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Home
We're finally there, well at least as far as this life, we have
arrived! We began remodeling the old Tony's Steakhouse building on
November 4th and moved the broadcast equipment on February 10th. It
feels good to be home. It really didn't seem to take that long. We had
such good times with those people who volunteered their labor to make
it possible. I suppose I'll miss that the most. It was just good
old-fashioned fun working with one another. Volunteers donated a lot of
time and we will always be grateful for such a show of generosity on
their part. Thinking back over the past three months and how fast it
seemed, I was reminded of that simple ingredient in our lives: time.
I'm a '24' fan. I had never seen the program until last year. It had
been on television for five years before I decided to try it. Mike
Middleton had talked to me about it during one of our past
Celebrations, but I just couldn't get into a serial program. It's a
story that seems to never end. It's much like the radio programs from
the 1940's: leaves you with a cliffhanger every week. Because there are
two or three storylines all taking place at the same time, the
intensity is just unrelenting. Jack Bauer is the lead character. This
guy is superman without the "S" on his chest. He can do it all. He's
even figured out how the use a cell phone, something I'm still trying
to master. Anyway, Jack goes from crisis to crisis each program and
amazingly, those crises all happen in one hour's time. That's the hook
for the year. Each episode represents one hour in one day. Each day
represents one full television season. So what you have is all kinds of
things taking place in each hour of the program, and each year we look
into only one day in the life of Jack Bauer. He is a busy man.
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I remember when I was a young boy my father used to watch professional
wrestling. He would sit on the couch, what we call a divan back then,
and he would twist on the edge of that divan, wrench his shoulders,
make faces, muscles tense, jump up with disappointment if the good guy
was getting cheated or whipped. I kept telling him, "Dad, it's fake.
They are really not beating each other senseless, they are throwing
punches that have bee written and telegraphed days before the fight."
No matter, he still wore the couch thin and enjoyed every minute of the
fight.
Well, there I was wrenching around on the edge of my recliner, biting
my nails, silly stuff. I knew perfectly well it was all scripted and
Jack was going to survive because they need him for next week's episode
so that I would come back for more. What is interesting for me about
that program is the concept of time and how I spent all season long
watching what, in effect, is one day in the life of Jack Bauer.
I've had a tendency to describe the Christian life as though it was a
book. Each day is a new page to be read. Each day is unique and has
it's own script. No day is the same as the day before. Yesterday's page
has been turned and what will happen tomorrow can't be discovered until
midnight tonight. In the everlasting Christian life, our day does not
end when we sleep but continues until the time we step over into the
other side of this experience. And while each day is revealed one page
at a time, the whole makes up thousands of pages of the book. Looking
at any one page can give you a simple photograph of that day. One page
will not tell you much about the whole of the book. Our 24-hour days
are earthy, not heavenly. They are good for counting time and the
seasons but not good for defining our lives. They blur our lives. They
don't give an accurate picture. Only reading the whole book can do that.
We could look at the page where Christ was crucified and be pretty
discouraged about the leader of our Faith. But if you read the whole
book the end, it is a much better story than that one page. Our lives
are like that. Some days, taken individually, can be greatly
disappointing. But that novel is not finished in just that one page. We
should keep a hope that on the next page things will change. Scripture
says that a thousand years is as one day with God. The Father's time is
lengthy and doesn't have the limitation of a clock. Being eternal, we
don't really live in time. This experience is a millisecond; it's one
page of a novel of 29,000 pages. We can, through patience and practice,
take no thought for the next page, and we can forget the past page and
go on.
I've described the relocation of the studios as "a daunting task."
Taking a March 2006 page out of the book would have caused us to be
discouraged, or at least concerned, about how we could accomplish such
a huge task. There were many things required of us that we simply did
not have: the ability, experience, skills or equipment. Now we have
read 313 pages later and find out that God has provided all those
things to us in order to finish that impossible task. In those 313 days
since last March, the expertise, time, tools, and materials came to us
- rescued us. Over the past 10 months, we have seen so much happen that
we could not have imagined in our own minds. Some of it was like
pulling teeth, but most of it was so much a pleasure. Even in Faith we
were still surprised at what God had in store for us. Until this page
was revealed, we could not have defined what was happening in the life
of this ministry
There have been moments and times in the history of WBVN where we can
see turning points and specific interventions by God in the life of
this ministry. People and things that have come along just at the right
time to meet serious needs of this ministry. We have not seen that on
every page but on many pages. Some pages are daunting, but we just wait
on the next page to reveal our life's full story. And while it's easy
to say, "Trust in God," and difficult to live it, we have so many
testimonies of God meeting the needs of this radio ministry one page at
a time. Sometimes we have not known what to pray for but just stayed in
trust. Sometimes I feel guilty for describing the Christian life this
way, but this is the way it happens to us. So we encourage people daily
to believe God is in their lives. Pray for what we know to pray for and
rely on the Love and Wisdom of God to fill in the gap what we do not
know. You may not know where, you may not know when, but He is in the
middle of all that we do. Sometimes trusting in Him is all we can do
and all we need to do. |
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