Waiting

I watched a movie recently starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen, I think it was called, “Hachi, the story of a Dog”, never released in the United States , but a real hit in Japan and England . It is placed in Bristol , Rhode Island but the true story took place in the thirties in Japan . Hatchi was a puppy when a professor at the University rescued him from the streets of the small town in which he live. He was an Akita , very rare breed of dog in Japan . It is a great love story of this dog and his master falling in love with one another and the great loyalty displayed by the dog. Every afternoon Hachi would meet the train his master road as he returned from his work, they would enjoy the walk home and the next day repeat the same event. One day his owner did not get off the train but Hachi waited, the family knowing that the owner had died at work that day came down and got Hachi and forced him to go home with them. After the funeral the professor’s daughter and her husband took Hachi to live with them, but he would always return to the small town and wait each night for his master. The family gave up and allowed him to stay in the city where each day he would wait on the train. People read of the story and those in the town fed Hachi and took care of him and each afternoon he would be at the station waiting for the return of his master. He did this each day for nine years, (true story) always there, rain or shine, winter or summer, always there. When he died the town buried him and put up a bronze statue of his waiting at the station. It is still one of the most visited places in Japan . In the movie I saw, one night as he waited all the people left the station and he just stayed, closed his eyes and fell asleep. He awoke as his master said, Hatchi, time to go, he awoke and they took their walk to the land of tomorrow together. I want to do that, wait at the station for my Master and hear Him say, “Ivan, wake up, time to go.”

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

A Discovery

Jim was locked in a wheel chair, he could take care of none of his needs and life seemed so depressing to this once large and vibrant man. I would visit with him first at his daughter’s home and then in a nursing home and he would always seem so depressed, even angry and sometimes demanding and one might even say mean. I tried to talk with him but it made no progress and ended with my feeling depressed that I had even made the visit. I really searched my heart and tried to discover some way to get through Jim’s darkness and despair. Putting myself in his circumstance made me realize that I might react in much the same way. Just two years before a company of several hundred people depended on his leadership, talents, and hard work. Now not even his body could respond to any wish. I remember it was on a Thursday that I went by with my first wish; “Jim”, I said, “I need your help, I have the names of five people, one on each of these five peaces of paper, they are very sick and as far as I know unsaved. Now I realize that you cannot speak or visit with them, but Jim I need someone to spend some real time praying for them by name and I was wondering if you would take these five pieces of paper and pray each day for one of them. Maybe you could assign each to their own day and pray each Monday for one and then do the same each of four other days.” I could see in his eyes that he understood me, he looked at the names as I placed them on the table beside him, then pointed to a couple and looked at me saying in his rough way, “I know these, bet they need a lot of praying. Don’t know the others but if I find the time I might pray for them.” I left and returned to visit with Jim two weeks later. The nurse met me at the door and said, “What did you do to Jim? After you left last week he wanted to take a bath and insisted that I push him down to the chapel. Each day he has done the same thing and he stays in there several hours. He has not had one complaint and even hugged his daughter when she visited on Sunday.” To cut to the chase Jim had discovered a new mission and new meaning in life. Locked in that chair and body he still had a purpose, a reason for each new day and a desire to complete his task. Jim lived long enough to pray for about 30 people and to know that six of them had been saved. He lived long enough to see his daughter in a new light and put himself into a new picture; when he died more than a dozen people told his daughter and me that they would miss him, his smile, his joy, his dedication to the task. Jim discovered what all of us need to know; that we have a purpose and make a difference.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

Strike it off the Bucket List

Now and then life gives to us one of those moments for which we have longed. As a boy it was a simple fishing trip with my dad, fishing from a boat near Pickwick dam, spending the night at my grandparent’s house in Dyersburg . Later it was standing dressed in United States Navy blues and receiving the honors as our colors were marched on the parade field before us. Too many others to count but in recent days it was standing in the land of my Master, realizing that Jesus had walked these roads, climbed these hills, and road in a boat across this great lake. Our trip to Israel was a dream from my early childhood that waited until my closing years to come to reality. As a boy I looked at the pictures in the bible and wondered what the land really looked like, very little resembled the pictures of my childhood bible. Now I have been there and I share these Moments in the Master’s Land with you.

