There's Just No Pleasing Some People

By Gobel Brockman


It's a scene that's difficult to picture.

As the children of Israel were making their journey from Egyptian bondage to the Promised Land, there were many hardships and self-inflicted problems that came their way. But this one was particularly tragic. Lying about them were the bodies of approximately 14,700 of their fellow sojourners. They had stirred the anger of God and paid the ultimate price for their sin. What had they done that was so horrible? Had they made golden images and fallen into idolatry? Had they engaged in sexual immorality? Were they guilty of murder? Not in this instance. The Apostle Paul says this in I Corinthians 10:10:

     "Do not grumble, as some of them grumbled and were destroyed by the Destroyer." (Italics mine)

The scene above is found in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers. But as you study the exodus of Israel, you'll see that this wasn't a one-time event, you'll see a pattern of continual complaining. I've always wondered how they could have seen the Red Sea parted in the middle as they walked through on dry ground, then just days later question God's ability to care for them. But in all honesty, I'm no better. There have been times that I've seen God do amazing things in my life, only to find myself complaining because the current situation I face has caused me to forget the past situations where God has provided the answer. We seem to suffer from memory loss the moment a new crisis comes along. And it seems the moment our memory stops, our mouths kick into high gear. The grumbling. The complaining. The accusations against God. It's been thousands of years since Israel left Egypt and it seems as if God's people are STILL going through the desert trying to learn to trust God.

Complaining takes other forms as well. There are those people who can't seem to be happy no matter what comes their way. I've seen people who, if someone handed them a wad of $20 bills with no strings attached, would complain because they'd rather have it in tens. No matter what they have, it's not good enough. No matter how good things are going in their life, they can find something to worry about. In Matthew 11 Jesus compared His generation to children in a marketplace saying, "We played the flute for you, but you didn't dance. We sang a dirge for you, but you didn't mourn..." I'm not telling you that God is going to "strike you dead" the next time you complain. What I am telling you - and myself - is this: the same Bible that says that things like idolatry and sexual immorality are sin also mentions jealousy and complaining in the same light.

I look at it simply. God has been good to me, so much more than I deserve. If my life ended tomorrow I could look back and say, "I've had a great life, and God has been faithful every step of the way. Even when I wasn't." What I'm saying is that it's time - no, it's past time - we were a lot more thankful for all that God has given us. Rather than use my words to complain, I want to use them to praise God and give glory to Jesus Christ. I hope you'll join me.

And if you found this reading this annoying, don't complain. At least you had internet access to read it :-}    

For Many Are Cold, and a Few Are Frozen

By Gobel Brockman


This week (as I type this) saw the end of the 2013-14 Winter season. Here in the Hoosier state, it was one of the coldest/snowiest winters we can remember. A few folk like me (aka "weird people") thought it was all right, but most people are glad that this winter is now in the rear-view mirror. Thoughts of snow shoveling, slipping on the ice, month-long colds, and sliding into work every morning have given way to thoughts of yard work, shorts, sandals & flip-flops, BBQs, and vacations on the beach. Moods are brightening (except for the "weird people".) Changes in seasons seem to do that to people. There was a song recorded back in the 60's that touched on this subject:
   
     "To everything (turn, turn, turn,)
     There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
     And a time to every purpose, under heaven..."

For those who don't know, Pete Seeger didn't originate that song - it came from the third chapter of the Book Of Ecclesiastes. It serves as a great introduction to a very simple fact that I wish to touch on this week: there are different seasons in life we all go through. There are periods in life where we just want to pull the covers over our head and refuse to come out until that 'season' is over. Then we have times in life where we wish we could push a button and say, "OK, life is always going to be like this!" However, the simple fact is that just as the four seasons in nature continue their cycles, so do our seasons in life. The passage I mentioned in Ecclesiastes says such things as:

     There's a time to weep, and a time to laugh.
     A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
     A time to plant, and a time to reap.
     A time to gain, and a time to lose.
     A time to be born, and a time to die.

