an attitude of awe and gratitude. It includes thanksgiving for His works, but it is also a an admiration of His character. Mining the riches of the Psalms reveals powerful words that provide priceless clues about who He is.

Those who continue adding fuel to the flames of worship wars are going to be surprised at what real praise sounds like when they get to heaven. Some are convinced Bach, Beethoven or more contemporary artists are the only source of sacred praise. Others envision Peter, James and John waiting at the Pearly Gates for the next Texas turbo tenor to round out their Southern Gospel quartet. It would just be like God to have these people room together in Heaven and spend the first 1,000 years in choir practice until they all got it right. But I digress.

The famous last words of Psalms 150 reveal praise is for anyone that has breath in their lungs. I remember meeting with a former NASA engineer to help me take stock of my life. He described a walk with God as the next 20 seconds. When I heard those words my whole perspective of praise changed. He continued to talk, and I continued to nod my head respectfully at all the right places, but I couldn't tell you anything else he said. Kinda like church.

He could have said any number of things. Read the Bible through in a year. Attend this three day conference. Fill out this notebook. Memorize a Scripture a day. Listen to this sermon. Read this book. Meet with an accountability partner. If he had done so, I think I would have collapsed in despair or thrown up my lunch. My walk with God had become like a bone in the throat and a rock in the shoe. I was not sure if I was tired of it or just tired in it. I was coughing and limping through an endless series of personal, and professional crises. They were not the kinds of things that called for all night prayer and fasting. I could get my game face on for huge challenges. Most days it was the steady drip or the relentless grind of having more bills than bucks, driving in traffic that never moves, lights that never change, tires that go flat, cars that won't start, dishes in the sink, kids at the doctor, people on the phone focused on whining not winning. It had all begun to choke and cripple me into a poor role model of man with a walk with God.

When I left my friend's office, I got in my car with the thought, "My walk with God is the next 20 seconds!" How hard could this be. I have that much breath in my lungs. It gave me joy for the journey home. However, the gauntlet of rush hour traffic, just mile down the road, was about hit my new walk with God with an unexpected road block.

Some idiot (Bless his heart!) tried to merge his over sized pickup into the go-kart sized space in front of me. I honked my horn, raised my voice, and pounded the dashboard. I slammed on my brakes. My little car was no match for him. His trailer hitch was now even with my eyes. The sound of his glass-packed pipes drowned out my Maranatha Praise Band music. I didn't give him the international sign of contempt, but I did think about it. If I had been equipped with a rocket launcher on my VW I would have turned his truck into toast. Bless his heart. Note to self: Just because you say, "Bless his heart!" doesn't mean you can say anything you want. I know people do it at church, but people reading this actually want to walk with God.

"My walk with God is the next 20 seconds!" came to my mind again. I refused to wait until my powers of rationalization started making excuses for my behavior. I didn't search for another dysfunctional believer to agree with me that what I was doing was the normal Christian life. I just simply admitted to God what I was thinking and saying was not right (Exhaled). I asked him to forgive me (Inhaled). I practiced this breathing exercise all the way home. It has served me well for the past 22 years. It gets the tiny bone out of my throat and the irritating grain of sand out of my shoe, the little things that can kill my walk with God. Walking with God is as simple, but as crucial as exhaling and inhaling are to breathing. Excuse me a minute. Its my cell phone.

The local police called. There was a gas leak in our neighborhood and all homes had to be evacuated for the day. Before I left, I saved a draft of this so I could come back to it. BTW: When I went out to start the car it was dead. Yesterday, I spent $490.00 to get it "fixed." I'd like to fix that mechanic. Bless his heart! Sorry about that. I still have flashbacks and choke and limp from time to time in my walk with God. The good news is when I get the breath knocked out of me I know how to get it back. Exhale. Inhale. Don't quit. The joy is the journey. I take a breath and praise the Lord. My walk with God and yours is the next 20 seconds.

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." Psalms 150:6

P.S. "Halitosis is better than no breath at all." Anonymous

Debt Free Living

"Do not say, 'Thus I shall do to him as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work.' " Pr. 24:29

"I owe you one." is the 21st Century reaction to an offensive person. It creates a mountain of debt that crushes the life out of the one holding on to the offense. Debt free living places IOUs in God's hands and trusts Him to settle accounts.

"Gary! Is that you?" It was a voice calling out in the dark of night from the back of a predawn shuttle to the airport. It was an old friend, and a pleasant surprise. He mentioned the death of a man we both knew. I said I was sorry to hear that. He went on to say the man had experienced a slow painful death, and his once powerful body had deteriorated to less than 80 pounds before he died. Again, I said something appropriate. After all the van was packed with people, and you never know who's listening. His final comment brought back memories. He said, "He was a pastor's worst nightmare." I nodded and admitted that he had given me a few sleepless nights too. The shuttle pulled out, and the road noise made any further conversation impossible.

Riding in the front of the van, I was alone with my thoughts. As the sun rose, another ray of light dawned on me. I didn't feel anything. No anger. No fear. No resentment. No need to pay an enemy back for all he had put me through years ago. I had forgiven him back in the day, but there were times when someone would mention his name and a chemical reaction would kick in. My survival instincts would be on full alert. Obviously, I was still holding a few IOUs in case I met up with him again. You know the drill. Bury the hatchet. Put the blade in the dirt, but keep your hand on the handle.