Moments by the Sea:
For our first six days we stayed in Tiberius on the shore of the Sea of Galilee . While the city is only mentioned once in the bible the sea served as a central part of much of Jesus’ ministry. I sat in the dark one night and listened as the waters of the sea lapped against the wall which protected our hotel from erosion. Far across to its eastern shore you could see the lights of Jordan , on the sea itself were fishing boats searching for their catch in the light of the full moon. I wondered if it were somewhere near here that Jesus took a boat across to the other side to teach the people. Maybe it was close by that He walked to his disciples as they trembled in their boat during a storm. Somewhere on that sea Jesus had slept in a boat while his disciples feared for their lives because of the storm. It was here that he told them where to cast their nets so that they would have fish aplenty. From this sea he called a fish to bring him a coin so that he might pay his taxes. By this sea in his resurrected body he prepared breakfast for his disciples and told them in the early morning hours to cast over there for a great school of fish and then to drag them to shore and join him in a seaman’s breakfast. Looking across that great sea I could almost hear the Master saying, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

Giving Their Best

First Class Petty Officer Jim Watson, a Navy corpsman attached to the Marines in Iraq, returned home after his second deployment of service with the memories of two of his men dying in his arms both of them asking him to save them, to take them home. Also in his memory were the three small children and their mother killed when a mortar tied to a suicide bomber exploded near them. These memories seemed to fade as he left the war zone and returned to his home town. The people welcomed him home as a hero and helped him surprise his wife and even took up money so that they could go to the beach for a few days before he had to return to duty. Those first few weeks filled with the joys of being home, safe, loved, and being held in high esteem were great and wonderful. Then the dreams came, the night sweets, the screams to watch out, the tears as he held those men begging him to take them home, all begin to fill his nights, run over into his life and scatter the comfort of home in the sands of those memories. Watson sought help and those who aided did their best but the darkness still filled his soul and nothing would give him freedom. He left the navy and his nine years of service, his wife almost left him but held on to the memories before this journey began, and they have something that sometimes resembles a marriage. Jim, while not free of his darkness, has returned to school and hopes to turn his medical training into a medical career. Today as we remember and pray for our president and those who serve with him let us also remember the thousands of Jims who still live somewhere on the edge of a nightmare in the shadow of darkness we do not understand, because they did their best to give us the very best nation in all the world.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

Love on the Obey

Sara walked out to the end of the small jetty that allowed her to see both the Sunset Marina and the large open space of the Lake as the sun found its way toward the water to dip itself into darkness for the summer night. She had been coming here since she was ten. Her family loved the lake, the camp ground, and all the friends who returned each summer, most of them at about the same time each year. She wondered if he would be here again this year. Their annual two weeks of seeing one another had been going on for the last eight years. She had met him when he was almost 14 and she ten going on 20. It had been a strange relationship. They played in the water; he had taught her to ski, to jump from the high rock cliff on the eastern end of the lake and in general had made the trip from Indiana to Byrdstown something she looked forward to each summer. They were strange friends in that only Dale Hollow Lake and the summer trips connected them. Since he was older for several years he had treated her like a little sister never showing any romantic interest just a great friend, someone to go to the Dairy Queen with, play a round of putt putt, get a pizza at the Shell, and do what whey liked best just ‘hang out’. She had always liked him a bit more than just an older brother and two years ago she had done everything but kiss him herself to get some response. But they had just held hands, enjoyed the warm nights, and felt good together. He had graduated college last year and had to cut the normal two weeks to only ten days because he was off to the army reserve for training. She wondered if he would come now that he was all grown, she hoped he would but only time would tell the full story. She had graduated from high school a few weeks ago and would be going to Ball State in the fall. This might be her last summer at Dale Hollow. Last year as he got ready to leave he had met her on this very spot, for the first time they embraced as more than friends and he had gently kissed her and said until next year. Then he walked to his car and like the sun was gone. He just had to return, this was the important year, this would be the deciding year, he must, he must come she thought to herself as she enjoyed the summer breeze and soon coming night. She knew the man who approached her, he was his father. He said, “Are you Sara?” “Yes” she responded. “My son Zack gave me a letter to give to you.” he said, “He wanted you to have it in case he couldn’t come this summer.” She thanked him and took the letter tore it open as quickly as possible then her eyes fixed on the hand written note as she read; Dearest Sara I asked my dad to give you this letter if I could not make our annual trip to Byrdstown. Well if you are reading it then I couldn’t come. After I finished my reserve training last summer they called me into active service and I am now on my way to Vietnam . Sara, you have made these last eight years wonderful. First as a little sister, sometimes in the way, like sisters can be, but always a joy under all of the trouble, and then slowly as a young lady. You must have known this past couple of years it was only the difference in our age that prevented me from taking you in my arms and saying that I loved you. I felt honored bound by your young age not to put you in a position you were not ready for but now I want you to know that I do love you and have for several years. Last year when I kissed you goodbye it was the nicest moment of my life. Don’t worry if you do not fill the same, I just wanted you to know how I felt. I shall dream of you in Nam and hope that next summer I will be back in time for our annual visit. Don’t let all the boys on Dale Hollow erase your memory of me. Have a wonderful time and enjoy Ball State. With love, Zach She looked with tears falling from her eyes out toward the lake as she read the letter again and again. How wonderful, how truly wonderful. She heard Zach father approach her again and turned as he said, “Sara, Zach’s mother and I want you to have this, we knew that it would please Zach.” Then he handed her the folded American flag and said, “This was on his coffin last month when they sent him home from Vietnam ” She grabbed the flag held it to her breast and turned with tears flooding her body as she watched the sun slip itself into the lake and the darkest night of her eighteen years became a reality.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