Every person reading this is in a season right now. For some, you may be hiding under the covers waiting for it to pass. For others, you can barely contain your joy. Someone else may be feeling a serious case of the "Blahs." (If you've had them, you know what I mean.) What I want all of us to remember is that just as this harsh winter has an end, so does the season you're in right now. What I also want all of us to remember is that in the midst of all of our uncertainty, there's one thing that remains constant: God doesn't change. In Malachi 3:6 He said simply, "For I am the LORD, I do not change." Perhaps you've suffered a loss in your life to the extent that life will never be the same again for you. GOD DOESN'T CHANGE. Maybe you've been investing your time and/or resources into something, not knowing if it's going to be worth it. GOD DOESN'T CHANGE. There's a chance that life has been great and you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. GOD DOESN'T CHANGE. Wherever you are in life right now, there is an all-knowing, all-seeing, ever-loving God who has reached out to us through His Son Jesus Christ, and not only is His nature unchanging, so is His love for you and I. Our seasons in life are temporary, but our souls and the God who created them are eternal. I believe we would find a lot more joy and a lot less stress in life if we would focus more on the eternal and less on the temporal. Trust God and surrender your life to Him in whatever season of life you are in right now, because it's going to be changing soon. He won't.

(PS - A quick note to my fellow "weird people". Take heart - winter is only 9 months away!)

God May Want You To Feed His Locusts

By Gobel Brockman


I once heard the story of a pastor of an old country church. There was a lady who faithfully attended there, but her husband, a farmer, wanted no part of it. While he was a good, loving husband to his wife and friendly with the pastor, he was almost belligerent in his belief that there was no God. For several years the pastor talked with the man about the things of God, with seemingly little results. However, after several years of seeing his wife's Godly character and hearing the pastor declare God's word to him, he finally came to faith in Jesus Christ. His wife, the pastor, and many in the community were overjoyed.

Less than a week later, the pastor got a call - the farmer's entire wheat crop had been decimated by locusts. As he drove to the farmer's home he vented his frustration to God: "God, how could you let this happen? We've spent years talking to this man, praying for this man, crying over this man, hoping to see him come to believe in You. Now that he finally has, You let THIS happen? What do I do or say to him now?" As he walked through the front door, he heard something he did not expect - the farmer was walking through his house quietly singing, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me..." The conversation that followed went something like this:

Pastor: "Uhhh...I heard you had some damage to your wheat crop?"
Farmer: "Yep, I just got back from checking things out. The crop's a total loss."
Pastor: "Uhhh...I gotta say, you seem to be handling it a lot better than I thought you might."
Farmer: "It's this simple - when I gave my heart to Jesus last Sunday, I gave him my fields too, and if He wants to feed HIS locusts with HIS wheat crops, I reckon that's HIS business. I know He'll take care of us."

There are a couple of lessons we can learn from that farmer:

     *The Bible says in Psalms 24:1 that "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof..." I think we need to be reminded from time to time that we really don't own anything. The house we live in, the car(s) we drive, the money in the bank, and all the "stuff" that we spend our lifetimes accumulating. None of it's really ours, because "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." It's all His; we're merely getting to borrow it for awhile. I'm very thankful for our house, our cars, and all of the blessings I have in my life, but I try to always remember that they won't fit in my casket when it's time for me to go.

     *That farmer learned a valuable lesson very early in his faith - you can't "give your heart to Jesus" unless you're willing to give Him everything else in your life too. Committing your life to Christ is so much more than just changing how you spend your Sunday mornings. It's a call to surrender every aspect of your life to Him. Your family, your job, your finances, your future....and if I've left anything out, that too. Jesus is not only Savior, He's Lord, which means He gets to call the shots in your life. As it's been said before, either He's Lord OF all in your life or He's not Lord AT all in your life.

I think we all have "wheat fields" in our lives that mean a lot to us. I'm not telling you that if you commit your life to Jesus you're going to lose your wheat field. I'm telling you that your heart and your wheat field are a package deal. You can't give Him one without the other, and since the wheat field's already His, you may as well give Him your heart too. It's a wise investment.

Parlez-vous anglais?

