If Only It Was That Easy

According to an AP story from December 28, 2009, scores of New Yorkers and tourists seeking a fresh start for the new year gathered in Times Square to put their bad memories through the shredder at the third annual Good Riddance Day. Participants lined up near the booth where discount theater tickets are sold and pitched their bad memories into an industrial-sized shredder. According the Karen Matthews, people shredded about everything you could imagine: the box score to a losing football game which knocked the New York Giants out of the playoffs, the memory of a counselor on a school field trip who was later featured on America’s Most Wanted, bills, correspondence, memories of ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, and much, much more. But not to worry. If someone brought something which could not be shredded—say a computer or a tin of fattening snacks—a dumpster and a sledgehammer were available them.

People come from near and far for this annual event. The turnout says something about the hunger people have to rid themselves of past mistakes, sins, bad memories, broken hearts, and hurtful relationships. Just smash ‘em with a sledgehammer or put ‘em through a shredder. There! All gone!

If only it was this easy. But it’s not. While there’s much symbolic value in Good Riddance Day, and while it surely feels good for a while, the hurt, the scars, the tough consequences, don’t go away with the swing of a hammer or the push of a button. They linger. They gnaw. They suck the life out of you and steal your joy.

It’s not just what we get rid of that matters; it’s what we embrace in their place that matters more. Jesus told a story about a man that had a demon living in his heart. What a torment that demon was to this poor man! By good fortune, however, the man was able finally to sweep that demons clean—to run it off, to shoo it away, to send it scampering away from his heart. He sure felt better … for a season. But because the man didn’t replace that demon with anything else, the demon came back home to the man’s heart, brought along some friends, and the man was worse in the end than he was in the beginning. See what I mean? It’s not just what we get rid of that matters, it’s what we embrace in their place that matters more.

Could I encourage you on the threshold of a new year to embrace Jesus? He loves you. He forgives you. And He can set up residence in your heart that makes it possible to get rid of your heart-junk once and for all. It’s a process. Jesus does His work over time, but He can fill the void left by the sins, mistakes, and bad decisions that have haunted you for so long. When those demons try to come home, let Jesus answer the door. They won’t stick around for very long.

Getting rid of the junk that weighs you down is never as easy as it seems, but Jesus is the long-term cure. No one does true forgiveness and new beginning better than Jesus. Receive Him. Embrace Him. Trust Him. And this new year could be the best one you’ve ever enjoyed.

The 2010 Highlight Reel

I was pedaling away in a spin class at FBC Fitness yesterday morning when, after a particularly grueling series of spin exercises, one of the ladies in the class said to the instructor, "I'm taking you off my list of the year's ten most influential people in my life." That got me to thinking. And so I did this: near the end of the class the instructor asked us to think of our top three blessings of 2010. So, after a day of reflecting on such things, I decided to run my 2010 highlight reel. There's no video, only words, but I see pictures in my mind when I run down these highlights. Here goes, and they are in no particular order, by the way.

1. The birth of our fourth grandchild, Macey Jo Parrish, on October 2. At one point, she was due on my birthday. That didn't happen, but she happened, and are there any greater blessings than grandchildren?

2. Bible-storying in Paris with men from Taiba, Senegal. Our church has been building relationships with the people of Taiba for three years now. We minister to them in Paris and in their village in Senegal. They are warm, hospitable people who give us as much as we give them. We've offered medical, dental, and eye-glass care for them. On our last trip to Senegal they allowed us to show the Jesus film. But Paris in October is the first opportunity we've had to engage them in spiritual conversations based on Bible stories. That is the beginning of an answer to many prayers, and it was a thrill to be a part of it. The fact that my son was able to be in on it too just made it all the more a highlight for 2010.

3. A man named Danny who came to know Jesus. Before they moved to a new state, Danny's wife and sons were a part of our church family. Danny played some softball on one of our teams and visited church occasionally, but labled himself as an atheist. Slowly, and on the wings of many prayers, Danny became a bit more open to Christ and His claims. I received an email from his wife earlier this week telling me that Danny made a decision to follow Jesus. What a great reminder of patient prayers and waiting on God!