Be a Private Gilbert

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. Psalm 56:3

Pvt. Barry Gilbert said as he hid under the brush in the jungle of the south pacific that he was so afraid that he was sure that his heart stopped beating as the seven Japanese solders walked over his body. He remembered this verse learned in Sunday school at South Royal Baptist Church , and poured it over his heart again and again. When I was a boy preacher South Royal Baptist was one of the first churches to invite me to preach. What a joy and honor as an 18 year old to stand in the pulpit of that church and share the great Word of God. I still remember those several Sundays when I was their guest. It was there that I met Barry Gilbert and there that he told me this wonderful story out of his life in the Pacific during the Second World War. With great tears he told me of six of his friends who were captured that very night and how at the end of the war all of them were declared dead. He gave praise to God for delivering him and for giving him the strength to be silent and unmoving while the Japanese soldiers searched the jungle for other American soldiers. For several days he stayed hidden waiting for the rest of his unit to catch up with him and give him medical care for two wounds and food for his starving body. You could see the joy and wonder in his eyes as he spoke of those days and that time of such great fear. Our nation seems to be in fear today, all around we hear the sound of trouble and fear runs through our homes and hearts. I believe it is time for our Nation to discover the secret of Pvt. Gilbert. Trust in God.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

From Me

With more than four hundred stories in the file, eyesight that is giving me trouble, and general not feeling too well I may post some stories out of the past now and then for the next several days. I hope they will bless you once more if you have already read them and for the first time for others. Age and life have their problems, energy, excitement, and continuing to be original sometimes closes down or slows down with age. I love to preach and the Lord has allowed me to continue to do that, I am sure that some of my people have heard too many things too many times but they are kind and they still come and their love still seems to flow toward me as their pastor. I am sure that most would find it a simple matter to type out three to four hundred words each day for five days a week and while I love doing it and when the memory hits, it runs like a rushing river, but age sometimes builds a dam in that river and the flow is very soft and slow. I want to thank those of you who have read the postings, never sure if many read them or not, but the count is good some days. Also thanks to the hundred or so who purchased the book, Just a Moment”. I have preached now to these people more than 1,300 times and always they have received me with great honor and support. I wish that the fountain for that ministry would continue and trust that it will. The writing I enjoy and it really gives me a lot of pleasure. I need an editor; I know that, I cannot edit what I have written for I see what I wanted to say and not what is on the paper. Weird I know but true none the less. Someday I might publish a couple of hundred of the stories I have not published, before I do so I will get someone to read and correct but try and not change my heart. Jerry Waters has been a great help in posting my stories and has never once reminded me that he is on Eastern Time and I am on Central and do most of my writing late at night, Thanks Jerry. We shall see if you see a repeat, just read again or close. I do think I am like an old stone rolling down a hill, I really have not hit bottom, and until I do I will just roll on, some days new stories and sometimes old dust from the past. Thanks for your prayers, for reading and being kind.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