I don't know exactly when my self-imposed sentence in debtor's prison ended. God had taken my IOU with that man's name on it and had settled the account in my heart. I am not saying God gave the man a painful death to satisfy my offense. That would be sick. The on-going transaction of regularly giving my IOU to God had eventually released me from the spirit of "I owe you one!" When I heard his name mentioned the debt was gone positionally and experientially. It was one of God's "divine Ah-hahs." He told me he would do it. He just didn't tell me when I would know it had happened. Gotta love God's way of surprising His kids with the news that He has been up to something in their lives.

It doesn't matter if an IOU is generated by taking offense over a personal slight, or if it is activated by taking up another's offense. The interest of irritation compounds from mild disgust to brooding angst, then to resentment, on to malicious thoughts, angry outbursts, and sometimes moves to litigation or physical confrontation. The more it grows the more we owe.

Debts from these IOUs rarely get paid back. Why? Because the offender who is owed the most simply doesn't care if the person offended is drowning in a sea of IOUs. It didn't cost him anything to cut someone off the road; he enjoyed it. He probably felt superior when he did it. When he failed to yield and didn't merge into the highway he caused motorists to slam on their brakes. The fact that Starbucks coffee landed in their laps is of no consequence to him. As a matter of fact, when they honked horns to warn him, he gave them the international sign of contempt. When the contractor promised the moon and then took money without completing the job, he just moved on to the next sucker. He's asleep and the cheated client is awake. Who's paying here?

Mounting road rage is a public expression of an ever growing private debt load. It resembles the hidden mass residing under the tip of the iceberg. Road rage won't disappear by banning cars or attending anger management seminars. If people walked everywhere they went, they would start shoving each other to the ground. Why? Because the issue is not the vehicle of choice, but the resentment of choice. One offense can grow into unmanageable debt. One IOU will mature into IOU ALL!

Do you see the problem? Carrying a load of debt for something a person did to you or to those you love will land you in debtor's prison. Proverbs warns against looking for satisfaction from rendering or "bringing back" on a person's head the same treatment the offender gave to you.

Paul strongly challenged early Christ followers to "Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written. VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY SAYS THE LORD." (Romans 12:19)

Prayer initiates debt free living when you hand your IOUs over to God. Prayer sustains debt free living by transforming any debt thought to be owed to others into an investment of life in them. Praying for someone makes it harder to hate them. Trust me...not impossible, just harder. However, praying beats paying every time. The more we invest the less we owe.

"The church should seek above everything to cultivate the power of an unceasing prayerfulness on behalf of those without Christ." Andrew Murray

Looking for debt free living? Let go of what you owe and... Pray More to Pay Less. Anybody ready for a jail break? Pray More (for the offender) & Talk Less (about the offense).

BLOG THROUGH THE FOG

One of my favorite memories as a ten year old boy living on Long Island was my first visit to the Montauk Light House. Located on the eastern end of the island, it still safely guides ships in the Atlantic ocean through the night and the fog with a powerful beam of light.

The light house keeper took me up the steps and let me see the source of this magnificent beam of light that can cut through the darkness to keep ships on course. What I saw surprised me. It was a relatively small bulb, surrounded by dozens of clear prisms. As keeper, his job during the day was to clean each prism and put it back in its place. I remarked that they looked clean to me, and he said they were not clean enough until each one had been removed, wiped, and replaced. Each day the salt spray, dust and debris would settle on the prisms and dull their ability to let the light fully pass through them. When the night came, they needed to be at their best to let the light flow through them unobstructed so they could magnify the beam of a relatively small bulb and penetrate the darkness so ships could see clearly the dangers ahead.

If the light did not reach out into the dark, then a ship captain or pilot might not see the shore until it was too late. They could miss the entrance to Long Island Sound or fail to navigate around the rocks that would safely put them on the South Shore heading towards New York Harbor.

The prisms needed to be cleaned in order for them to magnify the light. They were not the source of the light. They were designed to be instruments that allowed the light to pass through them individually and corporately. If each prism performed the function for which it was designed, and was rightly related to the prism next to it, then the light was magnified. One prism with fissures, fractures, or film would inhibit the light of another. All needed to be at their best when the darkness fell.

As a Christ follower, I offer this word of encouragement to those who sometimes wonder if one person's life can make a difference in what is fast becoming a world of increasing spiritual darkness. Jesus is The Light of the World.

I believe the local church is still the world's best hope for seeing The Light of Jesus and guiding lost people to a right relationship with God. Christ's followers are like the prisms that surrounded the source of light in the Montauk Light House. When the followers of Christ see their need to be cleaned each day by the gentle hand of the Holy Spirit, and be rightly related to one another, the church penetrates the darkness with the Light of God's Truth and the warmth of Christ's Love.

Chiseled in stone over the entrance to a church in England is a quote that reminds me every generation has had to make the choice to let the Light of Jesus shine through them in the context of their own immediate circumstance and intimidating darkness. It says,

"In the year 1653 when all things sacred in the Kingdom were either profaned or demolished, this church was built...to do the best of things in the worst of times."

My challenge to Christ followers is to let your light shine. Jesus said: "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." (John 8:12) Cursing the darkness generates heat, but sheds no light for those looking for a way home out of the night of fear and through the fog of confusion. So together now, every body sing, "This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine!"