4. My sabbatical. I get one of these every few years. The church allowed me to take off for the whole month of August. We traveled to see family. We visited Washington, D.C. for the first time. I got to watch the Baltimore Orioles (my favorite team in my childhood) in Camden Yards. And I actually got some rest—well, a little.

5. Insanity. No, not a mental illness; an exercise program. It's 63 days of the most intense cardio work I've ever done. I do a lot of intense exercise, but when I finished day 1, I told my wife, "That was the most intense thing I've ever done in exercise." When I finished day 2, I told her, "That was the most intense thing I've ever done." It is a butt-kicking, body-shaping, fat-burning, muscle-sculpting workout. It's insane. And I was so thankful to God and proud of myself that I actually finished. Who knows? I may do it again in 2011.

6. My son got engaged. After around three or four years of being single, my son popped the question to his longtime girlfriend. "Wilt thou?" he asked. And she wilted. She's a peach. She loves God. She loves our grandchildren. No date set just yet, but should be sometime in 2011. I'm thankful for God's grace, new beginnings, and promising futures.

7. The Razorbacks go to the Sugar Bowl. Only an Arkansas Razorback fan would understand how big this is for our fan base. We've been close so many times and just never seem to breakthrough. This year we broke through: our first BCS game. And our coach wants to stay with us a long time. Many of us feel like Sally Field when she won the Oscar years ago: "He loves us. He really loves us." Wooo pig sooie! Beat the Buckeyes!

8. Mike Pounders. Our church voted to call Mike Pounders to a part-time position as Administrative Pastor. He begins work on January 1. It's a joy to see him back in the vocational ministry. He brings so much to our church family: a love for God, a love for his family, a love for people, and very good administrative and pastoral skills. He's served so well in this wilderness time between ministry posts, but I think he's felt like he's been on the bench. Well, your back in the game again, Mike. Praise God!

9. FBC Fitness. Last spring our church started a fitness ministry. It's been touch and go financially, but we're seeing lives getting whole and healthy physically and spiritually! We've opened another door to Christ and the church and God is using it, and I'm grateful.

In spite of the fact that I could go on, I'm stopping there. Your job is to pick up where I left off and make your own list. Remember, reflect, and give thanks. At this point every year, I can't help but think of the third verse to a great hymn:

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

I have already come.

'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

Happy New Year!

Beginning Again

I wish there were some wonderful place
called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches,
and all our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door
and never put on again

Louise Fletcher Tarkington wrote those word years ago and yet those words still speak powerfully to hearts about this time every year. It's New Year's Eve. Out with the old and in the new. And that goes for more than calendars. Out with the old junk, the bad habits, the time-worn grudges. In with better things, healthier things. As Tarkington pined, "I wish there were some wonderful place called the Land of Beginning Again."

Well, there's no Land of Beginning Again, but there is the God of Beginning Again—the God of second chances, new births, and fresh starts, the God of grace and forgiveness and mercy that's new with every morning. He is the God of Beginning Again.

In his book The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan tells about a place in Gelph, Ontario. There's a riverside park there landmarked with large and intricate sculptures: a dinosaur, a man riding a bicycle, a child and his mother. But these are no ordinary sculptures. Each is made from the debris collected from the riverbed. Every year, the city drains the river by a system of channel locks, then invites people from the community to scour the river’s muddy floor and clean up the garbage scattered long it. A welter of refuse is dredged up: shopping carts, tires and rims, car hoods, baby strollers, bikes and trikes, engine blocks, rakes and shovels, urinals, copper plumbing, wine bottles, shoes, thousands of pop cans. Mountains and mountains of rust-scabbed rubbish, slick with algae, are hauled out. Rather than truck all this garbage off to a landfill, the city calls its sculptors together (though the pop cans are turned in for refund and the money donated to park conservation). Each artist is given a mound of junk and commissioned to make from it beauty. The created works are then showcased along the very river from which the raw materials have come.

God does that. He works all things together for good for those who love him and are called to his purposes. He takes junk and sculpts art. He is the God of Beginning Again.

There is no Land of Beginning Again, but there is a God of Beginning Again. So as you think about the changes you need in your life as we enter a brand new year, don't look for real estate; look for God—the God of Beginning Again.