Mom and Dad loved each other, I got along well with my older brothers, we could go outside and play all day long and just had to be home before dark. We all went to church—even Wednesday nights. Going to Disney World didn’t require a second mortgage. Walter Cronkite was fully trusted to report the news. There was no social media…
Then things got interesting.
At my conservative evangelical college, someone I greatly respected suggested the word “day” may not necessarily have meant “24 hours” regarding creation. I was aghast. A few years later I was in Cuba talking to pastors during a visit with my dad. Some of them were talking about how much they liked Fidel Castro and socialism. My America-loving evangelical head just about exploded.
Things got worse. As time went on, to my utter astonishment, many who believed wholeheartedly in Jesus and even the Four Spiritual Laws, held completely different political views than I did. My spleen just about burst on the spot.
I remember many long conversations with my dad, Les Thompson, about all the terrible “errors” I was discovering in other people’s beliefs and lives. As I would complain away, my dad would usually just smile at me as if somehow, he knew I may have had a few inconsistencies in my own life and beliefs.
Then, he’d open his Bible. What a great way to reply to anything and everything. Often, he would turn to the Sermon on the Mount and explain that the real issues of life are always spiritual.
“You are in error,” Jesus explained to the Sadducee, “because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Jesus was answering a question about “marriage in Heaven,” but that principle certainly sums up most of my/our issues, “I really don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God.”
A few verses later, Jesus sums up the entire Bible in a few sentences, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).
God has called the ministry of LOGOI to help others know the Scriptures and the power of God. We go about this task whether a person likes Fidel Castro, thinks a “day” could mean an age of time, or (gasp) votes for the “other” party.
One of our ministry partners here in the States is a great encourager to us. He sends his dollars to help but almost always with an encouraging word. One of his last notes said this:
“In the early 1990s, several men and women entered a glass dome environment called the Biosphere for two years to test the concept of living on other planets in self-sustained atmospheres. Months after the doors were sealed, an unexpected thing happened in the dome’s forest, designed to supply oxygen to the residents. One by one, the trees began to bend over and split in half. Scientists soon discovered the reason for the forest’s demise. It was because there was no wind under the dome. You see, as trees grow, they depend on the wind to whip the limbs back and forth, thereby producing microscopic cracks in the bark. As the cracks heal, they help to strengthen the entire tree. Without the menacing wind and continual lesions in the bark, whole trees eventually toppled over and died.”
He then added, “We weren’t meant for a life of comfort and ease. We were meant to live in the valley with the struggles of life and that those struggles would point us to Jesus, our strength.”
So, this Thanksgiving, let’s thank the Lord for “the wind in our trees” and, of course, for Jesus. He came for those of us who are in error and don’t understand the power of God. People like me…and you. And, of course, thank you for partnering with us at the ministry of LOGOI. Your gifts help equip Spanish-speaking pastors to study the Scriptures and the power of God. Every $5 provides one month of ongoing Bible training to a pastor or teaching leader who believes Jesus truly is the answer for us and the entire world.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Amen! Excellent words~ Thank you!