By Gobel Brockman


In June of 1982 I took a vacation by myself to Quebec City in Quebec, Canada. It was - and is - an incredibly beautiful place, and I would love to go back sometime. The people there were for the most part very friendly and as helpful as they could be. However, they are primarily French speaking, so before the trip I basically learned just enough French to tell the French-speaking people there that I couldn't speak French. Immediately upon arrival at the airport I realized that I should have learned more French than that. I got a taxi and and asked the driver, "Parlez-vous anglais?" (Do you speak English?) He said "No" in a way that let me know he also wasn't interested in learning at that moment. I finally got him to understand to take me to a hotel - ANY hotel. This began a 5-day adventure that included ordering a pizza that could have easily fed five people (when it came to my table I understood the look the girl at the counter gave me when I ordered), and scaring a lady at the camera counter at K-Mart. (She got on the intercom and said something in French, and in a moment the manager came running - literally. Fortunately he spoke English and laughed when I told him all I wanted was to buy a camera.)

I think about that trip often, and always with fondness. But one of the things that I think of is that here I was in a different country, in a different culture, with some people who couldn't understand a word I was saying to them. I was a visitor in their homeland, just there for a short time. Which got me to thinking along these lines: that's how the Bible describes us as Christians in this world. In I Peter 2:11 we are told,

     "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against your soul..."  

"Strangers and pilgrims." As Christians, that's how we are supposed to view our time here. We believe that our home is with Christ. As such, we're not home here. Yet how often do we forget that? How often do we try to 'fit in' in a place where we don't belong? We spend so much time and energy trying to build our lives here, forgetting that just like me in Quebec City, we're nothing more than temporary visitors in a place that isn't home. As much as I enjoyed my trip, when my plane departed from Quebec City on that Wednesday afternoon I knew I was going 'home.' Home to a place where people could understand me, I knew what size pizza to order and I could buy a camera without freaking everyone out at the local K-Mart. When my time comes to leave this earth, that's how I'm supposed to view the trip - I'm going home. Home to a place where righteousness dwells. Home to a place where pain and sadness will be no more. Most of all, a place where my Father will be, and where He is I know all will be well. I want to encourage all of you by reminding you that your time here is winding down, but Christ has made a way for all of us to make it home. He's the only way, but He's made the way for you.

Jésus vous aime. (That's French for 'Jesus loves you.')

 

Too Stressed To Be Blessed?

By Gobel Brockman

     "I'm too blessed to be stressed"

I'm sure most of you have seen or heard this phrase. It's on T-shirts, coffee cups, and Facebook posts everywhere. The thinking behind it is that "Since God is with me and blessing me, I don't have any reason to worry." It reminds me of a televangelist in the 80's who ended every program with this line: "You don't have any problems, all you need is faith in God." I do understand the thinking behind that, but there's one problem:

It's wrong.

Tell a parent sitting in a hospital room with a sick child and the doctors can't find what's wrong that they don't have any problems. Tell a family that is about to face homelessness due to foreclosure that they have nothing to worry about. Tell the stunned person who's just received a horrifying and potentially fatal diagnosis at the doctor's office that their fear is unfounded. I once read of a minister who was under so much pressure and tension that he was weary of living altogether. His name? The Apostle Paul:

       For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death....(II Corinthians 1:8-9)

I'm not going to tell someone who's in the midst of a huge struggle that they don't have any problems. What I WILL tell that person is that they can still have God's peace, God's presence, and God's blessing with them in the middle of what they're going through. One thing I have learned both from Scripture and over 30 years of Christian experience is that God sometimes calms the storms of life, and sometimes He allows the storms to stick around so that He can teach us to remain calm in the midst of them. In the Scripture I quoted above the Apostle Paul went on to say that what was happening to him was to "...make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us..."

Paul did not deny his problems, he looked to God while going through them. That's what I'm saying to you now. Some of you reading this are facing some difficult times right now. Sickness and disease in yourself or someone you love. Perhaps you're not just living paycheck to paycheck - you're living day to day. Maybe you or someone you love is trapped in an addiction where freedom seems impossible. A marriage or other relationship may be crumbling. I'm not going to tell you to deny that a problem exists, and I'm not going to tell you that your concern is unfounded or displeasing to God. What I will say to you is that as a Christian Paul didn't face his battle alone, and neither do we. A Bible verse that I love is Palm 46:1 which says that "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in time of trouble."

What I'm saying is that you may be stressed, but you can still be blessed. God is there through His Son Jesus Christ. Run to Him now. He likes blessing people. Even stressed ones.