Growing Old In Love

I had watched them grow old together over the ten years that I had been their pastor and it was a beautiful and warming sight. When you would visit in their home, the very house they had come to the night they were married sixty years before, you would see a picture of them on their wedding day, then pictures of their five children, 12 grand children, and more than 20 great grand children. The fire of love still burned warmly in the old house and the spark of the years of being together still kept life meaningful and beautiful. I watched them over the years come out to the cemetery and visit the graves of two of their children, and then I stood with them on a cold February afternoon and watched as the tears froze on their faces as they placed the first born daughter into her final earthly resting place. They walked from the grave his holding her hand, slowly, waving a bit, but together to the car waiting for them. When I went by to see them the tears still came even though in their hearts they knew that their daughter was in a far better place. The mother said to me pastor, “Just another ‘sweet’ to make heaven more delicious.” We talked about the years that had gone and they remembered events that marked their marriage, his time in Europe during the war, their son going to Vietnam , the hard times when money was short and the good times when their memories could pick out places they had visited, and dreams that had come true over the years. They told me of God’s care, His wonderful blessings, and His abiding presence in their marriage. She leaned on her husband and I knew it was time to go, with sleep written on both of them I left, praying that God would grant them peace for the days ahead. My phone rang the next morning at six with his telling me that his wife had died in her sleep just a few minutes before. Once more we walked to that cold cemetery, this time his two children, grandchildren and greats held him as he place a rose on her coffin and walked back to the familiar family waiting car. I remember that the bible said, ‘Love never fails’, and it did not. Less than sixty days later all of us returned to the now turning green grass of that lonely hill side and said our good byes to this wonderful man and his mark of faithfulness and love, scored a new ridge in our memory and a joyful thought spread through my soul as I watched him enter that new kingdom of ‘Love that never fails’ seeing the greeting arms of his wife and three children standing there in the gate. Growing old in Love, made going home in love, just a bit sweeter and even more delicious.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

In The Valley

Carole and I attended a ground breaking at Linden Valley Conference Center on Saturday afternoon. In spite of the weather it was a well attended and blessed event. The old chapel had been damaged beyond repair in the flood of 2010 and a new was is in the process of being built, thus the ground breaking. I was asked, I am sure, because I might be one of the very few people who is still activity in the ministry who was there on the original dedication day in 1950 of the camp. I remember with joy those days of long ago when as a boy I attended first as a camper and then in high school worked as a counselor. It was there that I led the first person to the Lord on a one on one basis, there that I remembered my friend Jim Allen challenging each of us to learn all the names of the boys in camp, to get to know them and to seek to challenge them to discover the will of God for their lives. It was in that Valley that I saw my father kneel as other fathers did on a men’s retreat and pray for their sons and daughters. It was there that I took my church for a number of years to attend camp, get closer to one another and closer to God. In that Valley as a fifteen year old boy on a Friday morning I promised God that I would do whatever He asked me to do, go wherever He asked, and live my life for Him. The winds of that Valley still blow through my life and give me joy in the past that has made today possible. Saturday I listened as two young girls told their stories of faith in Christ and victory in Him found in that place. I though of the hundreds of boys in those RA days who came to discover Christ as their Lord and wondered how much the world has been changed because of them and the faithful people who made the camp that has been there for these sixty-two years a reality. May the next generation be as blessed and may they too come to say, ‘Just Open the Door Lord, I will go through.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion

Congo Days – The Door

I was to make the mission trip as a Chaplain for the team of about 40 people who were going to Goma , Zaire in 1994 to work with the refugees from the war in Rwanda . When we arrived in Atlanta for our flight to the Congo I was taken aside and asked if I would allow the son of a family of missionaries who wanted to go to be the team chaplain. His father had insisted that this was the only position his son could accept on this mission. I assured the director from the International Mission Board that what ever door God opened for me would be just find. He assured me that I would make a real contribution to the mission and thanked me for being flexible. On our first day in Goma I went out to a mission site in the center of one of the many refugee camps. A nurse took me and a young girl from Rwanda into a room of about 35 small, five and six year old children, who were lined up around the wall, dirty, clothing filthy, faced crusted over with the fluids of their running noses and asked up to clean them up and to see if we could find clothing to dress them in. My first reaction, besides trying to throw up, was to turn and run as fast as I could and as far as I could, but God said, ‘Remember the Door’, so the young girl and I got to work. I first though if we only had a garden hose we could open a ‘kids’ Car Wash, but we had neither the hose nor the water for such an event. So one by one we dipped, scrubbed, washed, dried, dressed and treated the 35 children. By the mid afternoon we were both wet and dirty, but the children looked like new pennies. I found a soccer ball and we went outside and started a game of just kick, and kick, and kick. The kids loved it and they loved even more when I fell into a muddy part of the yard; then they circled around me to close the day by listing me tell them a great story, which I made up as I went along, about a boy and girl meeting a friendly lion. Of course the young girl from Rwanda had to interpret for me and I am not at all sure what she told the children, but they laughed, cried, and then hugged each of us as we left the camp to return to our own campsite. I slept like a child that night and dreamed of Lindsey Street and the days of play so long ago, and Saw the Open Door.

Ivan. Today’s Daily Devotion